Re: VFAT vs. umask.
On Sat, 30 Jul 2022 09:13:55 -0700
peter@easthope.ca wrote:
> * In Linux, an ext file system avoids those complications. To my
> knowledge, all SD cards are preformatted with a FAT. Therefore ext
> requires reformatting.
Not quite. The preparation of any storage medium requires at least two
steps. To format means to lay down sector information on each track,
including checksums, inter-record gaps, metadata, and other minutia.
Today, this is done at the factory, e.g. floppy disks and hard drives.
In another step one lays down a file system: allocate space for a root
directory, that directory's metadata, lay down a journal, and in
many cases redundant superblocks to allow for recovery in case the
main ones are clobbered, etc..
Microsoft conflated the two, leading to much confusion over the years.
So, no, replacing a FAT partition with an ext partition does not
require reformatting. It only involves laying down a new file system.
Any time you write to flash memory (SD card, USB stick, SSD, whatever)
you shorten its life, as flash memory is only good for so many writes.
When I started working with flash memory, it only stored 256 bits
(not bytes), and it was good for only a thousand writes or so. It has
gotten significantly better since. So if you replace a FAT partition,
you may want to avoid writing to every sector of the partition.
> My own experience, is one SD card about a decade old, reformatted to
> ext2 when new and still working.
This is typical. I have SSDs in daily use of similar age. On the other
tentacle, I've had cheap USB sticks die after a dozen writes.
> A second SD purchased recently with
> factory format unchanged seems very slow in mounting. As if running
> fsck before every mount.
Try mounting it from the command line, and watch the output. That will
show you whether it is being fscked. However, FAT has no ability to
store when it was last fscked, so I would wonder why it was being
fscked at all.
--
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