There was some sort of change with 8.3 where I also had a problem with one of my USB Flash drives not being properly recognized. I did report the problem but not sure if the problem is a FreeBSD/NanoBSD problem or FreeNAS problem. My recommendation is to hold on to your SD reader and card and see what happens when 9.x hits the streets. Yes, that may be a long time from now but it will happen.
I guess I should have been more specific about the problem since updating to FreeNAS 8.3.x: it sometimes took many boot attempts before a boot would be completely successful; many times it would get as far as
with the machine totally frozen. I forgot to make a note of, and now no longer recall, what the immediately preceding error messages were -- oh, something about "fork_trampoline". The result was the same whether I used the SD card or the CF card in the Rosewill reader.
What about a rear mounted USB port, why not use one of those instead of the front USB port? That would keep it out of harms way for now.
Given the size of the box and the depth of the desk on which it sits. it would be tricky to have a typical USB drive sticking out the back. However, I saw in this morning's BestBuy flyer that SanDisk now has USB drives that stick out only a few mm, and 8GB versions are cheap enough so I could buy two and keep rotating them. I could use one of these in either a front or a rear USB port.
In the meantime, however, I had bought on eBay for less than $15 a Syba CF-to-SATA adapter with a PCI-slot bracket. I might have that by the end of the week. Is that likely to be faster than a USB 2.0 stick?
Now let's look at some cost to buy these new items. Yes, it's nice to have these small memory devices but if you have a SATA port available, why not by a 32GB SSD for $49.99 (free shipping) from NewEgg, or I'm sure you could find it cheaper if you looked hard. The SSD will work always and it's internal and the life expectancy is well beyond the life expectancy of any NAS you build. The downside is it feels like you don't get to use the entire SSD so why spend fifty bucks if you can't use it all. My argument is you will likely spend close to that just buying the other parts you want.
I never considered an SSD, because I didn't realize how far the prices had dropped.
And really the only downside is if you plan to play with FreeNAS and test out nightly builds or upgrade frequently once something hits the streets. Well it's tuff to swap out the SSD but you could just set your boot priority to USB Flash as first drive and then override the SSD for testing purposes. There is a solution to just about everything.
Two USB drives plus the SATA-connected CF will enable me to retain older versions while trying out new ones. I'm not a great one on trying out nightlies, but I have used second and later beta versions.
Let me know if this sounds good to you? After typing this in I will keep my eyes open for a SSD sale and hopefuly pickup one for under $40.00.
Thanks for your helpful comments.
