What sort of media are people using for the boot volumes?

[S^2]

Hi Folk,

Long term FreeNAS home tinkerer here, I just got some new(er) hardware for an upgrade, and thought I'd give the V10 beta a try - looks very nice, and lots of nice features to try (cli is reminiscent of NetApp cluster.....)

BUT

Its gawd-awful slow to boot! I've got a couple of cheap 8G Lexar usb keys as the boot media (yeah, that's probably the problem right there....) and when I turned it on this evening, it sat at the
org.freenas.dispatcher: Plugin loaded: MigrationPlugin
part of the boot sequence for over 60 min before I tapped the power button (and it shut down gracefully)

I had it running yesterday, including a reboot for an update and it generally started within ~10 min (It's got no diskpools ATM, so I don't leave it running)

What sort of boot media are people using?

(My 'production' 9.10 FreeNAS is actually booting off an old IDE 2.5" drive, as the M/B doesn't do boot from usb!)

Cheers,

Stuart

 

[m0nkey_]

This pretty much applies to almost any version of FreeNAS.

The preferred USB drives are the Sandisk Cruzer or Ultra Fit's, should you want to use USB drives. Always use two of them for a mirrored boot drive. If you want something more reliable, go with a single small SSD, this will give you quicker boot times and faster upgrades.

 

[Arwen]

I use mirrored SATA DOMs. Partly because my FreeNAS Mini came with a 16GB SATA DOM as
the original boot media. And later because it seemed like a good idea for long term reliability. (Also
bought and installed a 2nd SATA DOM for a mirror, to further increase longevity.)

It appears that many USB flash drives are crap. Even the ones that work okay, may not last as long
as a SATA or SAS SSD. In my opinion, this has started to be come noticable since FreeNAS version
9.3 and later use a ZFS boot pool. With an actual, live boot pool, we get 3 new features;

1. Alternate boot environments for updates
2. Easy boot device mirroring
3. Checksum and scrubbing.

It's the last that may have been detecting crappy USB flash drives. Thus, some people are now using
a second USB flash drive as a mirror to increase reliability.

One comment about FreeNAS 10. If you have to buy a new boot device, my recommendation is to
buy 16GB or larger. This allows you to keep several boot environments, as well as potentially moving,
(or leaving), the system dataset to the boot pool.

 

[wblock]

If you have the SATA and power connectors, use an SSD. It is not necessary to hunt for a small one, 120G will work fine, cause no problems, and have extra unallocated space for wear leveling.

 

[Linkman]

I started off with a pair of mirrored USB2.0 Sandisk Fit (or Ultra Fit, whichever is the 2.0 version) and had no issues, but now use a single 60GB SSD.
When I updated one of my other boxes from that 60GB OS boot drive to a larger one, I swapped the USB drives for the re-purposed SSD. A single SSD is IMHO more reliable than a pair of flash drives, and definitely faster on updates.

 

[Mr_N]

A 16GB SLC SATA DOM here :)

 

[chrisada]

I've used a small SSD for boot device for the last 2 years.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[SCS]

Previously I used a single 8GB USB flash Drive. Since I've moved to a proper system in the last few weeks, I moved to two 32GB flash drives mirrored.

 

[S^2]

Thanks Folk!
I'm trying to keep it to a very low budget, so I've now changed to an old sata 2.5" drive, plugged into the IDE (PATA) port via a SATa/IDE adaptor (I want all my SATA ports for data disks!!)
That *might* give you an idea of the age of the motherboard, but it's MUCH better than my current FreeNAS 9.10!
It's much faster, but I am not completely confident about the drive, so I am waiting on a couple more adaptors to at least mirror it.

 

[snaptec]

Small 20gb ssds in a mirror. 15€ each.


Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

 

[S^2]

Small 20gb ssds in a mirror. 15€ each.


Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

Nice.... I can see 32G SSD (KingFast) on ebay for about $23 AU. THis might be my future upgrade!

 

[Stux]

I'm just using dual 16GB Cruiser Fits, the USB3 versions actually... They only get about 40MB/s anyway. Performance seems fine.

Just had a Samsung 840 120GB become available though... so eventually I may get around to replacing them with a single SSD, but maybe I'l also wait for a failure.

They were around 8$ each.

 

[Mr_N]

There's no point (I wouldn't) going cheap SSD/USB, you'll just end up having to replace them eventually (sooner rather than later).

Just spend ~$100 on a 128GB samsung pro 850 and keep a backup of ya config (for when you mess it up the SSD will last forever :p)

 

[SCS]

There's no point (I wouldn't) going cheap SSD/USB, you'll just end up having to replace them eventually (sooner rather than later).

Just spend ~$100 on a 128GB samsung pro 850 and keep a backup of ya config (for when you mess it up the SSD will last forever :p)

I just wanted to say that I ran my last production FreeNAS for about 4 years off of a single 8gb USB flash drive. Never had an issue, with my current in spec configuration I'm only running a set of 32GB Sandisk micro USB drives in a mirror. Although I am planning on moving my System Dataset to the boot volume, at which point I'm getting a set of SATA DOM SSD's or standard 2.5" SSD's mirrored to do so and retire the USB drives.

I think as long as you buy a decent flash drive with plenty of room for the wear leveling you should be fine. I know i'm one use case, but I've read of many others who have also had success with this sort of setup.

Nice.... I can see 32G SSD (KingFast) on ebay for about $23 AU. THis might be my future upgrade!

I would just say be cautious of the life left in a used SSD. I might consider a set of enterprise grade SSD's but I'd want the seller to look them up and spit out the smart data so I knew what I was getting.

 

[S^2]

I would just say be cautious of the life left in a used SSD. I might consider a set of enterprise grade SSD's but I'd want the seller to look them up and spit out the smart data so I knew what I was getting.

I don't think they're used - they're just real cheap (and presumably nasty)
Non the less, in a mirror, I would probably wear the risk with a regular backup of the config so I can rebuild if absolutely required :)

Having said that, I'm only running a home NAS for a few docs/pics and videos & music - I backup the docs/pics, all else I can get again.

 

[S^2]

Also, currently running FreeNAS10 on a spare 2.5" sata drive, through an adaptor to IDE (Don't want to waste those SATA connections!)
Performance is pretty good, not worried about redundancy, as it's just a test of 10 ATM

 

[Jasse Jansson]

How much wear is there on the boot media anyway?
It should hardly be accessed after boot, right?

 

[Evertb1]

I run FreeNAS 9.10 from 2 mirrored USB sticks (Sandisk Ultrafit 32 G). I have them on a small (unpowered) hub connected to a USB header on the mobo. Total costs less then 40 euro. I am happy with it. If they die on me they are easy and quick to replace. The hub is mounted on a tray and is housed in one of my backplanes. Just pull it out (there is enough play on the cable) and replace the broken stick. And of course I have always a recent copy of the config secured if both USB sticks die on me at once. Still no big deal because reinstalling takes about 20 minutes. I am pretty happy with this setup and I am not worried at all about the wear on the sticks.

 

[LaserAllan]

This pretty much applies to almost any version of FreeNAS.

The preferred USB drives are the Sandisk Cruzer or Ultra Fit's, should you want to use USB drives. Always use two of them for a mirrored boot drive. If you want something more reliable, go with a single small SSD, this will give you quicker boot times and faster upgrades.

I use exactly this and almost after 2 years of constant on times, I've not even have one of them die :)

 

[Scharbag]

VMware local storage SSDs is where I keep the FreeNAS images.

For years, I used simple USB keys.