[aprssig] Raspberry Pi

[Greg D]

Jason KG4WSV wrote:
> SD cards are not design for a large number of write cycles.  A class
> experiment involving some disk IO benchmarks on a raspberry pi damaged
> the (sandisk IIRC) SD cards.  If I wanted longevity and maximum
> reliability, I'd probably configure the thing to be a read-only
> filesystem, although that's a pain in the neck to deal with when
> software update time rolls around (about every 10 minutes for linux).
SD cards (any flash-based memory, for that matter) do wear out.  Besides
using a RAM disk for logs and other frequently-written stuff, there are
a number of techniques for maximizing service life.  Turning off time of
access
(https://www.howtoforge.com/reducing-disk-io-by-mounting-partitions-with-noatime
) is easy to do, and will help considerably.

A lesser known trick was alluded to earlier in this thread.  Use a BIG
SD card, say, 32 gig, and only EVER write to part of it.  So, put your
image in the first 8 gig or so, whatever it needs, and leave the rest
untouched.  That allows the SD controller to use the remaining space for
"spare" sectors that can get swapped in for the wear leveling that
occurs in the background.

But, if you have a stand-alone TNC that can digipeat by itself, that's
probably the best choice for both service life and ease of setup and
maintenance.

Greg  KO6TH