Use memory file system for /tmp and /var

[techclan]

I know the NanoBSD and Solid State drives have been covered a few times but I have a quick qustion that I can not find a clear answer to.
On a system with enough ram and disk space that has squid and squidGuard would installing the full version and enabling "Use memory file system for /tmp and /var" provide the same exact write cycle benefits as instaling the embedded version or is there more that gets done in the embeded version to eliminate disk write cycles ?
Thanks

[stephenw10]

The Nanobsd images have the filesystem mounted noatime to further reduce disk writes but they are also mounted read-only except when writing config changes to prevent any writes.
What boot media are you using?

Steve

[techclan]

Thanks for this info Steve. I'm currently testing out pfsense vs untangle vs Sophos and more and more am leaning towards pfsense.  I'm currently running the full version of pfsense 2.2-BETA (amd64) on an 80GB SATA hard drive, and even with a USB Network Adapter it has been stable as heck.  In the production environment I would like to keep running the full version if possible but utilize an SSD instead. If the write cycles could potentially cause lifespan issues then I need to rethink this…

[stephenw10]

There's a lot of misinformation floating about both here and on the internet generally regarding SSDs.
If you use a recent SSD of reputable quality you will have to try very very hard to kill it. Deliberately!  ;) Much of the bad rep SSDs have was caused by the 1st gen memory controllers which did a very poor job of ware levelling and sometimes just bricked the drive themselves anyway. The actual flash technology has also improved significantly.
Get a recent drive that has power fail protection (capacitor backup) and enable TRIM and you shouldn't have any problems. Use an Intel 320 drive to be really sure.  :)

http://techreport.com/review/26523/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-casualties-on-the-way-to-a-petabyte
Your drive will not see anything like this amount of writes.

http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.html
Your drive will not be subjected to this level or torture!

Steve

[jimp]

Yes, modern SSDs shouldn't be a cause for concern. Though you can still use that /tmp and /var option if you want to be extra kind to the disk.