Elektron-Users

Greetings Elektronia,


I was loading up a bunch of samples my buddy dropped on me into the Octa's CF card. The card status light began flickering away I got to thinking. How long before the CF card bites it?

The chief reason this thought bubbled to the surface lied in the fact that I was reading a B&H catalog browsing for expensive toys of all kinds when I flipped to the Flash Memory section. Upon a more thorough glimpse I took note of the fact that a majority of the cards had a description of how many "cycles" the card was good for. The majority of the cards had a lifespan of a few thousand "cycles". Being a photography catalog I think the "cycles" referred to the amount of photos could be taken and downloaded from the card.

The way the Octatrack handles the CF card is considerably more intensive. There are (In my case at least) Gigs of information being transferred to the card, and if using "Static" samples the card is constantly being accessed.

Basically I was curious if any of ya'll had put together any theories on how long one can expect the CF Card to last.

Cheers,
:lars

Google bin bery bery good to me:

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

Reliability
Original PC Card memory cards used an internal battery to maintain data when power was removed; the rated life of the battery was the only reliability issue. CompactFlash cards that use flash memory, like other flash-memory devices, are rated for a limited number of erase/write cycles for any "block." (Read cycles do not cause wear to the device.) Cards using NOR flash had a write endurance of 10,000 cycles. Current cards using NAND flash are rated for 1,000,000 writes per block before hard failure.[22]

So load up dem samples boi!

Isn't the OT constantly writing to the project file (.work) as you work? Or all the changes storedin ram untill a project is synced? I'm a bit unclear on this..

. Current cards using NAND flash are rated for 1,000,000 writes per block before hard failure

Cycles are not the only measure. Having or not a "wear leveling" algorithm will also affect the lifespan of the card a lot.
In case of removable CF card, I'm not sure if that's handled by the OS or the card itself though...

N_Rain ----> That is one of the things I was alluding to. The Octa does not write data and read data in the same fashion a camera does.

These two tasks (writing, reading) are going on quite a bit when transferring samples and loading them into a "Flex" machine; even more so if using Static samples. When one thinks in that context even 1,000,000 "cycles does not seem like ALOT.


Cheers
:lars

first post here. had my OT for months now but looking to move a huge sample library onto a flash card (not the stock one). any recommendations for cards? looking for 32 or 64 gb card. does anyone know if the speed has to be over 133x? read somewhere this was recommended by Elektron...

Hey Lars, most people run a Fantom X off of compact flash because PCIMCA (or whatever) is expensive. Fantoms have been around since 2003 and I have never seen anyone complain about it over at those forums.

I'd backup my card every week or two though -- backups are better than head smackups

Bjorn, Transcend is what comes with the card and I bought another (bigger) one with no issues on either. I recall Lars did some research and got a nicer, faster card - maybe he has some thoughts on this.