Which of these SSD's is best for pfSense?

[Aluminum]

You barely need any space for most uses of pfsense, the iops really don't matter as long as handily outperforms your network (which literally all but the absolute crap ones will) so the "best" ssd for endurance is an SLC drive; also older & larger lithography flash is actually better for this because physics.

Intel had some really nice 31x model drives in msata and 2.5" versions, probably still some unopened/unwritten ones out there for cheap.

[zencryptz]

I agree, having done further research the general consesus is that the Samsung 850 EVO's have issues with pfSense. Considering it was also the most expensive drive of the bunch I'll write that off.

So based on the recommendations for an intel drive I found an Intel 535 Series 2.5" SATA SSD/Solid State Drive 120GB, this was one of the smallest I could find. It's a little on the pricey side, not far off at the point where I'd be tempted to throw a bit more at it and grab a Crucial MX200 250GB SSD since I've already got 2 of those and they work like a charm, incredibly fast with random 4k read 100k IOPS and 87k IOPs for write and max read and write smashing the intel drive too and some of the best endurance ratings on consumer SSD's, contains a ton of features and even some enterprise grade features, but you can't go wrong with Intel I guess, thoughts on the 535 series?

Another option I did just think of which might throw a bit of a spanner in the works, what about a 500GB 2.5inch HDD? I was thinking possibly throwing a WD Black 2.5inch drive in there might be a good idea? It should be pretty snappy, it should also be quieter and less noisy than my current setup too?

I understand that the router wont benefit massively from boot times since I wont be rebooting it often, its sat in a cupboard and is running nicely with no downtime since I deployed it. But the reason for the SSD was to make use of squid's caching and also to have a quieter setup, an SSD having no moving parts would eliminate that issue entirely. Also slightly less susceptible to warmer temps as it is sat in a cupboard though the CPU hasn't gone past 46 degrees Celsius so I'm quite happy with that, adding fans to the cabinet soon too.

So options that now stand:
1. Intel 535 120GB SSD
2. Crucial MX200 250GB (only 15 pounds more and will give me much better use if I remove it from the router in the future, just something I like to consider when purchasing parts)
3. Western Digital Black 500GB 2.5" HDD (smallest I could find but was still 10 pound cheaper than the intel drive)
Or any other recommendations?

Let me know your thoughts guys, cheers for the quick responses too, I am really happy to be a part of the pfSense community! I will upload some pictures of my little pfSense build soon too.

Cheers,
Joe

[Guest]

I worry about a physical disk spinning 24/7. Not many 2.5" hard drives are made for that duty cycle. You mentioned squid..

[2chemlud]

2.5'', 3Gb/s SATA, 24/7

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/?cat=hde7s&xf=1080_SATA+3Gb%2Fs%7E3772_2.5%7E1654_geeignet+f%FCr+Dauerbetrieb#xf_top

[zencryptz]

@Phishfry:

I worry about a physical disk spinning 24/7. Not many 2.5" hard drives are made for that duty cycle. You mentioned squid..

Very true, I think I'll go for an SSD then, since it's going to solve more of my issues too such as quieter operation and generally an SSD is going to be faster than a HDD.

@2chemlud:

2.5'', 3Gb/s SATA, 24/7

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/?cat=hde7s&xf=1080_SATA+3Gb%2Fs%7E3772_2.5%7E1654_geeignet+f%FCr+Dauerbetrieb#xf_top

Thank you for the recommendation, little difficult to read the page as you don't seem to be pointing at a specific drive and most of its in German  ???

So anybody got any experience with a particular SSD?

And thoughts on the 2 SSD's that haven't yet been gunned down or written off?:
1. Intel 530 120GB SSD SATA III
2. Crucial MX200 250GB SSD SATA III

From what I can see the MX200 is faster, and it has the bonus of being able to join my current system and be put into a raid with my other MX200 250GB drive should I ever retire it from the router. From what I can see it has incredible endurance too. But having heard people having issues with the SAMSUNG 850 Evo, has anybody had any experience with Crucial SSD's with pfSense? If there's compatibility issues then I'm left with the Intel 530. Anybody had any luck with the Intel 530?

