SanDisk Cruzer Fit Boot Problems

[ethereal]

i have using SanDisk Cruzer Fits for nearly 4 years - they have been reasonably reliable - every now and then they would throw up an error and the boot pool would be degraded. almost always there was no problem with the drives - i ran flash tester on them. i just put the same drive back in and it was fine after a resilver.

i have two as a mirror and two weeks ago this happened with one of then - and today it happened to the other.
so i have decided to purchase a second hand ssd on ebay (intel 320).

so my conclusion - the usbs are cheap but not as reliable as i would have hoped for - i hope the single ssd will help. this is just here to help with people's decision about usb vs ssd

 

[joeschmuck]

Yes, USB Flash drives do fail eventually and I've seen your type of problem before and I have yet to see why the problem occurs since it's very difficult to pinpoint the area with the issue, likely the controller on the flash drive but who knows for certain.

I have been running older USB flash drives as my boot devices without an issue since I started FreeNAS. When FreeNAS 10 hits the streets, I plan to run a small cheap SSD as the boot device and I'm fairly certain it will outlive all my future hard drives. As for the Intel 320 SSD, hopefully you are getting a fantastic price because even a cheap $30-$40 SSD will do the job better than a USB Flash drive and should do very well in a FreeNAS environment.

 

[Fuganater]

4 years isn't reliable?

Now they only cost $5 so even if they only last me a meager 2 years, I saved a ridiculous amount by not using SSDs for the same 2 years.

 

[tvsjr]

I just can't see the wisdom in spending, typically, $1K or more (far more in many cases) on a FreeNAS system... then using $10 boot devices. You can pick up 40GB SSDs for, quite literally, $20 these days. The only "real" cost is two SATA ports... even spending $100 for an HBA is still well worth it.

 

[jgreco]

I just can't see the wisdom in spending, typically, $1K or more (far more in many cases) on a FreeNAS system... then using $10 boot devices. You can pick up 40GB SSDs for, quite literally, $20 these days. The only "real" cost is two SATA ports... even spending $100 for an HBA is still well worth it.

I suppose it depends on the use model. I got All P***ed Off way back in the FreeNAS 8.0 days at flash disk failures, and actually moved to booting off a pair of small SSD's behind an LSI 1068 (RAID1) for hardware-based boxes. The other boxes boot off of ESXi datastore. I stopped having problems years before most everyone else. ;-)

But, see, to me, there's enough fires to fight elsewhere that I don't mind paying a little money for a competent boot device that I know will work reliably.

 

[tvsjr]

But, see, to me, there's enough fires to fight elsewhere that I don't mind paying a little money for a competent boot device that I know will work reliably.

Amen.

 

[ethereal]

these drives aren't the originals - i changed them to 8gb drives when that was recommended for the latest freenas at the time - about 18 months ?
the main problem i think was the pool kept degrading even when the drives were good (tested them every time with flash tester)

the 32gb ssd is $25

 

[jgreco]

Amen.

Indeed. Cheaper to "do it right" when you consider all the other stuff.

 

[jgreco]

these drives aren't the originals - i changed them to 8gb drives when that was recommended for the latest freenas at the time - about 18 months ?
the main problem i think was the pool kept degrading even when the drives were good (tested them every time with flash tester)

the 32gb ssd is $25

USB is kind of a dodgy technology, which is one of the reasons we don't recommend attaching external USB drives for pool storage. It seems perfectly possible that you were experiencing some sort of not-flash-failure-related issue.

 

[joeschmuck]

the 32gb ssd is $25

Good price. Once you get the drive, run "smartctl -a /dev/YOURDRIVELETTER" and check the life (wear leveling) of the drive. The value and where it resides is manufacturer specific and I'm not sure which ID the drive you are purchasing is. Post your results if you're curious what it all means and if there might be a concern on the quality of the drive. Do not run a long SMART test on the drive as it will shorten the life of your drive. I wouldn't even run a short test with it being a SSD. Just a word of advice is all.

 

[BigDave]

A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part IV: Network Notes & Conclusion

Written by Joshua Paetzel on February 12, 2015.



Boot Devices

FreeNAS was originally designed to run as a read-only image on a small boot device. The latest versions now run read/write using ZFS. A SATA DOM or small SSD is a great boot device for the latest versions. Since ZFS is used, the boot device itself can be mirrored. As an alternative to a SATA DOM or SSD, one or more high quality USB sticks can be used.

 

[ethereal]

Good price. Once you get the drive, run "smartctl -a /dev/YOURDRIVELETTER" and check the life (wear leveling) of the drive. The value and where it resides is manufacturer specific and I'm not sure which ID the drive you are purchasing is. Post your results if you're curious what it all means and if there might be a concern on the quality of the drive. Do not run a long SMART test on the drive as it will shorten the life of your drive. I wouldn't even run a short test with it being a SSD. Just a word of advice is all.

thanks a lot - i'll give it a go

 

[indy]

I used 2 new Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB for the upgrade to FreeNAS 9.3.
The first one was automatically detached after too many write errors.
I ordered a 3rd stick of the same model and the 2nd stick failed during the resilver.

