Experience Using Flash + USB For SSH Keys?

[Bob Edwards]

Alex Satrapa wrote:
> Ben Elliston wrote:
> 
>> One thing you forgot in your fstab entry is the "noatime" keyword.
> 
> 
> Does the (v)fat filesystem know about atime stuff?  I suppose this might 
> be the "archive" flags in the directory entries.
> 
> I don't know how to mount a CF "read only" under Windows.  I suspect 
> there is a "read only" option under Mac OS X, since it's got a Unix base.
> 

I don't think Ben read your message fully. The "noatime" mount option is 
really only for ext2, ext3 and other Unix'y file system types and basically 
turns off the "access time" updating, which is a write to the device each time 
you read a file. The re-writing of the atime field for each file read is not 
only going to wear out your CF card, but it is also slow (writing to flash is 
generally slow).

If, as you have done, you stick with VFAT, then this is not a problem (other 
things may be a problem, but not the atime stuff).

Like Ben, I do something similar with a USB memory stick to hold important
keys, but I stick with the VFAT file system like you, rather than re-formatting
as ext2 or whatever.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.