eMMC Write endurance

Cabledude

@Cabledude said in eMMC Write endurance:

@stephenw10 said in eMMC Write endurance:

Theoretically yes. Though it's not something I've tried.

I will try it for you as soon as I have some time

Hi @stephenw10,
I'm running into an issue using the net installer to install to USB-powered external SSD. Steps I've taken:

connect USB thumb drive with net installer to SG-1100 USB2 port (next to WAN port)
connect USB-powered external SSD to SG-1100 USB3 port (next to OPT port)
Note: the USB SSD drive is formatted in macOS using MS-DOS (FAT32)
power up device
run usbrecovery
The net installer halts. This is the output I get:

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
Marvell>> run usbrecovery
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1(part 0) is current device

MMC erase: dev # 1, block # 0, count 4194304 ... 4194304 blocks erased: OK
resetting USB...
USB0:   Register 2000104 NbrPorts 2
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.00
USB1:   USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus 0 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus 1 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 2 Storage Device(s) found
** Invalid partition 2 **
Marvell>>

FTR when I try without the ext USB drive the net installer does proceed as normal.

Please advise.

Edit: hang on, when I swap the USB drives the net installer does continue...

So now I get an option to select the ext USB SSD:

But when I hit Enter I instantly get this error message:

Any thoughts on why this happens? USB bus power issue? This SSD is known to only consume 1-2Watts.

...

So I tried an ordinary 8GB USB thumb drive, same kind I used for preparing the net installer. I get the same error message, i.e. "Failed to select the installation disk"

Okay I get it now. I should have put an X in front of the drive I wish to select. Duhhh. My bad.

stephenw10

Yup hit space to select it.

And, yes, it boots the USB3 drive as priority so if you have both connected at boot the installer must be there. But you can swap it back after install to get better drive speeds.

To boot from USB every time you need to change the bootcmd uboot env to run usbboot;

So at the Marvell>> prompt:

setenv bootcmd='run usbboot;'
saveenv
reset

Cabledude

@stephenw10 said in eMMC Write endurance:

Yup hit space to select it.

And, yes, it boots the USB3 drive as priority so if you have both connected at boot the installer must be there. But you can swap it back after install to get better drive speeds.

Cool

I seem to be out of luck again. I tried two different USB drives but I get new error messages which halt the installation process:
#1 installation 24.03 on a different thumb drive:

#2 installation 24.03 on the 120GB SSD:

Not sure if the screen shot is readable. It says "Child process terminated abnormally" and "Failed to reclaim memory"

What could be happening here now?

stephenw10

Hmm, I hit that once but just ran it again and it worked. The 1GB ram on the 1100 is near the limit.

Cabledude

@stephenw10
Yes I was starting to think it could be RAM full. Is it the net installer that occupies extra space in RAM? Is the SG-1100 even a viable option moving forward into 2025 and beyond? Especially if every new release may need more RAM to install?

Might it be an idea to install 23.09 through the net installer (maybe less/smaller files?) and then perform upgrade to 24.03 via GUI?

stephenw10

I would have expected a direct install to 24.03 to be lower requirement. I have been installing images to an 1100 for a few days and it should work.

JonathanLee

Disable logging that is not needed all the time, and or use a usb drive and set the system to log to it..

Cabledude

@JonathanLee said in eMMC Write endurance:

Disable logging that is not needed all the time, and or use a usb drive and set the system to log to it..

Thanks Jonathan. However this issue is about a fresh install to USB storage, bypassing the eMMC. Here, the installation fails i.e. RAM appears to be full during file copying to USB drive.

stephenw10

Is it consistently failing at the same point?

Cabledude

@stephenw10
No is failed at two different points. But installation finished successfully on the 3rd try, 2nd try with the external SSD as target drive.

Strangely, in the console startup of the new installation, the unit requires to change the default admin password from pfsense to a user chosen password. I've never seen that before.

Main thing is I got it working now.

