Failsafe FAT Compatible File System

Budapest, Hungary - July 14, 2008 - HCC-Embedded today announced the release of SAFE-FAT, a full-featured, high-performance FAT12/16/32 compatible system that protects file structures from unexpected resets.

SAFE-FAT is a journaling system that guarantees that all operations will be carried out in a failsafe manner. If the system resets unexpectedly for any reason, it returns in a coherent, consistent and usable state. Therefore, when data in a file are modified (using seek or append for in-stance), the original file is not modified until either a file flush or file close is called. At this point the file state is switched atomically and the new data become valid. This applies equally to all operations that modify the content of the file, such as file write, file delete, create/delete directory, rename, etc.

If a storage medium uses SAFE-FAT and it is reset or is moved to another device running SAFE-FAT, then the system works cleanly, without loss of data and without corruption of the files and associated meta-data.

SAFE-FAT is the fifth member of HCC-Embedded’s file system family. There are two other sys-tems that are FAT12/16/32-compatible. The first is FAT, which is virtually the same as SAFE-FAT, except for the failsafe feature. The second is THIN, which is designed for minimal environments, including 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers with very small amounts of RAM and ROM. Two other failsafe systems are available. The first is SAFE, a full-featured, high-performance system. The second, named TINY, is designed (analogously to THIN) for minimal environments, including 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers with very small amounts of RAM and ROM.

With the addition of SAFE-FAT, HCC-Embedded now offers the most comprehensive portfolio of file systems and associated products for the embedded ecosystem. Its products run on virtu-ally any CPU, in any operating environment, with any operating system, or without an operating system.