Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far
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FWIW, I carelessly burned through the eMMC on my own 6100. After installing a NVMe drive, I spent some time diving into disk writes to discover where the writes originated from. On my system, it turned out that over 90% of the writes resulted from package operations. Yes, over 90% and this is what killed my eMMC. Ultimately, I felt that I was responsible for my own decisions in this regard. You may feel differently.
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@dennypage said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
On my system, it turned out that over 90% of the writes resulted from package operations.
Would you be so kind and name the packages?
Kettop Mi4300YL CPU: i5-4300Y @ 1.60GHz RAM: 8GB Ethernet Ports: 4
SSD: SanDisk pSSD-S2 16GB (ZFS) WiFi: WLE200NX
pfsense 2.7.2 CE
Packages: Apcupsd Cron Iftop Iperf LCDproc Nmap pfBlockerNG RRD_Summary Shellcmd Snort Speedtest System_Patches. -
@dennypage said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
Ultimately, I felt that I was responsible for my own decisions in this regard.
This is true IF you were aware that using packages could have such a negative impact on the drive, and then you decided to do it anyway.
I bought the 6100 base because I knew I didn’t need a lot of storage space, I thought that was the differentiating factor. I didn’t realize I was getting a neutered device.
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@fireodo said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
Would you be so kind and name the packages?
Probably something on this list ("Storage Requirements" column):
@SteveITS said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
Some packages (https://www.netgate.com/supported-pfsense-plus-packages),
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@fireodo said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
Would you be so kind and name the packages?
I can (and will) only speak to the packages that I wrote and/or maintain [Avahi, lldpd, mDNS Bridge, ntopng, nut, and the coming ANDwatch]. Of those, the only one that I would say is a problem would be ntopng, and I recommend using ntopng as a diagnostic tool rather than as a continuous service. FWIW, the need to keep disk writes under control was a significant consideration in ANDwatch development.
There are other commonly used packages that produce significant amounts of disk writes, not all of which are immediately obvious. I believe their maintainers are generally aware of these issues, and are working to address them.
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@dennypage
Thank you for the explanation!
Regards,
fireodo -
Something that might help is increase the default async txg timer, defaults to 5 seconds. I am about to go sleep, but on a couple of pfsense VMs I tested the impact of increasing it and it made a significant dents on writes logged by the hypervisor for the VM. This has no impact on sync writes.
Or maybe if a UPS is detected via one of the the UPS packages, it could reconfigure it or something.When I wake up if I remember I will post the exact tunable to change and the exact savings on writes I got.
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@chrcoluk said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
Something that might help is increase the default async txg timer, defaults to 5 seconds.
See here: Tuning
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@fireodo The txg timeout is the one.
I did also configure 'zfs set sync=disabled' to test and found that made absolutely no difference, all the writes or the vast majority must be async.
The txg timeout also doesnt need to go as high as 120, boosting it to 30 is enough.
So keep zfs set sync as default, and boost 'vfs.zfs.txg.timeout' to 30 is my recommendation to netgate developers.
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@dennypage said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
FWIW, I carelessly burned through the eMMC on my own 6100. After installing a NVMe drive, I spent some time diving into disk writes to discover where the writes originated from. On my system, it turned out that over 90% of the writes resulted from package operations. Yes, over 90% and this is what killed my eMMC. Ultimately, I felt that I was responsible for my own decisions in this regard. You may feel differently.
Don't kick yourself. I have two 6100's that couldn't be more vanilla, zero packages from day one and they only push what I would consider to be light traffic for these units. Over 100% used up...
Probably the default logging rules and ZFS writes did mine in, but I'm not nearly qualified enough to stand by that statement. One is just over 3 years and the other is 2 years. The newer one has some general system logs that look suspect (missing file errors) but again I don't really know what I'm looking at. I will install SSD's in both and hopefully move on.
It would have been nice if there was a doc outlining optimal setup for a base model, or some sort of warning about the limitation of the eMMC. No doubt I would of have ponied up the extra 100 per unit to get the max version. It's a shame, these units just chug along, I would even dare to say bulletproof. That opinion took a little hit after this experience...
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@Jare-0 said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
FWIW, I carelessly burned through the eMMC on my own 6100.
I'm all for people taking responsibility for their actions when they should probably know their actions will have adverse consequences and they've been warned or could reasonably figure out what they're about to do is damaging.
I'm happy with my Netgate products and pfSense. But it's not reasonable to expect people to know better or be responsible for their actions when an ordinary and customary use for a computing device (including documented packages) can run it to failure in barely enough time for the warranty to run out.
Louis Rossmann would love this.
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@Jare-0 said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
I have two 6100's that couldn't be more vanilla, zero packages from day one and they only push what I would consider to be light traffic for these units. Over 100% used up...
Nearly all of our devices are the same - very basic and only have the Zabbix package for monitoring. We are seeing eMMC wearout between 2-3 years in service.
Probably the default logging rules and ZFS writes did mine in, but I'm not nearly qualified enough to stand by that statement. One is just over 3 years and the other is 2 years. The newer one has some general system logs that look suspect (missing file errors) but again I don't really know what I'm looking at.
Our data shows that devices using ZFS have an average write-rate that's 2.5 to 6.5 times more than devices using UFS, so that appears to be what is wearing out the eMMC. This is further supported by the fact that our old 3100 and 7100 devices using UFS that are 6 to 7 years old are still under 50% wear, while our newer 4100 and 6100 with ZFS are the ones that are at 100%+ in under 3 years.
It would have been nice if there was a doc outlining optimal setup for a base model, or some sort of warning about the limitation of the eMMC.
Word is that changes are in the works so we can look forward to that.
No doubt I would of have ponied up the extra 100 per unit to get the max version.
I think many others feel the same way since the cost of an SSD is a fraction of cost of failure. An SSD essentially required one way or the other, so there is no downside to getting the Max version.
I suggest that it makes more sense to consider the "Max" to be the regular version, and the Base is really more of a "Lite" since it cannot perform most pfSense functions without significant compromises.
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@Mission-Ghost said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
@Jare-0 said in Another Netgate with storage failure, 6 in total so far:
FWIW, I carelessly burned through the eMMC on my own 6100.
I'm all for people taking responsibility for their actions when they should probably know their actions will have adverse consequences and they've been warned or could reasonably figure out what they're about to do is damaging.
I'm happy with my Netgate products and pfSense. But it's not reasonable to expect people to know better or be responsible for their actions when an ordinary and customary use for a computing device (including documented packages) can run it to failure in barely enough time for the warranty to run out.
I fully agree.
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Apparently I migrated to USB thumb drive just in time. I rebooted my Netgate 1100 the other day and occasionally it does not recognize the USB thumb drive it is now installed to. Tried to boot from the eMMC and it no longer can.
