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Old 06-24-2012, 08:07 AM   #6
geekmaster
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Multiverse 6627A
Device: K1 to PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by knc1 View Post
Yes, you can run swap on the internal eMMC.
Yes, this will generate eMMC wear that would not otherwise happen.
Yes, this will reduce the amount of time before you have to replace it.
Yes, it is difficult to replace and expensive to hire done. Cheaper to just toss the Kindle when the eMMC wears out.

You will be taking a few years off the devices expected ten year useful life. Where you going to keep this Kindle longer than two or three years anyway?
I do not know how effective any write wear leveling is in the kindle, but it is MUCH less effective when there is not much free space for it to "load balance" the writes. Many flash devices are not vfat aware, so do not recognize free space from deleted files (only free space left from a low-level format gets used for write wear leveling). More advanced devices and OS software supports TRIM, which does recognize deleted files as free space to use for wear leveling.

In any case, after a kindle has been used awhile, it would be safe to assume that write wear leveling is not effective due to no unused low-level formatted erase blocks.

So, a good rule-of-thumb is to only use a swap file when you need it (such as during a large compile) and turn it off when not required (using swapon and swapoff commands).
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