SSD (Solid State Drive) and pfSense (Important)
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thanks for this post.
thought id chime in myself and say, that i had gotten a kingston SSDNow 16 GB ssd, in hopes of having a fast and silent box.all went well for about 2 and a half months until wham, the drive died.
got a new one from kingston since it was well within the manufacturers warranty.Hi – sorry this happened to you. The SSD I bought was a Kingston SSD S100 8 GB. I installed everything and got all of pfSense setup and was able to change every setting except RRD logging. You can disable most all writing except the RRD backend which writes all of those graphs every 1 minute. If we come up with a fix for that the SSD concept would be great. Only way would be to disable RRD and that's not a great option.
Hopefully your crash didn't take you down too long and everything turned out ok. I bailed last minute on the SSD idea until we figure it all out.
The manufacturers don't explain the dangers of the SSDs and they put the life as "1,000,000 hours" in their specs. Only problem is that must be either in off mode or read only. 10,000 writes per memory cell is not a lot at all and everyone should think twice before using the SSDs.
Now, the pfSense LiveCD loads the entire file system in to RAM which would be perfect. If they create a SSD version of pfSense that in essence is the LiveCD image but allows mounting a Read Only file system for normal operations and only mounts Read/Write for config changes then this system would be perfect for SSDs. I would rather lose my RRD data on reboots then lose the entire drive and take down all WAN traffic...
Very sorry that the system crashed, these SSDs sure are not what they seem like.
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Do you need to do all these if you use nanobsd version?
I have been using compact flash drives two years now without a single problem.
In nanobsd version i thing even the logs are kept in RAM.
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Do you need to do all these if you use nanobsd version?
I have been using compact flash drives two years now without a single problem.
In nanobsd version i thing even the logs are kept in RAM.
That's a very good question. I myself have never used the nanobsd version so I am not certain on that. Maybe that version does use ram entirely and only mounts the SSD/drive in read-only and read/write for config changes. If that's the case maybe I will go the nanobsd route. It's always a good idea to limit writes regardless but that sure would be better then the regular version on a SSD.
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Do you need to do all these if you use nanobsd version?
I have been using compact flash drives two years now without a single problem.
In nanobsd version i thing even the logs are kept in RAM.
Just checked on some things and the nanobsd version may not be a concern. It looks like you're right and the file system is loaded in to memory. Someone can hopefully confirm this for you but I think you are ok.
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Just confirmed and the NanoBSD version is not effected.
Here is information regarding your question from the pfSense site:
"The embedded version is specifically tailored for use with any hardware using Compact Flash rather than a hard drive. CF cards can only handle a limited number of writes, so the embedded version runs read only from CF, with read/write file systems as RAM disks. "
I will update my posting to exclude nanobsd/embedded version.
This may also be the way for others to use the SSD and pfSense without issues. I may do this myself. Thank you for posting that it sparked some ideas.
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If you are testing this with a Nano installation you should be aware that there is currently a bug in 2.0rc1 which means that the filesystem is left RW after boot. It should be RO.
However it does not cause any undue writes as everything is set to run from RAM as you say.
If you check the filesystem don't be alarmed to find it's still RW, as I was! ;)Steve
Edit: Bug listed here.
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If you are testing this with a Nano installation you should be aware that there is currently a bug in 2.0rc1 which means that the filesystem is left RW after boot. It should be RO.
However it does not cause any undue writes as everything is set to run from RAM as you say.
If you check the filesystem don't be alarmed to find it's still RW, as I was! ;)Steve
Edit: Bug listed here.
Hey Steve – thanks for the heads up! I did install pfSense back to the SSD. I went the embedded route and I took my 8GB SSD drive and loaded the 4GB nano image (didn't really need the extra space). It booted and loaded in to ram and solved my problem. Everything including RRD, /tmp and logs all run from ram now. According to stats the disk writes are virtually nothing except for config file changes. Only downside to running on embedded is you lose the VGA/Keyboard console and have to go serial to configure but not really an issue. Who knows maybe going this route will be more reliable because VGA isnt being loaded.
This looks like the perfect solution for SSDs (the same setup as CF). pfSense really did take these issues in to account when they created the embedded/CF version.
Thanks for the help everyone.
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Just checked on some things and the nanobsd version may not be a concern. It looks like you're right and the file system is loaded in to memory. Someone can hopefully confirm this for you but I think you are ok.
The nanobsd version can be configured to write out the logs/ RRD data at specific intervals like 30 minutes or 1 hour etc. This allows you to retain information across reboots and yet heavily reduce the amount of I/O to the SSD/ CF.
Next on the point of the SSD, most controllers are optimized for Windows (unfortunately). They rely on the Trim command to do garbage collection.
However, the Indilinx based drives (OCZ Vertex, Corsair X128 etc) have hardware level garbage collection which isn't as efficient but beats having none under *nix. This would be useful to improve general performance in the long run.The Sandforce based drives offer very very impressive write amplification and compression algorithms. This would be good for wear levelling and long term reliability. A write amplification of 0.5X means that The equivalent wear and tear in the long run is half the data being written. This is obtained through clever compression tricks and since the RRD/ log data is easily compressible, this is very effective as well.
SSDs like the OCZ Vertex 2(e), Gskill Phoenix Pro use the the Sandforce controllers.I did a short write-up on the OCZ Vertex 2E drive here:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/old-dog-new-tricks-ocz-vertex-2e-reviewed/10323.htmlThe first section lists out the very basic pros of using the Sandforce controller and how it helps reduce the amount of write penalty in terms of performance and wear and tear as well.
