Flash Memory Wear Levelling and Python

[bwiggett]

Hi, I am looking to log data to flash via bluetooth, but have a question concerning the wear levelling mechanisms of python - pys60 and / or symbian. If I write a byte at a time to a file contained on SD flash card with pys60 script will this wear out the memory quickly or will underlying python / symbian OS ensure that this is not the case, i.e., only write when enough data has been received to write a page / block at a time.

Thanks

[rcu]

Hi.
Normally buffering of data takes place before writing it - unless you specifically give a flush. This happens at the level of Python and Symbian OS.
Probably a more important issue is the wear leveling algorithms that extend the life of the mem card. I don't know well how the wear leveling is implemented, but I guess that Python does nothing related to flash mem wear leveling. At most the Symbian driver for the memory card and most likely the flash firmware takes care of this - see for example https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../Flash_memory: wear leveling is implemented in the "chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping blocks in order to spread write operations between sectors".
What type of application do you specifically have in mind?