Working USB-Sticks

Something strange:
I've 2 sticks not booting if I use Jeff's install script method. I've one other working. When I clone this stick with an usb-image tool to the not working sticks from that time on the sticks are working!

Here is a link to the tool: http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/

Greetings,
Thomas

And one on top!
I've formatted a not working USB-SticK with an Ubuntu 10.10 System. Then Jeff's method runs like a charme!

Greetings,
Thomas

Today I cloned my existing Debian to an identical Super Talent Pico-C Chrome 8 GB. It did not cold boot (on another spare dockstar I set up later than the first) but failed with

scanning bus for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... error in inquiry
0 Storage Device(s) found
** Block device usb 0 not supported

** Invalid boot device **

(Warm boots were ok.)

I can confirm that setting

fw_setenv usb_init 'usb stop; usb start; run usb_scan'

solves this issue.

Regards,
Heinz

I'm using a 16Gb Sandisk MicroSD plugged into a miniature dongle.

# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 450 MB in 2.00 seconds = 225.05 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 18 MB in 3.13 seconds = 5.75 MB/sec

I've just managed to brick my dockstar trying to fix this as i forgot to put the ' symbol around the fw_setenv bootcmd. Well that's all that i can think i missed and since rebooting it won't come up. Is this a case of needing to hook it up via JTAG now ? i've just purchased a CA-42 cable so will make one up next week but was after confirmation that i have indeed borked it :(

Col

Do you have netconsole working? If so, you probably can use it to break out of the uBoot boot sequence, change your 'bootcmd' to something sane, 'saveenv', and 'reset'.

If you don't, then you're probably in need of a CA-42. A JTAG is really only necessary if the device is so bricked that even uBoot won't run -- i.e., you need to reload the uBoot -- although it can be used at any point to reset your device to a sane state.

Good luck.

Sorry confusing my terms there, i thought a CA-42 cable was a makeshift JTAG. It's a CA-42 that I've ordered so will get it running with it next week. At the moment i can't even ping my dockstar :( I've just got a continuous flashing green light on the front at the moment.

As for the net console that looks damn handy but i didn't have the foresight to install it :( will make sure i do when i get it going again!

Thanks for the reply it's very much appreciated.

Col

The adventure begins...

Installed Jeff's debian for my Dockstar on a:

SanDisk cruzer (2GB)

everything worked perfectly...

NOTE: My first post - and I'm an absolute noobie

- Ray



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2010 09:09AM by sandbasser.

So I have a stick which will warm-boot but not cold-boot. NC output below of a warm-boot working then a cold-boot not working and eventually going to Pogo's internal OS.

Advice?

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 4 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
2 Storage Device(s) found
** Bad partition 1 **
Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
** Can't read from device 0 **

** Unable to use usb 0:1 for fatload **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name:            "mtd=3"
UBI: MTD device size:            219 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs:        1752
UBI: number of bad PEBs:         0
UBI: max. allowed volumes:       128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold:    4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes:     0
UBI: available PEBs:             1731
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 21
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 17
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/1
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_get_sb: cannot open "ubi:rootfs", error -19
Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:rootfs'!
stopping USB..
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 4 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 2 Storage Device(s) found
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 272629920
** File not found /boot/uImage
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 1:1 (usbdb1)
** File not found /boot/uImage
** Block device usb 2 not supported
** Block device usb 3 not supported
Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
** Can't read partition table on 0:0 **
** Bad partition 1 **
Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
** Can't read partition table on 0:0 **
** Bad partition 1 **
Wrong Image Format for bootm command
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
stopping USB..
### JFFS2 loading 'uboot-original-mtd0.kwb' to 0x800000
Scanning JFFS2 FS: ........ done.

### JFFS2 load complete: 524288 bytes loaded to 0x800000
## Starting application at 0x00800200 ...

I've tried start/stop/start usb_init and also just start usb, and I've tried extending the delay from 10 to 15secs, still can't get coldboot off USB to work. Here's current output from a failed cold-boot and it goes to Pogoplug internal OS, and then a warm-boot having told internal to reboot.

