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Chapter 7. Storage Device Manipulation
The storage devices used in embedded systems are often quite different from those used in
workstations and servers. Embedded systems tend to use solid-state storage devices such as
flash chips and flash disks. As with any other Linux system, these devices must be properly set
up and configured to be used by the kernel. Because these storage devices differ greatly from
typical workstation and server disks, the tools to manipulate them (for partitioning, copying
files, and erasing, for instance) are also different. These tools are the subject of this chapter.
In this chapter, we will discuss the manipulation of embedded storage devices for use with
Linux. We will start with our primary topic: the manipulation of devices supported by the MTD
subsystem. I will also briefly cover the manipulation of disk devices. If you intend to use a
conventional disk device as part of your system, however, I recommend that you look at one of
the books that discusses Linux system maintenance, such as O'Reilly's Running Linux, for
more extensive coverage. The last section of this chapter will cover the use of swap in
embedded systems.