To SSD or not? Recomendations required (HPN40L)

[Captain Murphy]

Hi,

I was running FreeNAS on an HP N40L from a 16GB USB stick. unfortunately after some time the USB Stick became unreliable and unreadable.

The spec is:

• HPN40L
• 16GB RAM
• 2x3TB WD RED drives.

My gut feeling is that if I go for a smallish SSD and install FreeNAS there that it would be better than running it on a USB stick, both in terms of speed and reliability. If this is the case does anyone have a recommended vendor/model?

 

[pirateghost]

Speed of what? The boot process? The saving of the config process? I consider both of these to be low on my priority list.

Personally I prefer to not waste any sata ports and just use USB devices in a mirror config.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Speed of what? The boot process? The saving of the config process? I consider both of these to be low on my priority list.

Personally I prefer to not waste any sata ports and just use USB devices in a mirror config.

Installation and boot times were slow, my main concern is reliability, USB Stick VS SSD.

Thanks

 

[pirateghost]

I understand the reliability aspect, but prefer to have more sata ports available for actual storage. Reliability issues aren't really a thing if you keep proper backups of your config and utilize a mirror USB configuration.

Since I only installed it one time on my server, I don't see a problem with the install process being slow.

Since I never have to reboot my server, boot times don't mean anything to me either. Even if I have to reboot, I'm OK with a minute boot time.

I would say if you really insist on going SSD, crucial or Intel would be my top choices.

 

[Captain Murphy]

I understand the reliability aspect, but prefer to have more sata ports available for actual storage. Reliability issues aren't really a thing if you keep proper backups of your config and utilize a mirror USB configuration.

Since I only installed it one time on my server, I don't see a problem with the install process being slow.

Since I never have to reboot my server, boot times don't mean anything to me either. Even if I have to reboot, I'm OK with a minute boot time.

I would say if you really insist on going SSD, crucial or Intel would be my top choices.

Thanks again, are there docs or a "how to" on usb mirroring?

 

[anodos]

Thanks again, are there docs or a "how to" on usb mirroring?

http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_system.html#mirroring-the-boot-device

 

[Captain Murphy]

http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_system.html#mirroring-the-boot-device

Thanks

 

[pirateghost]

Thanks again, are there docs or a "how to" on usb mirroring?

http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_system.html#mirroring-the-boot-device


Damn. Ninja'd

 

[mattbbpl]

Speed of what? The boot process? The saving of the config process? I consider both of these to be low on my priority list.

Personally I prefer to not waste any sata ports and just use USB devices in a mirror config.

Just to weigh in, the use of a SATA port really is the primary consideration here. I'm using an SSD because I have SATA ports to spare. That is not always the case.

If you have the extra port, using an SSD is nice as their failure rate is lower. If you don't, then don't sweat it and use pirateghost's recommendation.

 

[Arwen]

Yes, on my FreeNAS Mini I have SATA ports to spare. It came with a 16GB SATA DOM for booting.
So when I wanted to mirror for reliability, (now while I have money), I bought another SATA DOM.

 

[jgreco]

If you feel like spending a little money, you can also do something like getting a ServeRAID BR10i (cheap old 3Gbps HBA) and a 2.5-to-5.25 bay adapter for the NxxL, and a pair of cheap 30GB SSD's. I got fed up with the whole USB-stick-melting-down-and-losing-bits thing back in the FreeNAS 8 days and that's how the N36L here currently boots, plus, bonus, space for another drive or two.