Write cycle endurance of flash memory on cRIO-9004 controller?

[Walter_Rebsch]

What is the minimum guaranteed endurance of the flash memory on the cRIO embedded controllers?

[preston_johnson]

The CompactFlash device used in the cRIO-9004 uses a low level optimization technique called wear leveling. This technique will evenly distribute the use of the hardware blocks so that no one section wears out early from overuse. In the case of the 9004 controller, the CompactFlash has 1,023,120 sectors to use in leveling out the wear.

The Write/Erase endurance for the hardware blocks is 300,000 cycles minimum. The Mean Time Between Failures for the device is rated at > 1,000,000 hours.

[Walter_Rebsch]

So if I stream 25MB of data to file, once every 5 minutes

Assuming about 12 MB of the 512 MB is used for system files, leaving 500 for me.

So my 25 MB file will be written in 1 of 20 places in flash (500/25 = 20) due to the wear leveling feature.

300,000 cycles, divided by 288 writes per day = 1041 days (~2.85 years) edurance for each 25 MB section of flash .

Which means the controller will run for about 57 years until the flash wears out in a worst case scenario in my application ....

So due to the wear leveling feature, I can put a 20 year warranty on the project and sleep well knowing it won't fail.  Works for me!

Walter