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 4 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
2 Storage Device(s) found
Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00

** Can't read from device 0 **

** Unable to use usb 0:1 for fatload **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name:            "mtd=3"
UBI: MTD device size:            219 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs:        1752
UBI: number of bad PEBs:         0
UBI: max. allowed volumes:       128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold:    4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes:     0
UBI: available PEBs:             1731
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 21
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 17
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/1
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_get_sb: cannot open "ubi:rootfs", error -19
Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:rootfs'!
** Bad partition 1 **
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 1:1 (usbdb1)
** File not found /boot/uImage
** Block device usb 2 not supported
** Block device usb 3 not supported
** Bad partition 1 **
** Bad partition 1 **
Wrong Image Format for bootm command
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
stopping USB..
### JFFS2 loading 'uboot-original-mtd0.kwb' to 0x800000
Scanning JFFS2 FS: ........ done.

### JFFS2 load complete: 524288 bytes loaded to 0x800000
## Starting application at 0x00800200 ...

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 4 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 2 Storage Device(s) found
Loading file "/rescueme" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /rescueme
reading /rescueme.txt

** Unable to read "/rescueme.txt" from usb 0:1 **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name:            "mtd=3"
UBI: MTD device size:            219 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs:        1752
UBI: number of bad PEBs:         0
UBI: max. allowed volumes:       128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold:    4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes:     0
UBI: available PEBs:             1731
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 21
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 17
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/1
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_get_sb: cannot open "ubi:rootfs", error -19
Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:rootfs'!
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /boot/uImage
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 1:1 (usbdb1)
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 272629920
** File not found /boot/uImage
** Block device usb 2 not supported
** Block device usb 3 not supported
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /boot/uImage
Loading file "/boot/uInitrd" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /boot/uInitrd
Wrong Image Format for bootm command
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
stopping USB..
### JFFS2 loading 'uboot-original-mtd0.kwb' to 0x800000
Scanning JFFS2 FS: ........ done.

### JFFS2 load complete: 524288 bytes loaded to 0x800000
## Starting application at 0x00800200 ...

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
(Re)start USB...
USB:   Register 10011 NbrPorts 1
USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus for devices... 4 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Loading file "/rescueme" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
** File not found /rescueme
reading /rescueme.txt

** Unable to read "/rescueme.txt" from usb 0:1 **
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000002500000-0x000010000000 : "mtd=3"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size:   131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size:    129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit:    2048
UBI: sub-page size:              512
UBI: VID header offset:          512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset:                2048
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name:            "mtd=3"
UBI: MTD device size:            219 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs:        1752
UBI: number of bad PEBs:         0
UBI: max. allowed volumes:       128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold:    4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes:     0
UBI: available PEBs:             1731
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 21
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 17
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/1
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_get_sb: cannot open "ubi:rootfs", error -19
Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:rootfs'!
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
1 bytes read
Found bootable drive on usb 0:1
Loading file "/boot/uImage" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
1432372 bytes read
Loading file "/boot/uInitrd" from usb device 0:1 (usbda1)
4733854 bytes read
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.32-5-kirkwood
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1432308 Bytes = 1.4 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 01100000 ...
   Image Name:   initramfs-2.6.32-5-kirkwood
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    4733790 Bytes = 4.5 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

nigelhealy, what USB devices do you have plugged into your device, and on which ports?

You do understand that some thumb drives cold boot and some don't, right? My experience seems to mimic Jeff's: I have a DataTraveler that warm boots, but doesn't cold boot. I have a Sandisk Cruzer that cold boots, warm boots, but won't boot after interrupting the uBoot and then manually continuing.

I suspect the uBoot usb initialization code is somehow flawed. As far as I know, this was (and still is) a problem with the SheevaPlug, which has carried over the the Dockstars. Until someone figures out the reason for this behavior and fixes it, it is a problem we all have to put up with. Someone elsewhere in this forum mentioned that, after using some thumb drive copy program to replicate the data from a cold-bootable drive to a non-cold-bootable one, they could then boot the newly configured drive. I wondered at the time if perhaps this means it is a geometry problem. In any event, until someone has an 'aha!' moment, it seems we are stuck with having to locate and use those specific thumb drives that are compatible with cold-booting.

