user44887: I would like to build a box counter for machine, so I'm going to use EEPROM in Arduino to save count. But the lifecycle is limited to 100,000 writes. Please suggest an external EEPROM with a long lifecycle or any other solution.

user44908: The EEPROMs from Microchip have a guaranteed erase count of 1 million. The ones from ST offer 4 million. So it's not hard to find EEPROMs with a higher endurance.
But for a device which writes a lot, a better solution would be a NVRAM, FRAM or EERAM. Those usually come with virtually no limitations to the write cycles but usually are more expensive than EEPROMs but that might very well be worth it compared to the hassle you can get in otherwise.
Adafruit offers SPI and I²C variants for FRAM boards.

user359: You can cycle through all the addresses in the EEPROM like a ring buffer.
You'll need to reserve a bit so you can binary search for the head of the buffer during startup.
You can also reduce how often you write in general especially when the count will increment in bursts, try and wait out those bursts instead of writing on every increment.

44887: <p>I would like to build a box counter for machine, so I'm going to use EEPROM in Arduino to save count. But the lifecycle is limited to 100,000 writes. Please suggest an external EEPROM with a long lifecycle or any other solution.</p>
 44908: <p>The <a href="http://www.microchip.com/design-centers/memory/serial-eeprom/overview" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EEPROMs from Microchip</a> have a guaranteed erase count of 1 million. The ones from <a href="http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/memories/serial-eeprom/standard-serial-eeprom.html?querycriteria=productId=SC112" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ST offer 4 million</a>. So it's not hard to find EEPROMs with a higher endurance.</p>

<p>But for a device which writes a lot, a better solution would be a NVRAM, FRAM or EERAM. Those usually come with virtually no limitations to the write cycles but usually are more expensive than EEPROMs but that might very well be worth it compared to the hassle you can get in otherwise.</p>

<p>Adafruit offers <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/1897" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SPI</a> and <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/1895" rel="nofollow noreferrer">I²C</a> variants for FRAM boards.</p>
 359: <p>You can cycle through all the addresses in the EEPROM like a ring buffer.</p>

<p>You'll need to reserve a bit so you can binary search for the head of the buffer during startup.</p>

<p>You can also reduce how often you write in general especially when the count will increment in bursts, try and wait out those bursts instead of writing on every increment.</p>