This would be an excerpt from the console error messages for both failures:

Code:

Feb 20 19:36:18 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 01 dc ff d7 00 00 01 00 
Feb 20 19:36:18 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
Feb 20 19:36:18 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): Retrying command
Feb 20 19:36:24 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 01 dc ff d7 00 00 01 00 
Feb 20 19:36:24 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
Feb 20 19:36:24 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): Retrying command
Feb 20 19:36:29 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 01 dc ff d7 00 00 01 00 
Feb 20 19:36:29 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
Feb 20 19:36:29 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): Retrying command
Feb 20 19:36:35 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 01 dc ff d7 00 00 01 00 
Feb 20 19:36:35 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
Feb 20 19:36:35 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): Retrying command
Feb 20 19:36:40 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 01 dc ff d7 00 00 01 00 
Feb 20 19:36:40 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
Feb 20 19:36:40 freenas (da9:umass-sim1:1:0:0): Error 5, Retries exhausted

 

[Mirfster]

I used 2 new Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB for the upgrade to FreeNAS 9.3.
The first one was automatically detached after too many write errors.
I ordered a 3rd stick of the same model and the 2nd stick failed during the resilver.

Do yourself a favor and go shopping on ebay for an older ~32GB SSD (or two) from a dependable seller. Will be worth your while. :)

 

[indy]

I get where you are coming from, but moreover I think this could be specifically a problem with this particular USB-Stick model.

 

[joeschmuck]

Some USB flash drives are built better than others. Instead of purchasing more USB flash drives, if you have an available SATA port (many folks do not), then just purchase a single cheap SSD, but I'm sure you already know that. The Sandisk Cruiser Fit is a fine USB flash drive but it generates a lot of heat and is in a small package which does not help dissipate the heat and I suspect and I could be wrong that could be causing the premature failures. In my opinion this makes it a bad choice as a FreeNAS boot device. All my USB boot devices that I've used were much older (10+ years of age) and larger, don't generate much heat at all and are still going strong. My favorite is the ADATA PD7 but they don't make that anymore. If you must purchase another USB Flash drive, might I suggest a USB 2.0 model (stay away from 3.0 because of the heat most of these generate, although I'm certain there are exceptions) and there is a Cruiser Fit in a USB 2.0 style if you really want to stay with that manufacturer and size of device.

 

[indy]

Personally I would not use any any system-related storage without redundancy in FreeNAS.
From my experience sudden unavailability of that storage causes FreeNAS to hang without the option to shut down gracefully.

And then there is the constant disk activity from the syslog (and possibly jails) that imo needs to be absorbed by SSDs in a redundant configuration.
If you want both system and syslog on SSDs, that would be 4 SSDs total since FreeNAS does not allow the system disks to serve multiple purposes.
Not sure if that is worth it, maybe I am more inclined to believe so with the next failure...
For now I will be sticking with USB-Sticks for system storage.

My condensed opinion on system storage configuration:
SDD mirror > USB-Stick mirror >>> 1 SSD > 1 USB-Stick

The Sandisk Cruzer Fit is only available with USB 2.0 and stays cool even under heavy load, the Sandisk Ultra Fit is USB 3.0 and is reportedly running hot.

For now I ordered 2 Kingston DataTraveler Micro.

 

[dasti]

The Sandisk Cruzer Fit is only available with USB 2.0 and stays cool even under heavy load, the Sandisk Ultra Fit is USB 3.0 and is reportedly running hot.

I pretty much aggree with you conclusions ! Here's my story

I had also some troubles with a mirror of 2 usb 3.0 keys sandisk on usb 2 ports
- almost immediatly the key showed difficulty to boot (sometimes not detected by bios)
- the room is quite cold with air conditionning
- the motherboard is new supermicro atom C2758

I replaced them with 32gb keys from hp
- sometime I still have some errors on both keys

I have to admit that I don't know what to think



I just built a new freenas, this time my boot device is a mirror of 3 usb keys 2.0 (this supermicro motherboard allows it)
- 1 sandisk (normal format), 1 kindston, 1 fujitsu (let's hope they use different shipsets)
- wait and see

dasti

 

[joeschmuck]

The problem with having so many USB devices mirrored is it can all be done with one USB device and a good backup of your configuration file. Maybe dual SATA boot devices in a hardware Mirror are fine because there is true failover but what FreeNAS has for USB devices doesn't mean there is any failover if the system stats to boot and hangs. Just saying.

 

[pschatz100]

I am amazed that anybody still asks about the reliability of USB flash drives. There are posts dating all the way back to the earliest days of this forum, suggesting that flash drives are not particularly reliable. However, the real key to head-ache free operation is to make certain you keep backups of your Freenas configuration. Replacing a bad flash drive is annoying - but not the end of the world as long as you have a backup of your configuration.

I have been running FreeNAS on flash drives for many years. At the first sign of a flash drive issue, I replace the drive. Period. No checking, no attempting to repair. Just replace it and move on. I always buy name brand, which tend to be less unreliable (non of them are completely reliable, IMHO.)

When the FreeNAS boot device changed to ZFS with v9.3, I think the use of flash drives became less desirable. They are not designed for constant read/write activity. Just as joeschmuck plans to do, when I finally update to FreeNAS 10 I'll set up a small ssd or sata dom as the system disk.