The reason is a limitation on miniSD and related technologies : they all use flash memory, which has a " limited " number of write cycles.
22.
Flash memory is inherently slower to access than RAM and often becomes unusable after a few million write cycles, which generally makes it unsuitable for RAM applications.
23.
The requirement for a write cycle for each read cycle, together with the high but not infinite write cycle limit, sets a potential problem for some special applications.
24.
Further, let's assume that you only get one-tenth the life out of your device as you should : ten thousand erase-write cycles, instead of one hundred thousand plus.
25.
The requirement for a write cycle for each read cycle, together with the high but not infinite write cycle limit, sets a potential problem for some special applications.
26.
MLC SSDs can survive ~ 10000 write cycles, which gives a 5-10 year lifetime for normal daily usage, but no idea about the failure mode for archival storage.
27.
As an example, reading a file and then sending it over a network the traditional way requires two data copies and two context switches per read / write cycle.
28.
"As far as we can tell, it stores data indefinitely and there's no limit to the number of times it can be read / write cycled, " says McAulay.
29.
One theory I have is that while the data area only gets one read / write cycle per week, the index area is being updated every time I write a new sector.
30.
Some kinds of storage media, such as flash memory and CD-RW, slowly degrade as they are written to and have a limited number of erase / write cycles at any one location.
