[Soekris] Transcend Industrial

[Chris Babcock]

Wim Vandeputte - Mailinglists only wrote:
> hey Chris,
> 
> On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 02:00:35PM -0700, Chris Babcock wrote:
>> Does anybody here know if the Transcend industrial CF cards work 
>> properly in a 5501? Also, are they stuck as master or slave, or do they 
>> properly honor the CS function on the Soekris boxes?
> 
> by the way, have a look at the specs of the card, the Transcend industrial
> CF cards are optimised for temperature and vibration, not writes. There is
> not much benefit in getting them
> 
Hmmm...

The card I was considering using was a Transcend TS1GCF100I.  The specs 
for this CF card list it as being rated for "2,000,000 Program/Erase 
cycles".  Is that only marginally better than typical?

I have had several very frustrating discussions with CF vendors, and 
most of them won't admit how many writes their cards are rated for.  The 
industrial manufactures often do, but obtaining industrial CF can be a 
nuisance.

What I'm looking for is a CF card that:
1) The vendor will admit what the design life of the card is.
2) Has a high enough write cycle count to be used in disk like applications.
3) Works properly with Soekris cable select mechanism, so I can use a 
disk if needed and set CF as master or slave in firmware.
4) Reliably works EVERY TIME I restart the box, regardless of timing and 
cold/warm boot.
5) Can be easily obtained in small quantities with a week or two of lead 
time
6) Doesn't cost more than the 5501-70 unit itself for a 4 GB card


At this point, I haven't seen a card that reliably pass all of these 
checks.  I was considering getting some of the Silicon Systems cards, 
but they seem to be having issues with #6.  Up to this point, I've been 
using SanDisk Ultra II cards, and they have been ok, but they don't pass 
on #1 and probably #2. As a result there are many applications I've been 
avoiding using Soekris boxes for.

So, based on the list above, what has everybody here had good 
experiences with?