Hi,
What's the general opinion of using USB flash devices for embedded systems? It has the advantage that it's cheap and off the shelf, which suits our purposes. It has kind of a tacky feel to it though.
Thanks, Dave
Can you boot from such a device ?
-Michael
Sure, as long as you have a relatively modern BIOS.
There's a bunch of controllers available that enable you to use your flash as an IDE drive. The nice thing about those controllers is that they try to avoid writing the same spot again and again... Since flash memory (depending on the type) can only be written 10k-100k times, this is a very nice feature.
I don't know if USB flash devices implement this as well, you might want to check this before starting your project...
Good Luck, Freddy
Yes (for example using U-Boot).
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk
-- Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Web:
... only if the BIOS (or whatever code in the Boot ROM supports USB and loads U-Boot (or whatever Linux loader) ) ...
I did not know that such boot-ROMs do exist.
-Michael
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