mSATA drive for SG-4860: a recommended upgrade?
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Hi,
I am still running a SG-4860 unit but experienced many crashes over the years that would require fully reinstalling my unit from a fresh image. I am wondering whether this could be due to a (partially) faulty eMMC.
As I was reading up about it, it seems that I could install an mSATA drive and install pfSense on it, bypassing the eMMC entirely.
Since mSATA drives are reasonably cheap these days, such drives are available in 256GB or 512GB for less than $50.
1/ Has anyone successfully installed an mSATA on a SG-4860 unit and is running pfSense from it without issues?
2/ Is there any speed impact, for better or worse? Since the unit is 10y old and drive speeds have gone up significantly...
3/ Do I need to be careful about the drive's brand or any specs, or will any mSATA drive do? Min or max drive size? mSATA III, etc.Any thoughts or feedback greatly appreciated
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Yes, I would add an mSATA drive. It's not hard to do, you just need to reinstall to it. It's significantly faster than the eMMC. Though pfSense is not really limited by drive speed except at boot or upgrade etc. There are no specific limitations to the drive I'm aware of but I would choose the smallest drive you can. We only ever fitted 32GB drives but I've seen other users with 128 and 256GB drives.
Steve
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Hi Steve
Many thanks for your guidance. I had some 256gb and 512Gb ones in my cart (they are very similar in price), but I downsized to a 128 as per your recommendation.
Hopefully that will solve the issue!
Thanks again -
I expect any of those would work but pfSense doesn't need anything like that size and smaller drives have seen more testing.