Good luck.

I have tried different ports.
So if a cold boot means a boot off internal and then I can see that via the ssh known_hosts problem and then use the Pogoplug root password, then reboot - that is imperfect but livable.
Right now I have the boot USB in the right-most, a swap USB on the one to the left, and USB harddrive round the corner on the left-most. I've tried booting just with the boot USB stick in each port and it doesn't affect the issue.

I have another USB stick, which both cold and warm boots, I have that on my Dockstar which is acting as a router. The USB stick which will only warm-boot I have behind the router, I can live with a cold-boot only problem. Would like it go go away!

I realize this thread pertains to USB sticks, but I want to make sure people are aware that it is possible to program the Dockstar to boot from USB pocket-drives (hard drives in a USB enclosure) as well. I recently ordered a Seagate FreeAgent Go 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from Amazon for a little over $100. It arrived today, and I have been playing with it.

First, being a FreeAgent drive, it is designed to mount directly onto the Dockstar. I partitioned the drive into 4 sections and copied the partitions from my USB stick to the FreeAgent drive. When I was done, I found I could reliably warm- or cold-boot from the hard drive. Indeed, I could remove the USB stick entirely. Since I intend to use the Dockstar as a data repository on my LAN, I need a large attached storage device anyway, and the root, swap, and home partitions on it simply come along for the ride.

I'm a member of the SheevaPlug forum, too. Booting from a hard drive was always problematic with the SheevaPlug, because it only has one USB port, and a questionable power supply, so most folks stuck a powered USB hub between the SheevaPlug and the USB devices. But the SheevaPlug's uBoot doesn't seem capable of reliably traversing that external USB hub and booting from an attached hard drive. With the Dockstar, there is no need for a powered hub between the device and the drive, since there are four USB ports on the device. Furthermore, I presume the Dockstar's PS is capable of handling a hard drive's power requirements, as that is what the device was intended to support originally.

So far, I have not had any problem with the FreeAgent drive not being assigned the correct drive letter; it always seems to get the /dev/sda slot, something else which was not the case with the SheevaPlug.

I haven't tested how a hard disk root file system behaves relative to a solid state device. I love the lightning fast reads on my mailbox (stored on an SDcard) on my SheevaPlug, and realize there will be rotational delays now. Perhaps the traffic to the extra partitions will interfere with streaming video to and from the device, which is the intended purpose for my Dockstar. We'll see. But, I figure I can always plug my USB stick back in if I want or need to.

Anyway, I just want to make sure people realize that, unlike the SheevaPlug, the Dockstar's hardware and Jeff's uBoot seem to work quite well with a USB hard drive, and especially a FreeAgent drive, which was specifically designed for the little box. If you expect to have a hard drive connected to the box, you may want to consider letting the hard drive serve all your data needs.

One thing I know from experience is that sometimes thumbdrives can appear to be fine in Windows but read nothing but garbage partition info in Linux in certain states. When I'd use PartImage Is Not Ghost to image installs as backups from my various systems... reformatting a thumbdrive in Windows sometimes wouldn't give me a Fat32 partition in PING, but several gibberish partitions that all could not be accessed. Even when imaged properly with a bootable ISO, these drives had trouble booting properly from time to time until they were formatted properly.

Make sure you completely wipe and destroy all partition info before you use a drive for purposes that involve booting. If you're not a Linux person by default, there's also a Windows app called the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool that solves this problem. (Mirrored here since hotlinking to installers on HP's site is impossible: http://ergh.org/misc/SP27608-2.1.8.exe )

If you can't cold and/or warm boot from a stick after using the USB Image Tool or something like the HP USB Disk Formatter, give up and get a different flash drive. Model or brand, either way, just stop using that one. There are known issues with thumbdrives being made on the cheap: A lot actually are not even fully standards compliant! It's not worth the headache, IMHO, when you can get another one for $10 that may outperform what you're frustrating yourself with trying to boot from.

