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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : How many Erase / Rewrite cycles can I put my Pico's through?

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EDNEDN
Senior Member

Joined: 18/02/2023
Location: United States
Posts: 259
Posted: 02:06am 16 Oct 2023
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Every time I edit a BASIC program on my Pico, it erases and rewrites it to the device.    
And the same thing happens every time I make a tweak to the MMBasic firmware.  The device gets erased and rewritten.

How long until I start to have problems?
 
palcal

Guru

Joined: 12/10/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2006
Posted: 05:16am 16 Oct 2023
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Around 100,000 so I wouldn't worry about wearing it out.
"It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all"
 
Mixtel90

Guru

Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8308
Posted: 08:31am 16 Oct 2023
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Just get a spare. Or two. :)

At 4-writes per hour, 24 hours day, 365 days per year, that would work out at about three years minimum if there's no wear-levelling. That's for the flash, of course, there's no restriction on RAM. In real life you could probably expect at least three times that.
Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs
 
EDNEDN
Senior Member

Joined: 18/02/2023
Location: United States
Posts: 259
Posted: 01:13pm 16 Oct 2023
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Wow!   Thank You so much for the information....

I was trying to figure out and resolve as many bugs and problems as possible before I did an erase / rewrite cycle.    I'm glad to know that isn't necessary.
 
Andy-g0poy
Regular Member

Joined: 07/03/2023
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 81
Posted: 06:03pm 16 Oct 2023
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If you are really concerned then there are versions of MMBASIC for the PC Windows and Linux

(Linux)
https://github.com/thwill1000/mmb4l

(Windows)
https://geoffg.net/WindowsMMBasic.html

Obviously the IO parts of the pico ext will not be available, but if you are just sorting out standard routines then it's a useful testing setup.

Andy
 
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