Is it an atomic operation for writing a page in NAND flash

[Liu Hui]

Thanks you very much, CRC is the real solution.

But I don't understand, if a partial write happens, we use ECC to
correct the data, we will find the data can't be corrected, then
-EBADMSG will be returned(see nand_correct_data()), then we can know
this page are corrupted. IMHO, this works.

Anyway, I will think about CRC seriously.

Thanks,
Hui

2010/1/20 Ricard Wanderlof <ricard.wanderlof at axis.com>:
>
> On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Liu Hui wrote:
>
>>> It's good, but not perfect: In principle a power-failed write could
>>> successfully store the correct bits including ECC so they read back
>>> correctly, but with the cell charges not completely stable.  But I
>>> guess that's rare enough that it is just included in the normal NAND
>>> bad block possibilities.
>>
>> Ok, ECC can detect partial write but can't detect unstable cell
>> charges, I think this is enough since NAND flash is unstable media.
>
> ECC is designed to correct a small number of bits (1 bit for the software
> ECC algorithm used by mtd) and detect failure if a couple of more bits are
> bad (2 bits for the mtd algorithm). Beyond that, the results cannot be
> trusted. That means, that if there are, say, 16 incorrect bits in the data,
> the ECC algorithm will not necessarily indicate that there is a failure. It
> might very well indicate that there is a single bit that needs correction,
> or that all bits are correct. It is not a CRC.
>
> The end result is that you can't say "if the ECC says it's ok, the data
> hasn't been corrupted" (which you could with a CRC). The only thing you can
> say (in the case of the mtd ECC algorithm) is "if there is a one-bit error
> in the data, the ECC will correct it" and "if there is a two-bit error in
> the data, the ECC will detect it".
>
> If you really need that kind of check for data integrity, I suppose you
> could add a CRC algorithm to the ECC calculations already being performed by
> mtd, so that any change in the data would be flagged due to a mismatching
> CRC.
>
> /Ricard
> --
> Ricard Wolf Wanderlöf                           ricardw(at)axis.com
> Axis Communications AB, Lund, Sweden            www.axis.com
> Phone +46 46 272 2016                           Fax +46 46 13 61 30
>



-- 
Thanks & Best Regards
Liu Hui
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