Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    PfSense w/Squid: SSD still ill-advised?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
    15 Posts 9 Posters 2.8k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • ?
      Guest
      last edited by

      It really depends on the workload and the SSD. A big SSD with reasonable firmware will do fine. But a small SSD with crappy firmware in a high-load setup will die within months.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • K
        kejianshi
        last edited by

        The write duration is the write duration.  If the specs suit your needs, it should be fine.

        I've been running several old SSDs for about 6 years for pfsense and none have failed.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ?
          Guest
          last edited by

          @kejianshi:

          The write duration is the write duration.  If the specs suit your needs, it should be fine.

          I've been running several old SSDs for about 6 years for pfsense and none have failed.

          Well, Squid might hammer with tiny writes all day long, and that could have an impact bigger than you'd expect. Hard to put a number on the amount of writes, but I suspect it's a non-standard workload (from a desktop perspective).

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • K
            kejianshi
            last edited by

            My disks are old SLC drives and I love SLC.

            I am currently only running mlc tlc vnand etc on desktop computers.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ?
              Guest
              last edited by

              @kejianshi:

              My disks are old SLC drives and I love SLC.

              I am currently only running mlc tlc vnand etc on desktop computers.

              Yeah, one of those marketing wank nand (3d nand? v-nand?) had an issue where if you did a lot of tiny writes, i.e. use it as a log device or ZIL, it would die really fast because the only way they could make it fast and reliable was to optimise the firmware for desktop use or something like that.

              Too bad they don't ship SLC more often, it's mostly the older or more expensive DC-type SSDs that get that.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • K
                kejianshi
                last edited by

                I think there are still a few never used SLC drives out there from years ago for sale.

                You can buy modern SLC drives also, but they cost a fortune…  Probably because they are no better than the MLC, TLC etc etc drives (joke).

                Have you noticed that people will completely lose their cool if you insinuate that SLC is better?  Seems like the price would give it away.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • V
                  vjekob
                  last edited by

                  Could you give an example of a good used SLC drive to look for ?

                  I bought a fanless i3 7100U /16GB mini pc considering running
                  either pfsense directly on hardware or pfsense + cisco virtual
                  wireless controller as VM's on ESXI (all newbie territory to me)
                  and was wondering whether I would need something better
                  than eg an Intel S3500 SSD (have a couple of small /120GB laying around)
                  i.e. something like an S3700 (more write intensive) ?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • V
                    VAMike
                    last edited by

                    @kejianshi:

                    I think there are still a few never used SLC drives out there from years ago for sale.

                    You can buy modern SLC drives also, but they cost a fortune…  Probably because they are no better than the MLC, TLC etc etc drives (joke).

                    Have you noticed that people will completely lose their cool if you insinuate that SLC is better?  Seems like the price would give it away.

                    They're more expensive mainly because they're much lower density/lower yield, and low demand/low volume parts. There's no way a squid instance on someone's home network is going to push through the write limits of even a consumer grade SSD.

                    That said, I second the opinion that implementing squid is mostly a waste of time that will slow things down, regardless of the drive choice.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ?
                      Guest
                      last edited by

                      Running Squid will have a few small use cases like limited connections where speed isn't the issue but traffic cost is, or as stated before, ACL.

                      Most setups will have a serious negative impact with Squid because of the added latency and the ton of crap websites load today to display a simple page.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • H
                        Harvy66
                        last edited by

                        You really need to know your use case. Many are saying squid gives less than a 1% hit rate for the modern internet. Places where it could really help is caching updates, but these kinds of issues may work better using a special purpose cache. like WSUS for Windows Updates.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • K
                          kejianshi
                          last edited by

                          I'm not actually a proponent of squid for most people either.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Yup, both those things are true IMO:

                            Any half decent SSD should have no problems. Most of the bad rep comes from early cheap drives.

                            Squid is of very limited value for most users.

                            Steve

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                              last edited by

                              Chime in as well on this.  Any current SSD is not going to have any sort of issues.. They have 100's of  TBs of writes in their life.. No possible way your going to come close to this in some home system proxy in any amount of time where that drive would have been replaced normally from just being old and slow..

                              And 2nd to be honest the use of proxy in a home setup for "caching" purposes in modern internet pretty pointless.  Are you wanting to filter your you son's or something from p0rn?  if so there is prob easier solutions based upon dns vs actual proxy that would be easier to implement and manage, etc.

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • First post
                                Last post
                              Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.