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Deb Goodkin | 1 Mar 2012 19:45
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Foundation Announces NAND File System for FreeBSD Project

The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Semihalf, an
embedded solutions company, has been awarded a grant to bring their
comprehensive NAND Flash file system and storage stack to FreeBSD.
This technology enables FreeBSD to natively manage NAND Flash
devices, satisfying a crucial requirement for many applications
needing access to fast, reliable, non-volatile storage.

FreeBSD is widely used as the OS foundation of embedded appliances
both small and large.  Semihalf's NAND Flash stack opens new
opportunities for FreeBSD in this space, where size, cost, or
performance, mandate the use of direct attached NAND Flash.

Made possible by matching funds from Juniper Networks, this FreeBSD
Foundation grant covers the costs of transferring technology
developed for Juniper Networks by Semihalf to the FreeBSD
project.  This will ensure that the NAND framework meets
community standards and can be easily maintained and enhanced.

Highlighting the return on investment offered by this kind of
technology transfer, FreeBSD Foundation president Justin T. Gibbs,
noted:

"Open sourcing enhancements that do not expose 'business critical
intellectual property' reduces the cost of managing a FreeBSD
distribution that has been customized for a product.  The NAND
subsystem is a perfect example of how technology transfer
benefits both the FreeBSD community and its commercial users.
We'd like to thank Semihalf and Juniper for partnering with us
to make the code available under a BSD license"
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Julian H. Stacey | 2 Mar 2012 16:30
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Re: [FreeBSD-Announce] Foundation Announces NAND File System for FreeBSD Project

Hi freebsd-fs <at> freebsd.org
cc Deb

Deb Goodkin wrote to announce <at>  Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:53 -0700 (19:45 CET):
> The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Semihalf, an
...

I was interested to read more background, but no URLs,
so I found http://www.semihalf.com/ & re.
	NAND Flash File System
found:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NAND_flash
	"Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage
	by shrinking the size of the transistor below the size where
	they can be made reliably, to the size where further
	reductions would increase the number of faults faster than
	it would increase the total storage available."
	-
   Really scarey if that is taken literaly, I jhs <at>  presume loose phraseology,
	hopefully someone who knows more will rephrase that :-).

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAFFS

 http://www.yaffs.net/yaffs-nand-specific-flash-file-system-introductory-article
	GPL licence. Must release any linked sources.

Cheers,
Julian
--

-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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Freddie Cash | 2 Mar 2012 17:28
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Re: [FreeBSD-Announce] Foundation Announces NAND File System for FreeBSD Project

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 7:30 AM, Julian H. Stacey <jhs <at> berklix.com> wrote:
> Hi freebsd-fs <at> freebsd.org
> cc Deb
>
> Deb Goodkin wrote to announce <at>  Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:53 -0700 (19:45 CET):
>> The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Semihalf, an
> ...
>
> I was interested to read more background, but no URLs,
> so I found http://www.semihalf.com/ & re.
>        NAND Flash File System
> found:
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NAND_flash
>        "Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage
>        by shrinking the size of the transistor below the size where
>        they can be made reliably, to the size where further
>        reductions would increase the number of faults faster than
>        it would increase the total storage available."
>        -
>   Really scarey if that is taken literaly, I jhs <at>  presume loose phraseology,
>        hopefully someone who knows more will rephrase that :-).

A good primer on NAND Flash with lots of info on "the next hot thing",
triple-level cell (TLC) flash, which has all the flaws of MLC
multiplied many times over, but is a lot less expensive to use/make,
so expect it to hit consumer drives this year.  :(  Page 3 is
extremely enlightening about the issues, especially regarding the
increased CRC requirements in order to actually read a valid bit from
the cell.
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Freddie Cash | 2 Mar 2012 17:29
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Re: [FreeBSD-Announce] Foundation Announces NAND File System for FreeBSD Project

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Freddie Cash <fjwcash <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 7:30 AM, Julian H. Stacey <jhs <at> berklix.com> wrote:
>> Hi freebsd-fs <at> freebsd.org
>> cc Deb
>>
>> Deb Goodkin wrote to announce <at>  Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:53 -0700 (19:45 CET):
>>> The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Semihalf, an
>> ...
>>
>> I was interested to read more background, but no URLs,
>> so I found http://www.semihalf.com/ & re.
>>        NAND Flash File System
>> found:
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NAND_flash
>>        "Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage
>>        by shrinking the size of the transistor below the size where
>>        they can be made reliably, to the size where further
>>        reductions would increase the number of faults faster than
>>        it would increase the total storage available."
>>        -
>>   Really scarey if that is taken literaly, I jhs <at>  presume loose phraseology,
>>        hopefully someone who knows more will rephrase that :-).
>
> A good primer on NAND Flash with lots of info on "the next hot thing",
> triple-level cell (TLC) flash, which has all the flaws of MLC
> multiplied many times over, but is a lot less expensive to use/make,
> so expect it to hit consumer drives this year.  :(  Page 3 is
> extremely enlightening about the issues, especially regarding the
> increased CRC requirements in order to actually read a valid bit from
> the cell.
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Julian Elischer | 3 Mar 2012 07:10
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Re: [FreeBSD-Announce] Foundation Announces NAND File System for FreeBSD Project

On 3/2/12 7:30 AM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> Hi freebsd-fs <at> freebsd.org
> cc Deb
>
> Deb Goodkin wrote to announce <at>  Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:53 -0700 (19:45 CET):
>> The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Semihalf, an
> ...
>
> I was interested to read more background, but no URLs,
> so I found http://www.semihalf.com/&  re.
> 	NAND Flash File System
> found:
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NAND_flash
> 	"Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage
> 	by shrinking the size of the transistor below the size where
> 	they can be made reliably, to the size where further
> 	reductions would increase the number of faults faster than
> 	it would increase the total storage available."
> 	-
>     Really scarey if that is taken literaly, I jhs <at>  presume loose phraseology,
> 	hopefully someone who knows more will rephrase that :-).

working for a flash memory based company I can say that flash is 
getting crappier and crappier.
Slower, less reliable, more damaged by overuse, more sensitive to 
temperature, etc. etc.
we're talking about sensing the difference between 100 trapped 
electrons and 75 trapped electrons.

>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAFFS
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