03-04-2021, 02:25 PM
In someways the current crop of USB flash drives have, as the FreeNAS / TrueNAS forums have found out, "raced to the bottom". Meaning they have tried to go as cheap as possible, with the end result they are not very reliable.
If such a project exists, my wish list would include;
As for the physical connector, perhaps using Type C with a Type C to Type A converter included.
Adding a type of internal RAID for even higher reliability sounds interesting. Using RAID-5 on 64GBytes worth of flash chips, would only use up 13GB or so. (Not including any overhead.)
If such a project exists, my wish list would include;
- Preferably an open source processor, like RISC-V, as the controller
- Obviously open source firmware
- A careful design of one type of firmware, that has 2 sets of flash, (logical or physical). One for data, and one for the error detection and correction code. Like hard drives have today. That way we can use real error detection and correction.
- Another firmware feature of copy on write. Flash have to do it anyway because of erasing a block before writing.
- Yet another firmware feature. (Humor)We don't need no stinking TRIM.(/Humor) The flash firmware should simply erase any block that has been freed up and put it in the spares pool to be used for wear leveling and writes. So TRIM ends up being un-needed.
- USB attached SCSI, (aka UASP)
- SMART support, via UASP, so we can see when we are getting low on spare blocks
- The ability to shrink a drive, (though not with real data), so you can add more spares and make a drive last longer.
- In my opinion, if done, target reliability over density or speed. I want my data to survive!
As for the physical connector, perhaps using Type C with a Type C to Type A converter included.
Adding a type of internal RAID for even higher reliability sounds interesting. Using RAID-5 on 64GBytes worth of flash chips, would only use up 13GB or so. (Not including any overhead.)
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Arwen Evenstar
Princess of Rivendale
Arwen Evenstar
Princess of Rivendale
