[j-nsp] EX 8200 deployment

[Jonathan Lassoff]

Excerpts from Dan Farrell's message of Thu Mar 25 09:13:59 -0700 2010:
> Flash gets a bad rap. I think most people have heard of supposed horror stories or they see the cycle limit and get wary.
> 
> But I'm wondering... has anyone in this list actually had a personal flash horror story? I don't have one of my own, and I'm swimming in network devices (some quite old) that use them.

I've definitely observed wearing out older multi-layer flash chips, but
every modern (in the last several years) flash device I've run across
implements some sort of damaged cell management on the chips controller.

If you're careful about how you access the device (mounting filesystems
with no atime, no heavy logging, etc.), I'm convinced that modern flash
works just fine in an embedded application like this.

That being said, I think Richard is right regarding adding expandable
flash. 
Flash is so cheap and constantly developing, it seems like a no
brainer to just eat the cost of adding a small controller-on-a-chip,
some discrete components, and a CF slot to future-proof the storage.

In looking at the EX platforms though, this doesn't seem in line with
Juniper's design goals though (not that I actually know what they
planned). It seems like most of the hardware ('cept the EX-8200) comes
in a fixed configuration -- stuff that's just supposed to "work", and
not to worry the manuf. with compatibility concerns.


If you're feeling gutsy and want to void any warranties, you might try
de-soldering and replacing the internal flash :)

Cheers,
jof