Moving from USB sticks to SSD?

[calgarychris]

Hi,

Longtime user...I've been running my current rig for a while now and when I built it I didn't have the budget for an SSD. I'm currently using my third set of mirrored USB sticks, having been flagged over the past couple of years that they've had issues at one time or another (generally using Sandisk). My questions are as follows:

1. With a Supermicro X10SLM+- motherboard and six drives currently in use, I'm assuming I would be using some sort of PCI-E device but I'm a little lost on whether that's mSATA, m.2, or something else entirely?
2. Assuming it's PCI-E - would I install that in the 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot), the 3.0 x8, or the PCI-E 2.0?
3. Do you have to run mirrored drives similar to the recommendations for USB sticks?
4. Is there any clear advantage to running the drives? Clearly I'd hope reliability, but that's not a huge deal since they're mirrored
5. How does one go about installing FreeNAS onto the drive - I'm used to burning the keys on a separate system

Sorry for all the basic questions - I guess one great thing about FreeNAS is that it's basically been running itself more or less since built and I find that I fall behind sometimes in keeping up with all the changes.

Thanks

 

[sremick]

I'm looking to head down this route myself, actually.

Here's my thread, if you're interested:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/pcie-m-2-card-with-a-good-sata-controller.72556/

 

[danb35]

Do you have to run mirrored drives similar to the recommendations for USB sticks?

SSDs are significantly more reliable than USB sticks, so many folks (like me) just run a single SSD. Two in a mirror would be more reliable yet, of course.

Is there any clear advantage to running the drives?

Reliability is probably the biggest. Performance is better, but since most of the OS lives in RAM most of the time, you won't see that difference too much. It will help boot times, and it will definitely help update times.

How does one go about installing FreeNAS onto the drive

Plug the installer USB and the SSD into the same machine, boot from the former, install to the latter. That machine can be the one you're using to run FreeNAS, or a different one.

 

[jlpellet]

Just noting from my experience 2 things. 1. When I had no free SATA ports, I installed a small SSD in an external USB-SSD case (<$10) & used the same USB port I was using with a flash drive and it has worked months without problem. 2. If you are adding a PCIE card, make sure the SATA chip is supported (I've had good luck with a ASM chip - can't remember the # - but understand many are problematic).

 

[ThreeDee]

Just noting from my experience 2 things. 1. When I had no free SATA ports, I installed a small SSD in an external USB-SSD case (<$10) & used the same USB port I was using with a flash drive and it has worked months without problem. .

This is what I am looking at doing due to not having any available SATA ports open. I have an old Promise SATA 150 TX2plus PCI card I could use I guess, but don't know if it would work with FreeNAS. In the hardware guide it pretty much shuns all add-on SATA controllers, lol.

 

[sremick]

In the hardware guide it pretty much shuns all add-on SATA controllers, lol.

I think more-shunned are storage devices over USB drivers. Picking the PCIe SATA controller that sucks the least is probably preferable over USB. For me, the goal is to not only have more-reliable SSD chips, but access them via a more reliable means as well. Plus I'd rather not have stuff hanging off the outside of my server... that's asking for trouble (they do make internal USB port cards I suppose, but at that point why bother w/ USB).

 

[ThreeDee]

I think more-shunned are storage devices over USB drivers. Picking the PCIe SATA controller that sucks the least is probably preferable over USB. For me, the goal is to not only have more-reliable SSD chips, but access them via a more reliable means as well. Plus I'd rather not have stuff hanging off the outside of my server... that's asking for trouble (they do make internal USB port cards I suppose, but at that point why bother w/ USB).

I would just plug into the internal USB that my thumb drive is occupying and connect via a USB to SATA cable .. I found some old threads on my particular Promise card and it seemed people had trouble with it in FreeBSD .. I'll play around and see what works I guess. :p

 

[ThreeDee]

Oooo... Just found a Marvell 88SE9130 chipset PCIe SATA controller card in my drawer of goodies .. Man, I just can't win for losing, lol.

 

[jlpellet]

I've had good luck with PCIe Sata cards with the ASM1061 chip & 2 port cards are under $20. USB 3 SATA cases aren't my first choice but when no SATA or PCIe ports are available, I've found them to work & good cases are inexpensive. While I'd not use for an enterprise server, at home I've had no problems, which cannot be said for Marvell or AMD SATA chips.

 

[sremick]

Ordered an ASM1061 card for $25 and a 128GB M.2 SATA SSD for $25. I'll report back once they arrive and I have a chance to try using them.

 

[Natek83]

So am I understanding this right, that people changing to ssds is because the boot device is written to more in the new version 11.2? Is there more detail about what's behind this?

Is there a recommendation for a certain level of quality of ssd to use for a boot device? I read recommendations back when I did this build to use the Intel DC S3500 for slog/zil because it had the super capacitor built in. The current versions are overpriced and unnecessary I think for a boot drive, correct?

My machine has spare sata ports so I'm thinking of using a Samsung Evo 860 or Crucial MX500 250gb drive for ~$50 as all the other ssds I see lately for less seem a bit sketchy.

 

[sremick]

So am I understanding this right, that people changing to ssds is because the boot device is written to more in the new version 11.2?

That's what I've been reading. I don't have more details, but I decided to make the leap since I have an unused PCIe slot and I figured $50 was cheap hassle-insurance.

Quite honestly, though, since I (now) keep hyper-religious backups of my config files and my NAS is not mission-critical, I don't really care all that much if it's down for a bit. If I fry a USB flash drive I just grab another (I have spares or they're easy to obtain fast), installed FreeNAS clean, upload my config, and voila I'm back on my feet. I'd think the SSD would matter a lot more for people who depend on their NAS more than I do for important stuff and for whom downtime is not good.

 

[pro lamer]

There are some SSDs in the hardware recommendation guide in our forums. And some to avoid.

Edit: IIRC someone had some problem with the MX500... Edit2: See below

Sent from my phone

 

[calgarychris]

Thanks for the great info guys, this gives me somewhere to start. I didn't realise 11.2 wrote more to the boot drives, that's something to consider given I'm on my third pair of USBs (in fairness that's over six or so years of 24/7 usage)...

 

[pro lamer]

Edit: IIRC someone had some problem with the MX500...

Now I realized I have more doubts about it. I only found some of my old notes (roughly one year old) stating that MX500 is on my no-go list but can't remember why.

Apologies for confusion. You may consider STFW on this...

Sent from my phone

 

[danb35]

So am I understanding this right, that people changing to ssds is because the boot device is written to more in the new version 11.2?

No, there's no significant change to this in 11.2 AFAIK. The change happened way back with 9.3, when the boot filesystem was changed from UFS (which was read into a ramdisk and run entirely from that) to a live ZFS pool. That's been over four years ago, but people still think the system runs from a ramdisk.