Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    6100 / 8200 SSD Wearouts

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Official Netgate® Hardware
    21 Posts 6 Posters 2.1k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • E
      Eria211 @stephenw10
      last edited by

      @stephenw10 is there a particular setting you are interested in?

      The smallest Message Cache Size I think is 4MB and there's no option for zero

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • E
        Eria211 @SteveITS
        last edited by

        @SteveITS Do you use pfblockerNG? I would like to use a RAM disk but I'd also like pfblockerNG to survive the reboot, crash, or a power failure without needing to reinstall or force a reload each time

        This is all a bit demoralising as I don't believe (at this time) that I've got a crazy config that is inflicting this high wear as a consequence

        S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          I assume you are using DNS-BL? That requires Unbound.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S
            SteveITS Galactic Empire @Eria211
            last edited by

            @Eria211 We use pfBlocker and Suricata, and RAM disks, on all but a couple installs. We don’t use DNSBL though fwiw.

            https://forum.netgate.com/topic/180319/pfblockerng-with-ram-disk/2

            Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
            When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
            Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              I use DNS-BL with ram disks but only with a limited list. Just basic ad-blocking.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • A
                azdeltawye @Eria211
                last edited by azdeltawye

                @Eria211
                This thread got me curious to check my system. I have a 4100-MAX that has been in service for about 10 months. I ran a SMART test and was alarmed to see that I have already written over 6 TB and used up 7% of the drive life!

                How do I use the top command to find out what is driving all this use?

                
                === START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
                SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
                
                SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
                Critical Warning:                   0x00
                Temperature:                        37 Celsius
                Available Spare:                    100%
                Available Spare Threshold:          1%
                Percentage Used:                    7%
                Data Units Read:                    22,625 [11.5 GB]
                Data Units Written:                 12,966,318 [6.63 TB]
                Host Read Commands:                 317,838
                Host Write Commands:                893,042,733
                Controller Busy Time:               3,974
                Power Cycles:                       38
                Power On Hours:                     6,553
                Unsafe Shutdowns:                   24
                Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
                Error Information Log Entries:      0
                Warning  Comp. Temperature Time:    0
                Critical Comp. Temperature Time:    0
                Temperature Sensor 1:               56 Celsius
                Temperature Sensor 2:               37 Celsius
                Temperature Sensor 3:               38 Celsius
                Temperature Sensor 4:               37 Celsius
                Thermal Temp. 1 Transition Count:   1
                Thermal Temp. 1 Total Time:         23597
                
                Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 64 entries)
                No Errors Logged
                
                Self-tests not supported
                
                A 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • A
                  azdeltawye @azdeltawye
                  last edited by azdeltawye

                  So experimenting with the top command I tried this:

                  top -m io -u unbound
                  last pid: 21501; load averages: 0.50, 0.41, 0.33 up 55+18:54:38 13:10:18
                  86 processes: 3 running, 83 sleeping
                  CPU: 8.7% user, 2.8% nice, 12.0% system, 0.0% interrupt, 76.4% idle
                  Mem: 447M Active, 490M Inact, 642M Wired, 56K Buf, 2222M Free
                  ARC: 262M Total, 79M MFU, 165M MRU, 6291K Anon, 1563K Header, 10M Other
                  209M Compressed, 567M Uncompressed, 2.72:1 Ratio
                  Swap: 6144M Total, 6144M Free

                  Does this confirm that the unbound process is the cause of the excessive drive activity?

                  E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • E
                    Eria211 @azdeltawye
                    last edited by Eria211

                    @azdeltawye I ran top -aSH -m io -o total and took a screenshot

                    I think if many more people posted their smart data here, we would probably discover that the wearout is a real problem experienced by many people.

                    I wish the included drive had been ~256GB, as at least that would have given a greater capacity to wear out over time and significantly reduced the wear levels we are experiencing. If I had known this would be an issue I would have replaced each SSD before deployment.

                    If you google generally in this area, quite a few people seem to have had SSD issues and there appear to have been many identified reasons. Still, most of the posts I've sampled just go quiet without a conclusion being identified (might just be my sample however).

                    A post on this forum from 2018 is identical to my issue, which is sad:

                    https://forum.netgate.com/post/998181

                    A highlighted pair of posts that chime strongly with my experience:

                    https://forum.netgate.com/topic/165993/should-i-be-using-unbound-python-mode-is-it-stable/6?_=1706907654864

                    https://forum.netgate.com/topic/165993/should-i-be-using-unbound-python-mode-is-it-stable/8?_=1706907654866

                    I'm currently reading through it to see if there's anything I can do to stop my wearout situation from getting worse

                    M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • M
                      mcury @Eria211
                      last edited by

                      [23.09.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.home.arpa]/root: iostat -x
                                              extended device statistics  
                      device       r/s     w/s     kr/s     kw/s  ms/r  ms/w  ms/o  ms/t qlen  %b  
                      nda0           0       5      1.1     32.7     0     0     0     0    0   0 
                      pass0          0       0      0.0      0.0     0     0     0     0    0   0 
                      

                      What I found in my SG-4100 is really weird.
                      A few days ago, I enabled DNSBL to check something in another post, a few days after I disabled it.
                      I thought that my IO would go down after that but guess what, it didn't.

                      So, I decided to perform a clean install and restored my configuration file and boom, IO is down again.
                      In this new installation, DNSBL has never been enabled.

                      I suppose there is something wrong with DNSBL right now.. not sure yet, perhaps it was something with previous setup..

                      dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                      S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • S
                        SteveITS Galactic Empire @mcury
                        last edited by

                        @mcury you didn’t specify so I’ll ask…did you restart at that point or just go ahead and reinstall?

                        @Eria211 try the RAM disk it should help immensely. Do you have the UT1 or another giant list like that configured?

                        Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                        When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                        Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M
                          mcury @SteveITS
                          last edited by

                          @SteveITS said in 6100 / 8200 SSD Wearouts:

                          you didn’t specify so I’ll ask…did you restart at that point or just go ahead and reinstall?

                          you mean, a restart after disabling DNSBL ? Not that I remember.
                          What I'm sure about is that when I checked iostat output, the device was UP for days..

                          dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • S
                            SteveITS Galactic Empire @mcury
                            last edited by

                            @mcury Yes, just wondering out loud if a restart would have cleared that condition. If not, that would imply something was changed/bad that wasn’t in the configuration, yet is persistent.

                            Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                            When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                            Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • First post
                              Last post
                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.