5

I need to manage 8 KB of space in an EEPROM. I need to store files in it : of course they'll be really small. Moreover, we don't wanna lose any datas already stored if the battery runs out or anything like that. To do so, I'm looking for several filesystems that would be good at it. (I would also accept an excellent one.) Does anyone know any ?

Notes :

  1. During my search I've met JFS2, which seems okay, but I've read "Minimum JFS2 file system size : 16 MB" which is faaaaar too much, and saddens me. Confirmation ?

  2. I've also met TexFAT which seems great on the security side, but I haven't been able to find any information concerning the mininum system size, or the minimum size of clusters, or even the space it needs for its own functionnement.

Thank you very much.

bwDraco
  • 45,747
  • 43
  • 165
  • 205
PPaFeu
  • 53
  • 3
  • 5
    EEPROM does not require a battery to retain its data, nor is it ideal for situations where data is often written to it out in the field. Normally the EEPROM is written at the factory under controlled conditions. Therefore there is no need for a *journaled* filesystem such as **JFFS2.** **Ext2** or **FAT32** or a simple custom FS or even hardcoded tables typically suffice to organize data for EEPROM. Or is this really an XY question? – sawdust Oct 30 '12 at 20:07
  • You mean, in case the whole system shuts down without any warning, everything that is written in EEPROM will stay anyway ? No risk of data loss like you can have with traditionnal data storages ? I know it's a bit odd to write data to EEPROM out in the field but that really is what I'm asked to. Thanks for your time. – PPaFeu Oct 31 '12 at 07:34
  • *"You mean, in case ..."* - Yes but ... *"No risk of data loss ..."* - Huh? **Non-volatile** storage such as EEPROM, flash and HDD all can retain data without consuming power. Unexpected (aka dirty) shutdown is a problem typically of (and solved by) the filesystem. When all data has been flushed to the device, a dirty shutdown is inconsequential. The worse case scenario is when the device loses power during a write operation of crucial FS data. A *journaled* filesystem tries to preserve FS integrity. What is the part number of the EEPROM? – sawdust Oct 31 '12 at 19:32
  • EEPROM's are a great place to store rootkits and viruses but not much else. Besides, they already have a means of storing files. Why not use it? Curious why you need to store on EEPROM instead of SSD which has no moving parts? – Lizz Dec 05 '12 at 06:51
  • What is a ko in relation to a kb? – cutrightjm Dec 09 '12 at 22:48
  • @ekaj: ko means kilo-octet, which is the same as kilobyte. The same applies for Mo/MB, Go/GB, etc. Non-English languages generally have no direct equivalent for the word "byte", so they use "octet" instead. I've edited the question so that it uses KB instead. (*Side note: The MIME type `octet-stream` is used to represent binary data not in a specific format.*) – bwDraco Dec 10 '12 at 06:20

1 Answers1

1

Archives like zip or 7-zip basically works as a filesystem plus you get the benefit of compression and that sounds like a good idea for a small filesystem. Would it be feasible to just write the zip file directly to the block device? Not sure how you will handle out of space scenarios but still maybe worth a try?

Waxhead
  • 1,212
  • 1
  • 19
  • 34