TINY

A full-featured, fail-safe flash file system for use in resource-constrained applications. TINY is designed for use with NOR Flash with erasable sectors <4 KB. Typical devices include DataFlash AT45, MSP430 internal flash, and many well-known serial flash devices. TINY eliminates many fragmentation and flash management problems and results in a compact and reliable file system that provides a full set of features, even on a low-cost controller.

Limiting the application of TINY to this subset of NOR flash devices makes it a compact and reliable file system. TINY eliminates many fragmentation and flash management problems and gives a compact and reliable file system that provides a full set of features, even on a low cost microcontroller.

This file system is designed specifically for use with RAM. It creates pseudo-flash sectors to provide a solid logical framework for building the fail-safe system. It has been carefully crafted to ensure the reliability required by embedded systems, and to minimize code space and RAM requirements.

TINY is designed specifically for media in which the erasable sector size is relatively small, typically less than 2 KB. For large NOR and NAND flash devices, the erasable sector size tends to be large (32 KB or more) and, as a consequence, file systems such as HCC’s SAFE must handle fragmented blocks. TINY’s design does not fragment erasable units and therefore the storage media will not become fragmented. This allowed HCC to build a small footprint fail-safe file system with the restriction that the target media (flash) has small erasable units, typically 4 KB or less. This design provides large improvements in efficiency, reducing the resource requirements in terms of code, RAM, CPU, and power.

Features
  • Conforms to the HCC Advanced Embedded Framework.
  • Designed for integration with both RTOS and non-RTOS based systems.
  • Code size is 8.2 KB.
  • RAM usage <256 bytes.
  • Fail-safe.
  • ANSI ‘C’.
  • Long filenames.
  • Multiple open files.
  • Test suite.
  • Zero copy.
  • Dynamic wear leveling.
  • Reentrant.
  • Many small sector flash types supported.
Architecture
TINY File System architecture

Note sure which Flash file system to select? Check out our comparison table or consult our support team.

Integration into your application

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