Quote Originally Posted by nopics View Post
Is there a tool to show the user (me) when exactly does Knoppix writes to the usb stick ?
nopics.
You might do an audit of your own situation as a start.
For example, here's mine & my estimate of what it might mean
.
Code:
Here's an audit of my current 'cd-size' Knoppix 7.0.5 LiveUSB:

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ df -h -T
Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1      vfat     1015M  834M  181M  83% /mnt-system
tmpfs          tmpfs     2.8G     0  2.8G   0% /ramdisk
/dev/cloop     iso9660   1.9G  1.9G     0 100% /KNOPPIX      (Klaus K's r/o part )
/dev/cloop1    iso9660   333M  333M     0 100% /KNOPPIX1     ( my  own  r/o stuff)
/dev/sdb2      reiserfs  6.5G  208M  6.3G   4% /KNOPPIX-DATA ( my  own  r/w stuff)
unionfs        aufs      6.5G  208M  6.3G   4% /UNIONFS
unionfs        aufs      6.5G  208M  6.3G   4% /usr
unionfs        aufs      6.5G  208M  6.3G   4% /home
tmpfs          tmpfs      10M   60K   10M   1% /UNIONFS/var/run
tmpfs          tmpfs      20M  2.8M   18M  14% /run
tmpfs          tmpfs      10M     0   10M   0% /UNIONFS/var/lock
tmpfs          tmpfs     100M  228K  100M   1% /UNIONFS/var/log
tmpfs          tmpfs     2.0G  8.0K  2.0G   1% /tmp
udev           tmpfs      20M  4.0K   20M   1% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm

I think this can be interpreted as follows:

1. ramdisk       is rarely used, if ever.
2. tmpfs         I assume is all on ram.
3. /KNOPPIX      1.9G on ram comes from read-only /mnt-system/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX  which is only 690M.
4. /KNOPPIX1     333M on ram comes from read-only /mnt-system/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX1 which is only 118M.
5. /KNOPPIX-DATA reiserfs file is read-write & journalled, but photos account for 122M.

If photos were off-loaded, net reiserfs read-write would be restricted to about 90M,
but this is journalled, and that may be crucial to the write-wear situation.