On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 09:44:18AM +0200, Markus Hennecke wrote:

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>>> The inode holding the log files metadata was no longer writeable.

>>> What  else would cause that?

>> I don't know what the cause is, and there is no point speculating.

>

> So you are saying that there is no relation in writing many times to one

> inode and the block containing the inode no longer writeable? This seems

> obvious to me because flash memory is involved. Perhaps you can give a

> better explaination?

No better explanation, but flash tends to move stuff around (dynamic

remapping of blocks) to avoid writing the same block over and over

again. They do this precisely to avoid the problem you describe.
>> what

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>> matters is that you made a conclusion based on sample of grand total of

>> 1 case -- that's a pretty bad generalization.

>

> So what? Marco made a statement that he has seen no flash memory fail

> because of writing to it. I have seen it fail once. So the general

> statement "flash memory does not fail because of writing" can't be true

> from my expirience. Thats why I wrote that generalizations are always

> false. Do I have to add smileys to that sentence?

I think people are mostly amused by your generalization that

"generalizations are always false". At least, I was. I think you

should've topped it off with an "except this one".
>> Then you instantiate your previous generalization and accuse others of not

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>> stress testing enough.

>

> Oh, come on. Pointing out that there may be some use case of flash

> memory (writing to one block over and over again) that makes it fail is

> an accusation? Are you serious?

It's not easy to write to one block over and over again on dynamically

remapping flash media, but you can force this (fill all blocks except

one and then rewrite it over and over again).
(Not arguing that it is or is not possible to break flash storage by

repeated writing, just pointing out some technicallities)
Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd
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