USB: yes or no?

[DelagioBr]

Hi all,

I read somewhere that it was recommended to install freenas on an USB drive so you can use all the drives. Then I read somewhere that it was no longer recommended to use the USB.

Can you please provide the current official recommendation and documentation for it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

No longer. See The Official FreeNAS Hardware Guide:

It was once very popular to boot FreeNAS systems from 8 GB or larger USB flash drives, but with the wide variance in USB drive quality and the increased drive writes done to the boot pool by modern FreeNAS versions, it’s advisable to look at other options. For this reason, all FreeNAS Mini and Certified systems ship with either M.2 drives or SATA DOMs. SATA DOMs, or “disk-on-modules”, offer close to the reliability of consumer 2.5” SSDs with a smaller form factor that mounts to an internal SATA port and therefore doesn’t consume a drive bay. Because SATA DOMs and motherboards with m.2 slots are not as common as the other storage devices mentioned here, it is popular to boot FreeNAS systems from 2.5” SSDs and HDDs (often mirrored for added redundancy). 8 GB is the recommended minimum size for the FreeNAS boot volume, but using 16 or 32 GB (or a 120 GB 2.5” SATA SSD) provides room for more boot environments.

 

[ChaosBlades]

Not just the points above but the reason I moved to an SSD was that it took an eternity to boot/reboot FreeNAS off a USB Flash Drive.... Doing an OS
Upgrade... Oof. Thought a couple of times I might die of old age before it finished.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

You have the same experience as I have had when booting from USB to install. It seems to be related to which USB port you use. I had a Dell PowerEdge that couldn't seem to get past the first part of the install when using the front USB ports (or maybe I was just too impatient) but would install, albeit slowly, on the rear USB ports.