Cheers,
Joe

[2chemlud]

Nope it's a list of HDDs ready for 24/7, so feel free to find a supplier for any of those listed.

Intel is always a good option… ;-)

[zencryptz]

@2chemlud:

Nope it's a list of HDDs ready for 24/7, so feel free to find a supplier for any of those listed.

Intel is always a good option… ;-)

Ohh I see, some of those didn't look like they were rated for 24/7 use. I see one of them is a WD Black haha. Thank you for researching it and providing me with some options though, I greatly appreciate it!

I think I will go with an SSD though, as a HDD will still give me the issue of noise and perhaps minor vibrations which I'd prefer to eliminate.

Intel is indeed a solid reliable choice everytime, it is the cheaper than the MX200 as well, it being smaller helps the price haha.

Can anybody shed some light on past experiences with either the Intel 530 or the Crucial MX200? Or a different drive you've had amazing experiences with?

Thanks,

[cross]

If you have lots of disposable income let me suggest an Intel 730 Model SSDSC2BP240G4R5. Overkill, definitely…why get it? Because you can...

Another interesting choice might be the Seagate 500GB SSHD (Hybrid) Model ST500LM000.

[zencryptz]

@cross:

If you have lots of disposable income let me suggest an Intel 730 Model SSDSC2BP240G4R5. Overkill, definitely…why get it? Because you can...

Another interesting choice might be the Seagate 500GB SSHD (Hybrid) Model ST500LM000.

I most certainly do not have THAT much disposable income!

True I did consider the Seagate SSHD's but i'd still then have a mechanic drive which I'd prefer to avoid, main criteria for this storage upgrade is:
1. Speed
2. Reduced Noise/Vibrations
3. Endurance and Reliability

So an SSD is going to tick all those points.

But thank you for the suggestions! I wish I could an afford an intel 730  ::)

Cheers,
Joe

[Guest]

4. Samsung 2.5 Inch SATA3 850 EVO 120GB SSD/Solid State Drive

Samsung840 EVO or Pro

[bluepr0]

I'm using an Intel 535 120gb with TRIM enabled. No problems at all for now. It was around 70€ on Amazon

[Guest]

The SanDisk Extreme Pro line has a 10 year warranty. That is what I call standing behind your product.
https://www.sandisk.com/home/ssd/extreme-pro-ssd

[Guest]

Just as a counterbalance. Every commercial firewall I have bought off ebay has had a physical spinning disk in it. The Shelf sized Astaro-Sophos and Lanners units use a regular Laptop Hard disk like the guy listed above. All the others I bought had 3.5" disks..

[Guest]

Just as a counterbalance. Every commercial firewall I have bought off ebay has had a physical spinning disk in it.

For sure this might be, but if Squid will be used as a caching proxy server, a SDD will be speeding up much
the entire caching process as I know, and there fore it could be a real win for pfSense together with Squid
as a caching proxy. If not, it does no matter in my eyes, or perhaps if a HAVP AV scanning proxy is in usage.

[jasonlitka]

@Phishfry:

Just as a counterbalance. Every commercial firewall I have bought off ebay has had a physical spinning disk in it. The Shelf sized Astaro-Sophos and Lanners units use a regular Laptop Hard disk like the guy listed above. All the others I bought had 3.5" disks..

My ASAs all have SSDs.

[talos]

I am using this one –> Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 2.5" 60GB MKNSSDCR60GB-7
for several months now with no issues. SWAP is enable but never used as i planed ahead with plenty of RAM. I am very happy with it!

Cheers!

[zencryptz]

@BlueKobold:

4. Samsung 2.5 Inch SATA3 850 EVO 120GB SSD/Solid State Drive

Samsung840 EVO or Pro

Hmm, are you using a samsung 840 EVO or Pro? They're a bit of a pain to find since they're the older generation now.

@bluepr0:

I'm using an Intel 535 120gb with TRIM enabled. No problems at all for now. It was around 70€ on Amazon

I might go with that then, its the cheaper of the SSD's I mentioned and being Intel I would expect a solid reliable experience with fairly quick speeds too. Price isn't too bad for sure.

