[Arm-netbook] A10 server dreamboard

[Gordan Bobic]

On 05/29/2012 04:35 PM, Enrico wrote:
> On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 5:14 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>  wrote:
>> You haven't made a case for why you'd actually need USB when you have
>> serial console accessible via ssh.
>
> I'll answer to this first because i have not understood why you are
> being so aggressive, we are just sharing our experience and ideas.

I'm not being aggressive at all - I'm just curious WRT what use you 
think per-node USB would be compared to serial over the network.

> If you want to think that usb was created for serial console access,
> well....be it.

I have a sneaky suspicion that at some point this particular debate 
crossed over between *TX boards and blades. If you're talking about *TX 
boards, then sure, USB is useful.

the problem with a blade type solution is that in case of something like 
the EOMA (hard to beat for compactness) the module is too think for a 
full size USB port and if you start wanting USB on it you need to start 
applying some horrible bodges.

>>> A nand flash easily outperforms a good uSD, especially on random
>>> access.
>>
>> Random reads aren't a problem. Random writes on most flash that isn't
>> proper SSD grade sucks:
>>
>> http://www.altechnative.net/2012/01/25/flash-module-benchmark-collection-sd-cards-cf-cards-usb-sticks/
>>
>> UBIFS or similar may glaze over it on NAND by linearizing writes in it's
>> wear leveling - I haven't tried so cannot comment.
>>
>>> It will have only the rootfs so wearing will not be a problem.
>>
>> You'd be surprised. Just booting up typically causes 5-10MB to be
>> written out to disk. Check vmstat -d after booting and after a bit of usage.
>
> That's why in embedded systems you use a read only rootfs.

Embedded is a whole different ball game - I thought we were talking 
about _servers_ as per the subject line.

Gordan