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cfilesystemsarduinolow-leveleeprom

Is it worth to implement small filesystem for an EEPROM

I have bought an I2C EEPROM. I want to store sensor and voltage data. I'm assuming that value can be bigger than one byte, and there can be a lot of data. Is it worth is such case to implement a filesystem with small file allocation table? It would make me easier to peek trought EEPROM for example.

Solution

  • I see two causes for a FAT on EEPROM

    1. If there is a requirement for the flexibility of having different files. Such as for data logging or configurations. It allows multiple such configuration/log files, to be independent and easily added in the future. This can be a very successful building block for future projects.
    2. For ease of access by other devices or libraries. Typically only an option if the memory device is directly accessible by other interface. Where as in this case it is an EEPROM. If your device was directly USB capable, such as a ATmega32u4 (leo) then you can use LUFA tools to have the USB show up as MASS storage. Making FAT an ideal solution. Or possibly if the device has an Ethernet Shield.

    with all being said and if this case simply a datalogger, then the KISS (Keep It Simple Solution) may be a good way to go. So that one can keep focus on the original subject for collecting the data itself.

    It is worth noting that SdCards can be easily added for cheap either of the well established Sd library (IDE stock) or SdFat Library (GitHub more features) adding an almost infinite capacity of logging of FAT32. The only trade off is they consume a fair chunk of code space.