So basically adding the SSD turns an EOL SG-1100 (EOL due to broken eMMC) back into a MINT unit, if I understand this correctly.

Cabledude

@stephenw10 said in eMMC Write endurance:

To boot from USB every time you need to change the bootcmd uboot env to run usbboot;

So at the Marvell>> prompt:
setenv bootcmd='run usbboot;'
saveenv
reset

Thanks for this by the way, yet at this point I don't understand what it's for. After the installation finished I unplugged the net installer thumb drive and swapped the SSD to the 1100's USB3 port and it is consistently booting from the SSD now.

Cabledude

@stephenw10

I am continuing this in a separate topic as I am running into more issues and I don't want to pollute this eMMC topic more than I already have.

michmoor

@keyser Dont know what i was searching for when i found this post but wow...very timely.
eMMC is proving to be a very disastrous move based on frequent topics here and on reddit.

@keyser you called it out over 2 years ago about how this will be problematic.

Cabledude

@michmoor
Very good of you to call in. Which model do you have?
Just want to say that I have good experience with an SG-1100 running on external SSD. The eMMC is largely gone but the unit is performing flawlessly.

andrew_cb

@michmoor said in eMMC Write endurance:

@keyser Dont know what i was searching for when i found this post but wow...very timely.
eMMC is proving to be a very disastrous move based on frequent topics here and on reddit.

@keyser you called it out over 2 years ago about how this will be problematic.

Yep, it seems that @keyser was onto this issue 2 years ago, and there are even other threads from 3 and 4 years ago as well.

Crazy that no eMMC endurance figures are given, no emmc-utils package included in base, no eMMC or SMART monitoring enabled by default, default logging firewall logging settings that can cause a lot of writes, no obvious mention about using ramdisks, insufficient warnings about packages, no mention of any limitations on the product pages... and somehow the only response is to blame the user...

Oh, and the eMMC in the 4200 CANNOT be monitored, and the emmc-utils package is NOT available in the CE repo!

Nearly 20k views in this sub-forum alone and another 80k from my Reddit PSAs about storage failure. Plus all the other posts here and on the forum. Many users that read my PSA were unaware that they needed to monitor their storage health, and many discovered that their eMMC was significantly or critically worn.

eMMC Write endurance: 12.3k views, 72 posts
Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far: 6.2k views, 81 posts
6100 Failed eMMC replaced with NVme but now no longer reboots: 1.1k views, 21 posts

This issue has been swept under the rug for far too long. Too many users have been blamed for 'misusing' their Netgate device due to some arbitrary criteria. The problem is undeniable. How much more is needed before Netgate commits to specific actions to address storage failures?

Cabledude

@andrew_cb the topics you are listing are quite problematic. Surely a quality company, Netgate must be eager to assist the customers involved I suppose?

michmoor

@andrew_cb seems maybe they’re still looking into it or hoping the problem is goes away?

stephenw10

We are looking into it.

JasonTracy

@stephenw10 I've got a 1100 that I talked my parents into buying 2 years ago. They're retired, don't use a ton of Internet & I've not installed any packages with high writes.

Just checked my eMMC on it, and it is showing 50-80% wear:

eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x05
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x08
eMMC Pre EOL information [EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO]: 0x01

They're 1,700 miles away, and I'll be visiting them in April. I'd really like to know the best way to remediate this by that point.

I understand I'm not a big business user, but I went the path of buying Netgate hardware precisely because I expected it to be more reliable than a TP-Link router or whatever SFF PC I could build off Amazon. Being able to remotely support my parent's Internet from several states away is important to me.

If there is documentation on the best way to replace the eMMC, or add other storage to the 1110 in a supported way, I'd love to see it. Thank you!

stephenw10

Re-installing as UFS with RAM disks reduces drive writes to almost zero. Enabling RAM disks with ZFS reduces it significantly. If you're not running any hungry packages you should be able to do that.

Otherwise it's possible to install and run from USB on the 1100.