Should use bmap or a bmap-like solution to reduce flashing time and device wear

[Michał Sawicz]

bmaptool is a nice tool that allows you to reduce the amount of data transferred onto a block device to a minimum, based on a map of "meaningful data" spans.

With bigger and bigger memory cards the generated image will have more and more blank space that will be written onto the device. bmaptool can analyze the sparse image file and determine which blocks it has to copy, and copy only those blocks, reducing time to flash by a huge factor. It supports compressed images, too, so never have to waste time or space.