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bayindirhtoday at 12:35 PM2 repliesview on HN

I find pretty interesting that the memory is not perfect out of the fab and its defects are coded on its label, hence these defects can be loaded to the device using it as a map, so it can work around these loops while working.

Now, this is even true for flash memory, but this is handled at the controller level and its dynamic during its initial "formatting" at the factory, so it's completely hidden from the host unless "host" is the controller.

OTOH, bubble memory comes with a "this machine has no brain, use your own" sticker on it.


Replies

rwmjtoday at 12:57 PM

Hard disks used to come with a paper label listing their bad sectors. (They still come with a list, it's just now it is hidden in the firmware like you describe.)

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lxgrtoday at 12:58 PM

Not nearly all flash systems (including NAND based ones) use a dedicated controller. I believe e.g. iOS devices have for a long time still handled bad block handling in software, while macOS has always handled it in hardware.

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