Someone at Tom's Hardware was told by Kingston that their consumer grade CompactFlash cards do not incorporate wear levelling:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1-8-pata-ssd-512gb-cf-50-pin-hard-drive.3472260/This surprised me, so I searched for clarifying information.
Flash Memory Guide (Kingston):
https://media.kingston.com/pdfs/MKF_283.1_Flash_Memory_Guide_EN.pdfQuote:
High Data Reliability: Flash memory is very reliable and many of the Flash storage device types also include Error Correction Code (ECC) checking and advanced wear leveling.
The following document makes no mention of wear levelling. Also, the term "cycles per logical sector" would imply that there is no logical-to-physical sector translation.
Kingston CompactFlash Products: CF/32, CF/64, CF/128, CF/256, CF/512, CF/1024:
http://www.wecs.de/diverse/CF_Kingston_256.pdfcapacities ranging from 32MB to 1024MB
Endurance: 300,000 cycles per logical sector
The following products refer to an obsolete "Wear Level" command (F5h). This command appears to have been used in early products that predate the Security Freeze Lock (F5h) ATA command. The implication seems to be that early CF cards performed wear levelling on demand from host based software. :-?
SanDisk Industrial Grade ATA CompactFlash, PC Card, and FlashDrive Product Manual, Version 2.6, Document No. 80-36-00208, March 2004:
https://www.as.arizona.edu/aro/adp/12meter/apex/compactFlash_IndustrialGradeATAv2.6.pdfQuote:
5.1.24. Wear Level — F5H
The Wear Level command in Table 5-31 is effectively a NOP command and only implemented for backward compatibility with earlier SanDisk SDP series products. The Sector Count Register will always be returned with a 00H indicating Wear Level is not needed.
Delkin Devices, SLC Commercial and Industrial CompactFlash CF 3.0/4.1 Standard Engineering Specification, Document Number L5ENG00049 Revision: 2.2
https://docs-emea.rs-online.com/webdocs/124c/0900766b8124cbe2.pdfQuote:
If security mode feature set is not supported, this (Security Freeze Lock - F5h) command shall be handled as Wear Level command.
...
For the CompactFlash Cards that do not support security mode feature set, this (Security Freeze Lock - F5h) command is effectively a NOP command and only implemented for backward compatibility. The Sector Count Register shall always be returned with a 00h indicating Wear Level is not needed. If the CompactFlash Card supports security mode feature set, this command shall be handled as Security Freeze Lock.
SanDisk CompactFlash Memory Card Product Manual 1998:
https://docs-emea.rs-online.com/webdocs/00af/0900766b800afe0e.pdfQuote:
1.8.4 Wear Levelling
CompactFlash Memory Card Series products do not require or perform a Wear Level operation. The command is supported as a NOP operation to maintain backward compatibility with existing software utilities.
SanDisk CompactFlash Memory Card Product Manual Rev 7, 2000:
http://static6.arrow.com/aropdfconversion/f6d67fcb0ac683ac25a8bc607c1f809097f63762/sands00003-1.pdfQuote:
6.1.23 Wear Level - F5H
This command is effectively a NOP command and only implemented for backward compatability with earlier SanDisk SDP series products. The
Sector Count Register will always be returned with an 00H indicating Wear Level is not needed.