If you've got a few thumbdrives and want to know which one might be fast enough (or just generally faster)... Install gnome-disk-utility (WM agnostic) and format the sticks you've got laying around. Format them without a partition table so that you can do a full read and write benchmark on them. Results might surprise you. I initially installed Debian onto a thumbdrive and while the install didn't seem to take too long... it was generally laggy and miserable. Turns out that drive had a maximum write speed of 2.4MB/sec. (Generic UDISK 2.0 2GB stick branded by Staples) I'm surprised it even worked, but things certainly did drag along.

My Sandisk (generally the best overall from my experience) Ducati Extreme SDHC/USB Combo Card gets about 14MB/sec writes. This is what my Dockstar Debian install is booting off now and, yes, it really does make a difference. Really need the speed but don't want to get a platter drive for the Dockstar? Get an Ultra or Extreme branded Sandisk SD card and throw it in a USB cardreader.

Some others I did write tests on: (All speeds are the rounded average)

HP 4GB in Black Smoke Colored Case: 4MB/sec
PNY 4GB Micro Attache: 7MB/sec
Lexar UFC 128MB: 5MB/sec, crashes on booting from ISOs
Sandisk Titanium Cruzer 16GB: 4MB/sec
Sandisk Titanium Cruzer Plus 4GB: 8MB/sec
Generic 128MB Silicone Wrist Strap: 2MB/sec, can't boot
Sony 1GB Micro Vault: 4MB/sec
PNY 8GB Rebranded as GeekSquad: 8MB/sec
DaneElec 4GB MicroSD Class4 Card: 3MB/sec, inconsistent on bootability
MicroCenter 8GB Generic Thumbdrive: 4MB/sec
Patriot Rage XT 16GB: 11MB/sec average, but not cold or warm bootable.
PNY Optima Class 6 4GB SDHC Card: 5MB/sec
OCZ Rally2 4GB Thumbdrive: 8MB/sec
Sandisk ExtremeIII 8GB SDHC Class10 Card: 17MB/sec

Hi, my cable arrived today so i've hooked it up. It turned out to have five wires in it (although only 3 are connected when i openned up the USB end) so i found a guide which said what to hook up where and it seemed really positive in that i could see the boot process start and it showed the MARVELL>> prompt but i can't input any commands at all. Is this just me being dim and i've missed in the terminal program (tried putty under windows and minicom under ubuntu) or is the cable wierd up wrong do you think.

Sorry for all the questions but been googling for quite a well and searching for an answer to no avail, for other it seems the serial access has been pretty smooth with no mention of special settings etc.

Col

Colin Hickey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi, my cable arrived today so i've hooked it up.
> It turned out to have five wires in it (although
> only 3 are connected when i openned up the USB
> end) so i found a guide which said what to hook up
> where and it seemed really positive in that i
> could see the boot process start and it showed
> the MARVELL>> prompt but i can't input any
> commands at all. Is this just me being dim and
> i've missed in the terminal program (tried putty
> under windows and minicom under ubuntu) or is the
> cable wierd up wrong do you think.

Well, the cable I ordered had 5 wires but if you opened up the USB A connector end, only 3 were hooked up. Black, blue and white. Orange and Green were not connected at either end. Sounds like you had this already figured out...

Is this the image you used for reference?

http://i.imgur.com/8Ln6f.jpg

Using this for reference to know which to connect to:

http://i.imgur.com/r8S28.jpg

Chances are, because you saw the boot status and got the prompt in plain text, you got it right.

Someone else will have to help you with what you can do from this point on, though, I'm afraid. If it's bricked, you're going to need more than just a serial cable. JTAG requires all 10 pins FWIR.

Many thanks for the links, yep those are the exact two pics i was working from. I can see the output so i the TX and RX have to be on the right pins, i'm doing the cable very low tech and just twisting wires together but have double checked the connections and done them a few different ways so presuming it could just be knackered :( Will start looking into the JTAG options, although i've just ordered two more dockstars so might have to chalk thisone up to experience if i can't get it sorted.

