Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?

furom

Hi,

I am thinking in terms of performance benefits mostly. Will I gain any by switching to say, a 32GB M.2 SATA drive over the built-in 8GB I have today?? I certainly don't need more storage space, so would it just be waste to do this?

I saw that no SSDs are available from Netgate Shop? What kinds are supported or even optimal for use in an 2100?

Thanks

keyser

@furom There is no noticable performance difference, so the only reasons to upgrade would be:

1: You need space for large amounts of log files or other package content.

2: You log a lot (but rotate logs so diskspace is not an issue).
Massive logging in firewall rules and other packages like pfBlockerNG, Suricata, Snort and NtopNG can pretty quickly wear out the write endurance of the 8Gb eMMC module. A large Sata SSD can prevent this (all modern SSD’s has wear leveling and thus can sustain A LOT of writing).

The SG-2100 takes a standard keyed M.2 SATA (NOT NVMe) 2242 SSD

SteveITS

A couple comments...
On a 2100 if you aren't using all 4 GB of memory using a RAM disk can help avoid disk writes. We also turn off logging of the default block rules...saves a lot of noise.

re: performance, pretty much only during pfSense upgrades. Otherwise there isn't a lot of disk usage unless there's a lot of logging.

re: eMMC wear/life, Netgate has an article about that.

re: m.2 drives, there's a doc on that too. I vaguely recall they don't officially support swapping drives, instead they sell a Max version of many routers with an SSD.

TL,DR, I wouldn't bother unless you need to per https://www.netgate.com/supported-pfsense-plus-packages.

furom

@steveits said in Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?:

re: eMMC wear/life, Netgate has an article about that.

Thank you both for very good advice! I did check my eMMC wear and got this response (after translation);

A: 0x03 - The disk has used 20%-30% of its estimated life time
B: 0x04 - The disk has used 30%-40% of its estimated life time

So are there two eMMC banks? If I interpret this correctly (and not absolute) it should be good for at least another couple of years at my current usage. I learned more stuff today and are grateful for that, will keep an eye on this from now on. Would be awesome if it could be read from the GUI too... :)
Thanks!

keyser

@furom said in Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?:

@steveits said in Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?:

re: eMMC wear/life, Netgate has an article about that.

Thank you both for very good advice! I did check my eMMC wear and got this response (after translation);
A: 0x03 - The disk has used 20%-30% of its estimated life time
B: 0x04 - The disk has used 30%-40% of its estimated life time
So are there two eMMC banks? If I interpret this correctly (and not absolute) it should be good for at least another couple of years at my current usage. I learned more stuff today and are grateful for that, will keep an eye on this from now on. Would be awesome if it could be read from the GUI too... :)
Thanks!

That's actually e pretty good idea. Would be cool if there was a MMC/SSD wear widget for the dashboard :-)

stephenw10

@furom said in Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?:

So are there two eMMC banks?

There is only one eMMC device. Those are different estimates for different eMMC types:
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/disk-lifetime.html#interpreting-mmc-health-data

Steve

furom

@stephenw10 said in Add a M.2 SATA to a 2100 or not?:

Those are different estimates for different eMMC types

Thanks. I did read the doc page, but still don't fully understand why two different type of estimates are needed for the same device? Which one should I care more about, guessing the one that tells the most wear, but as that is still only an estimate... A little confusing. Guess all I really want is to be able to take action before it wears out

Edit:
Found this link, will read up some :) https://www.howtogeek.com/444787/multi-layer-ssds-what-are-slc-mlc-tlc-qlc-and-mlc/

But, question is then, what type is in my 2100? Single Level Cell or Multi Level Cell ? Which comes back to why both estimates are shown, but perhaps hard to read type programatically?

stephenw10

As I wrote that I realised the next question would be; what is the MMC type in the 2100. I believe it's MLC but I'm trying to confirm that.

The mmc-util program doesn't know that the MMC type is so it gives you two estimates.

Steve

Jeppo

@furom Mine is reporting Life Time Estimation status of 0x0b - the highest.

Could explain issues like DHCP stopping, unable to access web portal, etc. Also does not always boot, jut sits thee with 3 flashing lights,

So thanks for all this, ordering an M.2 drive and the firmware to attempt the reinstall onto an M.2