Also in the testing is the Indilinx based drive which will show the difference between the effectiveness of garbage collection algorithms between the 2 controllers and the performance differences as well.Of note is the difference between the compressible and incompressible data testing. If you're running embedded with mostly compressible data written (logs and such), the Sandforce is likely to be a better choice.
If you run Squid and most of the content being cached are large compressed EXE files or video files, then the Indilinx is likely to be your best bet. -
If you want to have VGA and console output at the same time, you can use Hacom nanobsd Pfsense images:
http://www.hacom.net/catalog/pub/pfsense
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SSD?
pfsense system spec:
wyse 3455xl
Ram 256 SDRAM
HD: 4 gig SSD IDE DOM
NIC: 4 Ethernet (intel) dr0-WAN, dr1-LAN, dr2-OPT1, dr3-OPT2I installed on a 4 gig DOM SSD by Live CD for about 10 days now. I saw FJSchrankJr post a warning about SSD. What is the best solution for me? Can I load the nanobsd image by the Gui to fix my problem? or I have to reinstall from clean install.
Thank
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The nanobsd version can be configured to write out the logs/ RRD data at specific intervals like 30 minutes or 1 hour etc. This allows you to retain information across reboots and yet heavily reduce the amount of I/O to the SSD/ CF.
Can you explain this process (or link to the page)? I just picked up a 4GB CF card to run my pfSense 2.0 install from and it'd be great to keep the graphs. Thanks!
Jim
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What is the best solution for me? Can I load the nanobsd image by the Gui to fix my problem? or I have to reinstall from clean install.
You will want to switch to either the embedded install, sellected when you install from CD, or a NanoBSD image. You will want to do it quickly before your DOM dies! ;)
You can probably backup your config file and restore it to the fresh install. You can't switch the install type from the GUI.
Steve
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Thank Steve
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FYI I've had 1.23 full install running on a 40gb intel ssd (spare at time)for at least 1.5years so far. No issues.
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Do you have a lot of ram in that machine, enough to prevent swapping?
With a 40GB drive I imagine you will have a lot of empty space, the ware leveling on the drive will swap data around such that 10,000 writes can go along way.
Even so I'd keep checking the SMART status of the drive if I were you.
Steve
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Note the logs are kept in RAM whether you're running a full install or nanobsd.
A lot of people are running normal full installs on SSD. Sure they don't have infinite writes, but it's enough it should on average last as long as a typical hard drive. It's unlikely you're touching swap at all on your firewall, if you are you have serious issues.
Can you explain this process (or link to the page)?
Check Diagnostics>Nanobsd, the settings for the periodic automatic copy to CF of RRD data are there.
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@cmb:
A lot of people are running normal full installs on SSD. Sure they don't have infinite writes, but it's enough it should on average last as long as a typical hard drive. It's unlikely you're touching swap at all on your firewall, if you are you have serious issues.
Hmmm, that's interesting. I assume you are talking about larger, HDD replacement type drives such as tester_02's 40GB?
I did some research on this a while ago and came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the extra investment in a firewall appliance. The speed increase provided by a SSD is unlikely to be of much benefit except in boot up time which doesn't count for much.
I suppose there are enough people running a Windows install from SSD that we'd be seeing failures by now if it was a problem.I'd be interested to hear the reasons behind running an SSD from anyone doing so.
Steve
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SSD?
pfsense system spec:
wyse 3455xl
Ram 256 SDRAM
HD: 4 gig SSD IDE DOM
NIC: 4 Ethernet (intel) dr0-WAN, dr1-LAN, dr2-OPT1, dr3-OPT2I installed on a 4 gig DOM SSD by Live CD for about 10 days now. I saw FJSchrankJr post a warning about SSD. What is the best solution for me? Can I load the nanobsd image by the Gui to fix my problem? or I have to reinstall from clean install.
Thank
Hi – if you are running off of the LiveCD then everything is mounted in memory. However, if you install that the file system will be loaded to your hard drive.
The only way that I know of to switch to nanobsd version is to do a clean install like I did. I should warn you that once you load NanoBSD version everything except the config files will be running in RAM and 256 might not be enough. In the past I had been running on 256 and a hard drive install with no problem but when I switched to NanoBSD version (upgraded to 512Mb RAM) I did run out of memory. I am not sure if it was some type of memory leak or cache but I will have to install more memory because the system almost crashed.
The easiest way to upgrade is to make a config backup, write the NanoBSD image to the drive and boot. If your main firewall cannot go down then try to find another machine to act as a mirror. That's how I did it, then just restored the config and I was up and running. Good luck!
I did notice on pfSense 1.2.3 the Embedded option during the LiveCD install was not the NanoBSD version but just the disabled vga version. Make sure you use the NanoBSD version from the download mirrors.
CORRECTION: 256Mb is more than enough RAM for a base embedded install. However, adding additional packages, logging, etc. where memory usage will be higher consider using memory of 512Mb+.
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FYI I've had 1.23 full install running on a 40gb intel ssd (spare at time)for at least 1.5years so far. No issues.
Some SSD drives use hard drive controllers that spread wear across the entire drive. 40GB drive would give the controller plenty of space to spread. If you are not running NanoBSD or an optimized regular install, you will eventually crash. SSDs and Compact flash should be treated the same way. One of the main reasons for the NanoBSD version was to address the CF write limitations.
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256MB should be no problem, as long as you don't have a memory leak! :P
That's the standard amount in the Watchguard X-Core and there are many people running that with NanoBSD.
Steve