@Phishfry:

The SanDisk Extreme Pro line has a 10 year warranty. That is what I call standing behind your product.
https://www.sandisk.com/home/ssd/extreme-pro-ssd

Damn, 10 year warranty that is definitely some amount of confidence behind their product, unfortunately the price is a little steeper especially as the smallest capacity is 240GB. Good recommendation though, but based on the price I might give it a pass for the Intel 535 at this point in time. If I were going for 240GB I'd likely go for the cheaper but almost equally as fast and as reliable MX200 from crucial, unless anybody thinks its particularly bad or has compatibility issues?

@BlueKobold:

Just as a counterbalance. Every commercial firewall I have bought off ebay has had a physical spinning disk in it.

For sure this might be, but if Squid will be used as a caching proxy server, a SDD will be speeding up much
the entire caching process as I know, and there fore it could be a real win for pfSense together with Squid
as a caching proxy. If not, it does no matter in my eyes, or perhaps if a HAVP AV scanning proxy is in usage.

I agree, since I have setup ClamAV inside Squid Proxy and I've also got Squid Caching which also uses some disk space too as I dont have a ton of RAM so a good SSD is more preferable to a HDD. Plus a HDD won't solve my criteria of wanting minimal/zero noise and vibration. So SSD is definitely the way forward here. But which SSD is the key question haha.

@Talos:

I am using this one –> Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 2.5" 60GB MKNSSDCR60GB-7
for several months now with no issues. SWAP is enable but never used as i planed ahead with plenty of RAM. I am very happy with it!

Cheers!

Cheers for the recommendation! Personally I dislike Mushkin, had bad experiences with other Mushkin products so I don't really trust their durability and reliability.

So it seems it's still down to either:
1. Intel 535 120GB SSD which is looking like the favourite due to it being Intel and another user recommending it having used it in their pfSense box. MTB of 1.2 million hours

2. Crucial MX200 which is a good durable SSD for a reasonable price though nobody seems to have had any experience with it in pfSense, fast speeds and good all round SSD. MTBF of 1.5 million hours

3. Or an alternative such as Frank's suggestion of an 840 Evo/Pro?

Cheers,
Joe

p.s I really appreciate the ton of suggestions and support guys, I am loving to be a part of the pfSense community, thank you!

[Guest]

Hmm, are you using a samsung 840 EVO or Pro? They're a bit of a pain to find since they're the older generation now.

Old but not bad! Have had no BIOS issue likes the Samsung850 series and no TRIM support problem
as reported by others here in this forum. So cheap to get and very stable.

[bluepr0]

The Intel 535 is being used in official hardware on the pfSense store, so they should be good and reliable for sure!

[zencryptz]

@BlueKobold:

Hmm, are you using a samsung 840 EVO or Pro? They're a bit of a pain to find since they're the older generation now.

Old but not bad! Have had no BIOS issue likes the Samsung850 series and no TRIM support problem
as reported by others here in this forum. So cheap to get and very stable.

Oh, in that case I may well try and take a look for one and see if I can grab a good deal, I'm just conscious of the fact it's last generation's model and so finding a brand new one with a warranty etc. might be tricky!

@bluepr0:

The Intel 535 is being used in official hardware on the pfSense store, so they should be good and reliable for sure!

Oh, wow how stupid of me not to look in the official hardware store of pfSense  :-[ I didn't think to check to see what storage was listed in their own products which they've spent many hours and lots of money testing reliability and compatibility with those components!

Well the Intel is looking like the favourite currently! Since 730 is out of budget, the MX200 is too large thus more expensive and its compatibility with pfSense is unknown and the 840 evo/pro whilst apparently a solid option, especially if Frank is recommending it, it's going to be hard to find one now still with a warranty and for a decent price. The Intel 535 is looking like a winner. My whole pfSense box is going to be purely Intel components at this rate!

Thank you though bluepr0 for spotting that, I'm slightly embarrassed I even asked if it was compatible now  :-[

And thank you Frank as always for your very valued input, I may look around and see what prices the 840's are going for and then make the ultimate decision between the Intel 535 and the Samsung 840.

And thank you to everybody else who took time out of their day to drop me some advice! In love with pfSense and the community at the moment.

Cheers guys!
Joe