Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Hello group,

I was uploading with E-Loader two complete banks of factory patterns
(XL & MP) to my CS. To my surprise, at some point patterns weren't
saved properly. Also, it was impossible to store (copy) any pattern
from the level of CS. After booting CS with both cursors pressed and
initializing user data, my empty CS informs me - when I try to save a
pattern - that only 78% of memory is available. This is a very old
one, since it came with manual Revision A. Is it possible that flash
memory is shrinking because of wearing on? And if so, is it possible
to replace it?

Thanks for any hints,

Bruno

These are excellent questions. I have wondered myself about what happens when flash memory reaches its maximum amount of reflashing (in flash drives as well). Does anyone know?
Steve 

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Bruno <brunorc@...> wrote:
>
> Hello group,
> 
> I was uploading with E-Loader two complete banks of factory patterns
> (XL & MP) to my CS. To my surprise, at some point patterns weren't
> saved properly. Also, it was impossible to store (copy) any pattern
> from the level of CS. After booting CS with both cursors pressed and
> initializing user data, my empty CS informs me - when I try to save a
> pattern - that only 78% of memory is available. This is a very old
> one, since it came with manual Revision A. Is it possible that flash
> memory is shrinking because of wearing on? And if so, is it possible
> to replace it?
> 
> Thanks for any hints,
> 
> Bruno
>

I don't know if this is true or not, but it might be:

http://superuser.com/questions/102228/what-happens-when-a-flash-drive-wears-out

STeve

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, "steve_the_composer" <smw-mail@...> wrote:
>
> These are excellent questions. I have wondered myself about what happens when flash memory reaches its maximum amount of reflashing (in flash drives as well). Does anyone know?
> Steve

2012/8/3 steve_the_composer <smw-mail@...>:
> I don't know if this is true or not, but it might be:
>
> http://superuser.com/questions/102228/what-happens-when-a-flash-drive-wears-out

Thanks, Steve. Sounds reasonable.

I think I will try to find out if the Flash RAM can be replaced (and
what would be the cost).

Bruno

2012/8/3 Bruno <brunorc@...>:
> I think I will try to find out if the Flash RAM can be replaced (and
> what would be the cost).

Seems like the Flash RAM is soldered directly into the mainboard, so
exchanging it would be a bit difficult.

But since I was curious, had all my patterns backed up anyway, I took
my second CS (yes, guys, I'm crazy enough to have two - don't even ask
me what my wife thinks about it) and ran the User Data Init.

Guess what? 78%

Go figure.

I also noticed, that while the user data is being initialized, CS says
"Making backup" and then "Compacting free space". I have no clue what
kind of backup it is (and how it can be restored), but maybe this
backup occupies 22% of RAM.

Anyway, after uploading two banks of factory patterns (MP7 & XL7) and
all patterns we made so far with a friend of mine, I still have 24%
free. Not sure if it would be enough if I wanted to upload PX7
patterns once I finally manage to hunt down Protean Drums ROM, since
factory banks are rather fat (after uploading XL7 patterns free space
shrinked from 78% to 49%, after MP7 patterns - down to 30%; after
uploading around 50 our patterns it went down to 24%). It's kind of
disappointing though, that even if CS can theoretically store 1024
patterns and 512 songs(!), after uploading 300 patterns - which is
around 1/3 of possible number - 2/3 of space is already being
consumed.

Not that I plan to be able to produce 1024 patterns any time soon, to
be honest :-)

That being said, I still love my CSs, just don't want to see their
brains shrinking ("Flowers for Algernon" come to my mind).

The Flash in a usb drive is nand flash. It dies fairly regularly so the driver chip maintains a region of the flash for replacement sectors when one dies and does this invisibly to the operating system. (ie you will eventually get failures to write when all the spare flash is used up)

The flash in the emu products is nor flash which will have 10000 or 100000 erase cycle tolerance after which you won't be able to write any more. There is no controller chip and likely no software to detect and work around sectors that fail.

This is highly unlikely to be a cause of the problem and comoaction should be the solution.

--- Original Message ---

From: Bruno <brunorc@gmail.com>
Sent: August 4, 2012 8/4/12
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [xl7] Re: Shrinking flash RAM?

    

2012/8/3 steve_the_composer <smw-mail@prodigy.net>:
> I don't know if this is true or not, but it might be:
>
> http://superuser.com/questions/102228/what-happens-when-a-flash-drive-wears-out

Thanks, Steve. Sounds reasonable.

I think I will try to find out if the Flash RAM can be replaced (and
what would be the cost).

Bruno


 
  
  
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Hi,

2012/8/4 woodsworth1@... <woodsworth1@...>:
> The flash in the emu products is nor flash which will have 10000 or 100000 erase cycle tolerance after which you won't be able to write any more. There is no controller chip and likely no software to detect and work around sectors that fail.

Thanks! 10.000 cycles should be enough for eve... well, for me at least.

> This is highly unlikely to be a cause of the problem and comoaction should be the solution.

That's what I did, but eventually resorted to "scorched soil"
solution, initializing all the user data. What surprised me though was
the 78% amount (one would expect 100% or something near) after
flushing all the user space.

BTW: I only cared about patterns, since I'm working in a project with
another CS owner and we syncronize our stations using Dropbox &
E-Loader. We decided not to use our own sounds for this, at least now.
For the future we may resort to syncing SysEx dumps of user banks &
multisetups.

Anyone else is using CS for such a cooperation? I would be interested
to hear about your experience.

Thank you again for all the hints,

Bruno

I seem to recall my CS only had 78% memory when brand new out of the box.  That's not a defect as far as I know.

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Bruno <brunorc@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> 
> 2012/8/4 woodsworth1@... <woodsworth1@...>:
> > The flash in the emu products is nor flash which will have 10000 or 100000 erase cycle tolerance after which you won't be able to write any more. There is no controller chip and likely no software to detect and work around sectors that fail.
> 
> Thanks! 10.000 cycles should be enough for eve... well, for me at least.
> 
> > This is highly unlikely to be a cause of the problem and comoaction should be the solution.
> 
> That's what I did, but eventually resorted to "scorched soil"
> solution, initializing all the user data. What surprised me though was
> the 78% amount (one would expect 100% or something near) after
> flushing all the user space.
> 
> BTW: I only cared about patterns, since I'm working in a project with
> another CS owner and we syncronize our stations using Dropbox &
> E-Loader. We decided not to use our own sounds for this, at least now.
> For the future we may resort to syncing SysEx dumps of user banks &
> multisetups.
> 
> Anyone else is using CS for such a cooperation? I would be interested
> to hear about your experience.
> 
> Thank you again for all the hints,
> 
> Bruno
>