New file system for Windows Mobile
Datalight has announced a flash memory media manager and file system for Windows Mobile that are touted as making performance “100 times faster.” The FlashFX Pro flash manager and Reliance Nitro file system replace Microsoft’s native equivalents, providing greater reliability and faster performance, the company says.
Datalight claims that its FlashFX Pro and Reliance Nitro products will allow smartphones, cameras, PNDs (personal navigation devices), and other products running Windows Mobile or Windows CE to open files from flash storage up to 100 times faster than the default components offered by Microsoft. In addition, the replacement storage stack provides writes that are six times faster, and random reads/writes that are twice as fast, the company sPocketHacks.com › Edit Post — WordPressays.
According to Datalight, its products replace Windows Mobile’s standard data storage stack (below left), which includes the flash media driver (FMD), flash abstraction layer (FAL), and TFAT (transactional FAT) file system. FlashFX Pro (below right) is an “intelligent” flash manager that includes built-in support for more than 300 flash parts, and provides a block-device interface to the high-level applications/file systems. Meanwhile, Reliance Nitro is a high-integrity file system that provides 100 percent reliability against data corruption at a logical level, while offering fast mount speeds and high performance, says Datalight.
Datalight’s products (right) replace Microsoft’s standard data storage stack (left)
In addition to releasing the numbers already cited above, Datalight claimed that FlashFX Pro is approximately 4.5 times faster than its Microsoft equivalent at sequential writes, 311 percent faster at random writes, 14 percent faster at sequential reads, and 29 percent faster at random reads. Meanwhile, it’s said, Reliance Nitro can be from 50 to 700 percent faster than TFAT at creating files, and up to 500 times faster at opening them.
Apart from speed, Datalight’s products are claimed to include other features that are important to Windows Mobile design teams, such as block locking, one-time programming, bootloader integration, and power suspend/resume. An included toolkit includes image creation, a NAND simulator, a flash life estimator, and a comprehensive flash file system benchmarking test suite, and the use of both static and dynamic wear leveling double the life of flash media, the company adds.
Datalight CEO Roy Sherrill said, “Our customers use Windows Mobile for its flexibility and ease of integration. Now they have the option of adding incredibly fast performance.”
Availability
Datalight did not release pricing, but said its flash file products for Windows Mobile are available immediately. More information may be found on the company’s website, here.