eMMC appears to have failed after only 5-6 months of use.
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My cousin bought a Netgate 2100 Base router around December or January. Unfortunately, she bought if off eBay. It was listed as a new device and it genuinely appeared to be a brand new device when we received it. It was still in original packaging and didn't appear to be have been opened previously. Knowing that it came from eBay I do not expect it to have had any sort of warranty or possible chance of getting a refund. Additionally, she did not purchase any sort of paid support plan either. She sent the router to me to setup for her and everything worked great.
Unfortunately, yesterday it appears to have died. During boot up she sees, on the serial console, errors about being unable to find the kernel. She also sees I/O errors. I need to have her shoot me an image of all of the errors from the console but when she read them to me it sounded quite clear to me that the eMMC has failed. I've also read that this is unfortunately considered somewhat common for these devices.
I completely understand that we are owed nothing and that any support we get would be purely a blessing. I feel bad because I'm the one who suggested she buy this device. I've used pfsense for close to 8 years now and have recommended it to many people. If there's anyone from Netgate that could help us out it'd be greatly appreciated.
I've suggested that she purchase an 1100 series router as a replacement. I haven't checked but hopefully those aren't susceptible to the same failures. One concern I have once she receives her replacement, is how to restore the configuration from her old 2100 router into this one. I know that I had turned on the automatic backup feature and that it gets stored on Netgate's servers somewhere. I can see that the device id is derived from the ssh public key, which I do not recall saving somewhere. In theory, if I had at any point ssh'd into that router would it be stored in my ~/.ssh/known_hosts file? Is there any other way to obtain the Device ID?
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Add a new m.2 SSD to the 2100. I would get a nice kingspec 128gb m.2 sata for part number nt-128 2242 this is the m.2 ngff that will fix your issue fast
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@JonathanLee I wasn't aware this was an option. I figure anyone doing this would void their warranty; which I don't have anyway. Is there any documentation on how to do this? I figure I gotta crack the thing open and replace the eMMC with the m.2 sata. Once I've done that, how would I load the pfsense OS onto it? Is this a matter of using dd to write an image of the base pfsense image to the new drive? I've managed to find a downloaded backup of the config from a while ago, but it'll get me 90% back to our last state.
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@JonathanLee said in eMMC appears to have failed after only 5-6 months of use.:
nt-128 2242
Looks like the 128gb m.2 sata ssd is unavailable on Amazon. So I just bought the 256gb version. Thanks for the suggestion.
Upon initial research this look like a moderately easy task by first installing the ssd and then booting from a usb drive with the installer on it and pointing the installation it to the ssd. I assume this must all be done through the serial console.
Thanks again for the tip!
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https://forum.netgate.com/topic/195990/another-netgate-with-storage-failure-6-in-total-so-far
Even if the device was purchased through eBay, there's still a chance that the warranty is valid. I would contact support to clarify.
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@dutsnekcirf spot on and netgate docs has a how to guide for SSD install and software firmware install after too.
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@dutsnekcirf said in eMMC appears to have failed after only 5-6 months of use.:
I've suggested that she purchase an 1100 series router as a replacement
The 1100 also has eMMC memory and therefore the same issue can occur.
Install the SATA SSD only after your check with Netgate support if you still got warranty.
Mentioned in the Netgate doc: Optional M.2 SATA Installation:
"The 42mm standoff cannot be moved without disconnecting the thermal paste between the processor and the heat sink. This is not supported and may void the warranty."
