.\" Copyright (c) 1995 David Hinds .\" ftl_format.1 1.3 1996/09/15 04:15:49 .\" .TH FTL_FORMAT 1 "1996/09/15 04:15:49" "Stanford University" .SH NAME ftl_format \- Flash Translation Layer formatting utility .SH SYNOPSIS .B ftl_format .RB [ -q ] .RB [ -i ] .RB [ "\-s "\c .IR spare ] .RB [ "\-r "\c .IR reserve ] .RB [ "\-b "\c .IR bootsize ] device .SH DESCRIPTION .B Ftl_format creates a Flash Translation Layer partition on a flash memory device. It needs to access the flash partition's raw character-mode device (such as .IR /dev/mem0c0c ). .PP This is actually a low-level format operation, required before accessing a memory device via the FTL block device driver. Once a partition is prepared with .BR ftl_format , a filesystem should be created in a separate step. Filesystem commands should access the device via the FTL device file (such as .IR /dev/ftl0 ). .PP Optionally, .B ftl_format can reserve a region at the beginning of the flash card address space for a boot image. The boot area is not part of the FTL partition, and can only be accessed via the raw memory device. .SH OPTIONS .TP .B \-q Quiet mode: don't print formatting statistics. .TP .B \-i Interactive: confirm before beginning the format. .TP .BI "\-s " spare Reserve the specified number of erase blocks as spares. The default is 1. A read-write partition requires at least one spare block. .TP .BI "\-r " reserve Reserve the specified percentage of the total space on the device to improve write efficiency. The default is 5%. Reserving less space increases the frequency of flash erase operations to reclaim free blocks. .TP .BI "\-b" bootsize Requests that a portion of the flash card be reserved for a boot image. The size will be rounded up to an integral number of erase blocks. .SH AUTHOR David Hinds \- dhinds@allegro.stanford.edu .SH "SEE ALSO" ftl_cs(4), ftl_check(8).