on board flash option (details?)

[Trever]

I notice that there's an option for up to 4 GB of onboard flash...

Can the BIOS boot to it?

What is it, exactly? I guess I'm too lazy to look at board specs today... sorry. Does this on board flash use one of the master/slave channels for the internal drive? Does ordering with on board flash still leave an open internal HD slot?

Thanks.

[irads]

The flash disk is a chip soldered on-board and using IDE interface, so the operating system identifies it as a standard hard disk.

[humberaquino]

What's the average expected life (e.g. 3 years or 10000000 write cycles) for the on-board 4GB flash chip?
As the chip is soldered I suppose that replacing it wouldn't be a trivial (or recommended to novices) task.

Could this be an issue?

Thanks in advance

[irads]

Check http://www.sst.com/dotAsset/41611.pdf
NAND supports 10M write cycles.

[humberaquino]

Thanks for the response.

How difficult would be to replace the NAND flash chip from the fitpc2i?
10M write cycles is more than enough when using Read Only file systems (e.g. UnionFS, Aufs) but it would be great to know that, if this situation occurs, I don't have to throw away the fitpc2i.

Best regards

[irads]

It is not practical to replace the NAND - BGA soldered on-board.
The risk of wearing-out the NAND is theoretical only due to wear-leveling.
You can actually write continuously for 10s of years before you exhaust the write-cycles per page.

[humberaquino]

Thanks a lot Irad.
That's what I needed to know.

Best regards

[ilia]

Is there are fit-PC2i, which came without the on-board 4GB NAND FLASH?
If yes, how can I tell this is what I have?

BIOS reports:
Hard disk 0: NONE
Hard disk 1: NONE

I planned to use this FLASH as the system disk (for small embedded application) and Linux does not "see" it.

[ilia]

More info on the Fit-PC2i
BIOS reports:
Hard disk 0: NONE
Hard disk 1: NONE
Linux does not "see" any hda, hdb, etc devices as well. No reports about IDE/ATA devices in the "dmesg" log.

Device identity:
Fit-PC2i Value
S/N:0042-120313-00657
PN:D1G-C110

[gabrielh]

Your FitPC2i is without the nand falsh