the compact flash card is starting to go bad.
I have 3 compact flash cards myself, and they are riddled with nothing but problems. They really arnt designed for what we are putting them through. I dont know if the built-in controller supports wear leveling or not. Its hard to say. I would say the cheaper cards probably dont have built in wear leveling, or they are using REALLY cheap flash memory.
Some of the flash memory used in consumer devices have bad flash blocks right off the semiconductor assembly line. That cheaper flash memory makes its way into consumer devices such as this.
The Nintendo Wii was notorious for having bad flash blocks when new, usually they are marked and mapped out as bad so the system doesnt attempt to use them. Same thing with the PS3, The PS3 would actually develop bad flash blocks as time went on and as a direct result, it would display the red screen of death. Not all units did this though, there was a particular manufacturer they used for the flash memory, and those models were the ones that caused problems. Others were not.
The same thing still happens. The cheap throw-away USB sticks, and CF/SSD cards use the low grade flash memory which have bad blocks new right from the manufacturer. Flash memory is sold in grades if I am not mistaken. Low grade has bad blocks, and high grade is perfect but MUCH more expensive.
If it was up to me, and if they ever existed (which I dont think they did), I would have use CF based battery-backed SRAM cards.
I have 3 compact flash cards myself, and they are riddled with nothing but problems. They really arnt designed for what we are putting them through. I dont know if the built-in controller supports wear leveling or not. Its hard to say. I would say the cheaper cards probably dont have built in wear leveling, or they are using REALLY cheap flash memory.
Some of the flash memory used in consumer devices have bad flash blocks right off the semiconductor assembly line. That cheaper flash memory makes its way into consumer devices such as this.
The Nintendo Wii was notorious for having bad flash blocks when new, usually they are marked and mapped out as bad so the system doesnt attempt to use them. Same thing with the PS3, The PS3 would actually develop bad flash blocks as time went on and as a direct result, it would display the red screen of death. Not all units did this though, there was a particular manufacturer they used for the flash memory, and those models were the ones that caused problems. Others were not.
The same thing still happens. The cheap throw-away USB sticks, and CF/SSD cards use the low grade flash memory which have bad blocks new right from the manufacturer. Flash memory is sold in grades if I am not mistaken. Low grade has bad blocks, and high grade is perfect but MUCH more expensive.
If it was up to me, and if they ever existed (which I dont think they did), I would have use CF based battery-backed SRAM cards.