Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Logic Technology | Subject: Datalight Reliance 3.0
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 27 March 2007

Fault-tolerant file system adds multithreading

Datalight has announced a major upgrade to Reliance, the fault-tolerant file system for mobile devices and embedded systems available in Europe from Logic Technology

Reliance 3.0, available in April 2007 from Datalight and authorised resellers, adds the 'no waiting' benefit of multithreading to the 'instant on' fast boot times of its transactional file system. For a smooth user experience on devices that support multitasking, such as listening to music while sending a text message, multithreading capabilities are a necessity.

Without a multithreaded file system at the foundation of today's converged devices, music playback would halt or 'stutter' while the file system processed the text message.

Multithreading within Reliance is a new feature designed to reduce system latency when used with multithreaded operating systems.

The 'instant on' capabilities of Reliance come from its ability to quickly determine the state of the disk at boot time after reading only three blocks of data, avoiding the time-consuming process of a CHKDSK or journal review required by other types of file systems.

As more storage capacity is added to a device, traditional FAT and journaling file systems typically take longer and longer to boot.

Reliance boots just as quickly on an empty 1Mbyte disk as a full 4Gbyte one.

'Datalight has responded to the astounding growth of multimedia-capable devices by adding features to Reliance that meet our customer's needs for a seamless user experience'.

'Manufacturers who create devices with a reliable, multithreaded file system deliver a higher-quality product to their customers', stated Cortney Jacobsen, Datalight Product Manager.

'Our customers are excited to learn that they do not have to sacrifice performance in order to build a reliable device', she added.

Reliance was designed from the ground up for embedded systems to eliminate data corruption caused by unexpected interruptions (ie a device's battery runs out), effectively reducing warranty returns and increasing customer satisfaction.

Its Dynamic Transaction Point technology allows developers complete control of how and when data is committed to disk: automatically, at specific time intervals, under application control or any combination of the three.

And while competing file systems sacrifice system performance to improve reliability, Reliance can be configured on-the-fly for the most competitive performance and reliability for specific use cases.

When used in combination with Datalight FlashFX Pro intelligent flash memory manager, Reliance supports the full range of storage media and is especially designed for resident NAND flash, resident NOR Flash, Flash cards, and hard disk drives.

Reliance is available to support Microsoft Windows CE, Wind River VxWorks, and Mentor Graphics Nucleus.

An RTOS porting kit is available to integrate Reliance into other 32bit operating systems.

Download evaluation versions of Reliance 3.0 will be available in early April.

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