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Is there a way I can read the CF wear level register?
I tried SMART Info using DiskCheckup, but I did not see it anywhere.
I tried SMART Info using DiskCheckup, but I did not see it anywhere.
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This isn't something we have looked at. I am not even sure if this information is available for most card. Do you have any example of any software displaying this inforamtion for any CF card? -
In this data sheet on pg 75 there is a Wear Level command (F5h).
http://www.transcendusa.com/Support/..._1GB_32GB_.pdf
I was thinking that I could use this command to determine the number of times a particular sector was written, to determine if the CF is near the end of its useful life. However, I looked at the CF spec and it says that this command now returns 0, and is only there for backward compatibility.
With the DiskCheckup application I checked a few CF cards, and they must use some exteneded SMART ID's. Two of the CF cards data is listed here and I see that they use different ID's and it varies between manufacturer. Since the Transcend give a write error count, I will rely on this to determine if the CF is getting to old/unreliable.
Thanks...
Model Number: Kingston ELITE PRO CF CARD 16GB
Firmware Revision: Ver2.19K
SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Raw Value Status Value Worst Threshold TEC
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E8 (Unknown attribute) 100 OK 100 100 2 N.A.
E9 (Unknown attribute) 51450 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
EA (Unknown attribute) 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
EB (Unknown attribute) 94 OK 208 208 3 N.A.
9 Power On Time 14 OK 15 15 0 N.A.
CB Error Correction Code Errors 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
Model Number: TRANSCEND
Firmware Revision: 20080820
SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Raw Value Status Value Worst Threshold TEC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
2 Throughput Performance 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
5 Reallocated Sector Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
7 Seek Error Rate 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
8 Seek Time Performance 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C Power Cycle Count 59 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.
C8 Write Error Count 0 OK 100 100 0 N.A.Comment
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Without quite a bit of detailed investigation. I am not sure if we could or how to use this low level CF-ATA command. It might only be available to the CF controller to internally implement wear levelling. DiskCheckup does not report this information.
DiskCheckup reports the S.M.A.R.T. information that is available from the device. So if the "C8 Write Error Count" does not appear on the Kingston CF, then it is not supported by that Kingston CF. Where "Unknown attribute" is shown, then DiskCheckup does not have the text for the definition. The known attributes are listed in the help file.
Regards,
IanComment
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