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    Which of these SSD's is best for pfSense?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • ?
      Guest
      last edited by

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

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      • 2
        2chemlud Banned
        last edited by

        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

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        • Z
          zencryptz
          last edited by

          @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

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          • 2
            2chemlud Banned
            last edited by

            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… ;-)

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            • Z
              zencryptz
              last edited by

              @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,

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              • C
                cross
                last edited by

                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.

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                • Z
                  zencryptz
                  last edited by

                  @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

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                  • ?
                    Guest
                    last edited by

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

                    Samsung840 EVO or Pro

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                    • B
                      bluepr0
                      last edited by

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

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                      • ?
                        Guest
                        last edited by

                        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

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                        • ?
                          Guest
                          last edited by

                          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..

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                          • ?
                            Guest
                            last edited by

                            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.

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                            • J
                              jasonlitka
                              last edited by

                              @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.

                              I can break anything.

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                              • T
                                talos
                                last edited by

                                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!

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                                • Z
                                  zencryptz
                                  last edited by

                                  @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!

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                                  • ?
                                    Guest
                                    last edited by

                                    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.

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                                    • B
                                      bluepr0
                                      last edited by

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

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                                      • Z
                                        zencryptz
                                        last edited by

                                        @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

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                                        • I
                                          interfasys
                                          last edited by

                                          @Joe, I don't want you to change your mind, but I've got a 850 EVO which is running just fine.

                                          pass0: <samsung 850="" ssd="" evo="" 120gb="" emt02b6q="">ACS-2 ATA SATA 3.x device
                                          pass0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 512bytes)
                                          
                                          protocol              ATA/ATAPI-9 SATA 3.x
                                          device model          Samsung SSD 850 EVO 120GB
                                          firmware revision     EMT02B6Q
                                          serial number         abcd
                                          WWN                   1234
                                          cylinders             16383
                                          heads                 16
                                          sectors/track         63
                                          sector size           logical 512, physical 512, offset 0
                                          LBA supported         234441648 sectors
                                          LBA48 supported       234441648 sectors
                                          PIO supported         PIO4
                                          DMA supported         WDMA2 UDMA6
                                          media RPM             non-rotating
                                          
                                          Feature                      Support  Enabled   Value           Vendor
                                          read ahead                     yes      yes
                                          write cache                    yes      yes
                                          flush cache                    yes      yes
                                          overlap                        no
                                          Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ)   no       no
                                          Native Command Queuing (NCQ)   yes              32 tags
                                          NCQ Queue Management           no
                                          NCQ Streaming                  no
                                          Receive & Send FPDMA Queued    yes
                                          SMART                          yes      yes
                                          microcode download             yes      yes
                                          security                       yes      yes
                                          power management               yes      yes
                                          advanced power management      no       no
                                          automatic acoustic management  no       no
                                          media status notification      no       no
                                          power-up in Standby            no       no
                                          write-read-verify              yes      no      0/0x0
                                          unload                         no       no
                                          general purpose logging        yes      yes
                                          free-fall                      no       no
                                          Data Set Management (DSM/TRIM) yes
                                          DSM - max 512byte blocks       yes              8
                                          DSM - deterministic read       no
                                          Host Protected Area (HPA)      yes      no      234441648/234441648
                                          HPA - Security                 no</samsung> 
                                          
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                                          • ?
                                            Guest
                                            last edited by

                                            @Joe, I don't want you to change your mind, but I've got a 850 EVO which is running just fine.

                                            Some of the early sold Samsung850 SSDs were coming with a firmware failure and this was fixed by a new
                                            firmware or an upgrade, only infected from or by this might be only the Linux based TRIM support and
                                            other things. So it could really be that joe must only update the firmware to get rid of the problem.

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