pfSense klilled my SSD AGAIN

A

AMD_Gamer

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Jan 20, 2002
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My pfSense box has once again killed my Kingston SSDNow S100 16GB that i use for its drive. This is about the same length of time the first drive died in since i started using it. I already went through the RMA process once.

Do you think these Kingston drives are crap or pfSense is killing it with constant writes to it? I remember on the pfSense forums people said this used to be an issue but newer version of pfSense and SSD's with TRIM fix this?

If you look on Newegg a lot of people report this drive dieing http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139428
 
I've had pfSense 2.0 installed on a CompactFlash to SATA adapter with a 4GB card and it's worked fine for probably two years now. It's been that way since back when 2.0 was still called 1.3. Not the embedded version either, the full install.

So, I don't think it's pfSense that is killing your SSD.

Riley
 
I too have IPCop installed on a CF to IDE adapter in my SFF box, again, the full version not the embedded/flash version.

I do have 512MB of pc133 in there though, not sure how much that will keep the disk/flash read/writes down!?

I would have thought that a full blown SSD would be able to handle whatever load that PFSense would be putting on it.

Maybe you`ve had your two from a bad batch or something or maybe, as you`ve linked to, they are just crap devices!?
 
dashpuppy said:
Maybe you should conver to Untangle
Click to expand...

Not helping Dash. :p

I wouldn't describe the Kingston drives as crap. I've used a couple of them here and there for low powered, sff builds; and interestingly enough in a pfSense box a while back - probably around April. User hasn't reported any issues so far.

If it can help - have you considered switching over to a laptop HDD or CF card? Close enough to low-power and not so much of PITA as having to deal with a dead SSD all the time.
 
Had my PF Sense box running on an IDE-to-SD Card adapter for the last 4 years or so using a generic SanDisk 1gb card. no issues here and logging quite a bit.
 
What is the recommended space for pfSense? i read that it can log a lot of data.
 
Two things to remember here- the embedded version that runs on a CF card will NOT support packages.
Second, did you read this? http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=34381.0

Now, I do not trust those little Kingston drives due to the high failure rate. I have lost two of them within 6 months on just a little streaming audio PC I built. Just recently I replaced it with a small sata laptop drive due to simplicity.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
What is the recommended space for pfSense? i read that it can log a lot of data.
Click to expand...

It's subjective - based on the user and added features. As Nate7311 said, he has it on 1GB CF card and it's still alive. I think Squid logs quite a bit.
 
The Spyder said:
Two things to remember here- the embedded version that runs on a CF card will NOT support packages.
Second, did you read this? http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=34381.0
Click to expand...
While it isn't recommended you can install the full version to a CF card. I wrote a tutorial on the pfSense forums on how to do it like two years ago.
I've been running the full version on a CF card for almost 3 years without an issue or dead CF card.

edit: I remember why I wrote the tutorial now, I was using an Alix2D3 that didn't have video output so you can't install on the machine, it needs to be done through a VM.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
What is the recommended space for pfSense? i read that it can log a lot of data.
Click to expand...

It can. But that requires you to set up that logging and the recycle timeframe. The default installs don't log a whole lot. It's the voluntary logging and the extra package logging that'll explode your capacity needs. After 4 yearsof running my PF Sense box on 5 different versions, and 90days of logging for the Firewall and logging Snort, and Bandwidth D, I've been fine.

Now that I've said that... I'm sure I'll go home to find it has failed...:rolleyes:
 
add the option noatime to your /etc/fstab for the SSD drive .. every time it's accessing any file, it's doing an extra write to the last access time attribute for the files, and killing you faster.
 
Lot of myths to debunk here. First, pfSense is NOT killing your SSD. It doesn't write nearly enough to do so. The logs are all in a RAM disk on all versions, never touch the drive. Certain packages can cause more writes, like Squid especially if you're caching, but even at that it'll take many years to reach the write limits of the SSD if you're getting the lifetime you should be. It's not the software.

If you want to cut down the number of writes further, you can run the nanobsd embedded version on the SSD. It DOES have package support contrary to another post here. Though a couple packages aren't supported because they require read-write mounts on the drive, and some packages are only supported with certain options (like you can run Squid, but not with a cache). Though I would run the full install on SSD personally (and do, have yet to kill one, but I use Intel SSDs).

Lastly, if writes are killing it (they aren't), Untangle will kill it a whole lot faster. And push packets much slower in the process.
 
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