Which of these SSD's is best for pfSense?
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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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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 ReliabilitySo 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 -
4. Samsung 2.5 Inch SATA3 850 EVO 120GB SSD/Solid State Drive
Samsung840 EVO or Pro
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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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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 -
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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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. -
@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.
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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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@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.
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-ssdDamn, 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.
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 hours2. 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,
Joep.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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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. -
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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@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!
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 -
@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> -
@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. -
For a small system with up to 5 users i would assume just about any SSD would be ok. Just do frequent config backups!
If you use squid-cache with more users always go for MLC.
cheap: Sansung EVO or any TLC-Drive (I'd go for something with at least 2Y warranty+)
consumer grade: Intel 510, Intel 520, Intel 535 or Samsung 8X0 Pro are a good bet.
professional grade: Samsung SSD PM8X1, Intel DC 3500 or even 3700Keep in mind that IOPs and r/w Numbers for Consumer SSDs are always peak numbers and for enterprise drives mostly in steady state!
If you want to keep your SSD alive as long as possible just don't use it all. Keep 10-20% free space (at install).
That ensures that even consumer-grade ssds have enough breathing room. You can even leave TRIM off then.tl;dr: EVO (TLC) will be fine for home usage. If it's your companies Firewall go Intel 535 or DC-Grade MLC/eMLC Drives.
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@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>Thanks for throwing this option in, I appreciate it. So it seems some do work, If I had one laying around I'd go for it but since I'm going to be buying a brand new SSD, I'd rather go for one that has solid reviews with pfSense and the 850 Evo has a lot of issues reported by other users, I'm sure its a fantastic SSD and I thank you for offering it up as an option but since so many have problems I'd rather not risk it :)
@BlueKobold:
@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.Certainly sounds like an option, but as I said before, if I had one lay around and thus there was no cost in me trying it out I'd go for it, but since I'll have to risk it and buy one brand new I'd rather not. I think I'm still set on the Intel 535 since pfSense offers it up in their own pre-configured hardware. Seems like a safe and solid option, price is fairly reasonable too. Can't go wrong with Intel either!
For a small system with up to 5 users i would assume just about any SSD would be ok. Just do frequent config backups!
If you use squid-cache with more users always go for MLC.
cheap: Sansung EVO or any TLC-Drive (I'd go for something with at least 2Y warranty+)
consumer grade: Intel 510, Intel 520, Intel 535 or Samsung 8X0 Pro are a good bet.
professional grade: Samsung SSD PM8X1, Intel DC 3500 or even 3700Keep in mind that IOPs and r/w Numbers for Consumer SSDs are always peak numbers and for enterprise drives mostly in steady state!
If you want to keep your SSD alive as long as possible just don't use it all. Keep 10-20% free space (at install).
That ensures that even consumer-grade ssds have enough breathing room. You can even leave TRIM off then.tl;dr: EVO (TLC) will be find for home usage. If it's your companies Firewall go Intel 535 or DC-Grade MLC/eMLC Drives.
Sounds like a good suggestion, I think the Intel 535 having a decent warranty (5 years) and being MLC should be a solid option. Also used by pfSense themselves in their pre-configured units. The price is also quite reasonable for a 120GB model so I think I'll go for that one since that should have more than enough space to only use 10-20% for pfSense and caching.
It's actually for home usage at the moment but I dont want to risk it, I set out to build a solid performer that wont have any downtime or any issues at all. A bulletproof router that I can leave in my cupboard and forget about it.
It looks like the Intel 535 wins this then!
Thanks again everybody for your suggestions and opinions, I am really loving the pfSense community.
Cheers,
Joe -
My apologies if this was already addressed, I might have missed it, but is there still a concern of SSDs wearing out too quickly? I saw the note about the official pfSense hardware using SSDs; are those using the full install or the embedded/NanoBSD install?
I'm also looking into the option of using an SSD in my home pfSense and don't want to have a dead box in a few months due a failed drive.
Thank you for everyone's feedback on the drive discussion, it was very helpful to read all of the replies to Joe. :)
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If you are afraid of wearout go MLC, use TRIM/DISCARD and avoid TLC.
Intel 535 or Samsung 850 Pro are a good bet.
If these still "don't feel safe" go Intel DC3500 or Intel DC3700.
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Thank you! :)