FYI all i get is the following

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan

SoC: Kirkwood 88F6281_A0
DRAM: 128 MiB
NAND: 512 MiB
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
Net: egiga0
88E1116 Initialized on egiga0
Marvell>>


Col



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2010 07:26AM by chickey.

corsair voyager 4gb and easy disk 4gb work fine

Colin--perhaps a new thread would be in order, but ...

Are you sure you have a 3.3-volt cable and not a 5-volt one. You obviously have TX from the dockstar wired correctly, since you are getting the Marvell> prompt. 3.3-volt Tx will work on a 5-volt cable, but 5-volt RX will blow the dockstar's receiving circuit. So you can see what the dockstar is sending, but it doesn't see what you are typing. (How do I know this--been there, tho not with a dockstar.)

Doh :( i've ordered a replacement CA-42 cable so hopefully it's the cable rather than the voltage, i'll see if i can get a multimeter to get the voltage between the RX and ground wires. Thanks for the tip.

Col.

lyzby Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Colin--perhaps a new thread would be in order, but
> ...
>
> Are you sure you have a 3.3-volt cable and not a
> 5-volt one. You obviously have TX from the
> dockstar wired correctly, since you are getting
> the Marvell> prompt. 3.3-volt Tx will work on a
> 5-volt cable, but 5-volt RX will blow the
> dockstar's receiving circuit. So you can see what
> the dockstar is sending, but it doesn't see what
> you are typing. (How do I know this--been there,
> tho not with a dockstar.)

Kingston DataTraveler 4GB works fine... although it seems a little slower. Nothing 'scientific' just an observation without any metrics.

- Ray

Sandisk SD 1GB card out of an old camera I had. Plug it into a SD to USB adapter. Seems to work fine.
P

I used a PNY 2GB attache but wasn't stable. Now I am using Kingston 4GB and it is quite stable.

My $8 red Dane-Elec 4gb from Target works fine even on cold boot.

Kingston DataTraveler 4GB DTIG3/4GBZ
Cold boot: yes
Soft boot via "reboot": no
Soft boot via "shutdown -r 0": yes

As a bonus the white/grey matches the dockstar perfectly.

David

I swear by Lexar Firefly USB sticks. I have several, 2GB, 4GB, and 16GB.
They work excellent with plugbox/openpogo.

Have to correct myself. I noticed that there are at least 2 types of Lexar JD Firefly 4GB sticks: one has a blue led, the others have
a red led. The blue one was working fine for days until it started to show all kinds of errors upon a e2fsck. I tried the red 4GB but
that wouldn't even boot. Now I am using some cheap , no brand 8GB stick and that works fine for now. Be warned.

A little update to one of the drives I listed... I had my Geek Squad thumbdrive (PNY Rebranded I later found out) in my Atom based mITX Linux Box for about 2 years. I didn't did as much as I could have to reduce writes, like piping the logfiles to /dev/null, etc...or use a ramdrive for other stuff like /tmp...

Not one lost block in capacity.

Everyone's worried about SSDs and flash drives in general, limited writes and whatnot. For all intents and purposes, we're likely to outgrow a thumbdrive before we're going to start running out of blocks to write to.

I also ended up rebuilding my mITX box as a media player, using a Compact Flash to SATA adapter for booting into WinXP. Used a SanDisk Extreme UDMA 60MB/sec card. Cold boots just fine, hates warm (re)boots. It'll just freeze with a solid light on until I power off the unit and turn it back on again. Potential issue to consider if anyone gets one of the new FreeAgent thingies and tries CF to SATA in the vertical slots. Could be the card, could be the adapter.

For those using USB adapters, you have this to consider as well... may not be the flash card itself that can't cold or warm boot. I had an issue with a cheap SD to USB Card Reader in my Netbook, which I used to have a fast(er) SSD for Ubuntu to boot from. The drive would disappear about 50% of the time (toss a coin, same odds) when I'd wake it from suspend. Replaced the SD card reader with a much slower PNY Micro Attache thumbdrive, corruption on wake from suspend stopped. This was why I decided to just get the same class SD card but the model that Sandisk makes that has a USB plug built into it (SD Plus)... solved all of my problems with speed and usb issues.

Cruical Gizmo! 4GB here, no issues whatsoever.

Jim