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Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem?

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On 2020-08-23 11:22, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2020 01:49:45 -0700
> David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2020-08-21 21:02, Patrick Bartek wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi! All:
>>>
>>> For my Homebuilt NAS [specs below], I've decided on a very small 32GB
>>> SanDisk flash drive for the system drive to keep the 6 available SATA
>>> II connectors free for storage drives. But I'm concerned about writes
>>> wearing out the flash drive too soon. I don't know if it has wear
>>> leveling built in.  Nothing in the specs about it. So, worse case, I'll
>>> assume it doesn't.
>>>
>>> For that reason, I thought EXT4 without journaling would work well.  No
>>> journaling -- issues that causes aside -- would reduce writes a lot.
>>> Then I came across F2FS which I hadn't heard of.  After some reading,
>>> it seems the perfect filesystem for my purposes: It's more "modern" and
>>> faster than EXT4, designed specifically for solid state devices, and
>>> available in the Debian Repo. (I plan to use OpenMediaVault NAS
>>> software which is Debian based.)
>>>
>>> Opinions?  Suggestions?  Recommendations?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>>
>>> B
>>>
>>> THE BOX: ASRock 770DE+ BIOS/MBR Only MB (EFI/GPT Not Supported), AMD
>>> Phenom II X4 CPU at 3.0GHz, 8GB DDR2 RAM (16GB Max), 6 SATA II, 1 IDE
>>> (Master and Slave) -- IDE DVD Writer on Master, 1 Floppy connector, but
>>> no floppy drive, 6 USB 2.0/1.0, 1GB ethernet
>>
>> I ran a Samba server and a backup server on my SOHO LAN using SanDisk
>> Ultra Fit 16 GB USB 3.0 flash drives with ext4 for several years.  I
>> installed Debian just like I would for a HDD or SSD.  The computers
>> worked, and the flash drives did not wear out.  But, they saw light use.
> 
> Mine's the Ultra Fit, too, but 32GB. I've done some addtional research,
> and it looks like it has wear leveling built in. > Read a SanDisk blurb
> that all their solid state devices have it by default. 

AIUI all USB flash drives have wear-leveling -- it is a practical 
requirement.  Otherwise, "hot spots" would wear out patches very quickly.


> In any case, the
> NAS software I'll be using (OpenMediaVault) has a specific plugin for
> solid state to reduce write wear to a minimum.

If they've done the engineering, figured it out, and made it a plug-in, 
that sounds ideal.  If you find an explanation of how they do it, please 
post a link.


>> I used a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 with VirtualBox and a Debian desktop as a
>> [snip]
>>
>>
>> If I wanted to use a USB flash drive as a Debian system drive again, I
>> would probably just go with an Ultra Fit 16 GB and ext4.  They are
>> inexpensive; and if they fail too often, I would try a high endurance SD
>> card and USB adapter.
> 
> My plan is after the OS install and configuring to just clone the drive
> for a quick reinstall, if or when it's needed.

Clones are nice.  Good appliances often include backup and restore features.


>> Tuning the system to minimize flash drive writes sounds appealing, but I
>> never had much success at it.  Mounting the root filesystem with
>> 'relatime' or 'noatime' options sounds like a good way to break things,
>> and I'm not going to audit an entire Debian system to figure it out.  I
>> tried running without swap -- that is a good way to crash your systems.
>> I have not tried alternate filesystems, because I want to be able to
>> boot a standard Debian Installer and run the rescue console when needed
>> (thus precluding ZFS, which I really want).  One trick I have not tried
>> is a USB disk on module.  Eventually SSD's became cheap enough that I
>> replaced all of the USB flash drives, so I have not pursued this.
> 
> I'll use "relatime" instead of "noatime." "Relatime" is said to
> create less problems with software that needs dates/times when files,
> etc. were last modified, accessed, etc.

I only use 'relatime' on data disks.  I would not use it on a root 
filesystem.   /boot might be okay.  (I let the installer set the boot, 
swap, and root entries in fstab and I am loath to touch them.)


> My systems rarely use swap, and when they does it's only a few
> kilobytes. My main 1-year old under-the-desk box with 16GB RAM has
> yet to use any.

Run from RAM is definitely the best situation.


> I won't be using ZFS because of its propensity for lots of RAM. The old
> box I'm using for this project has only 8GB of DDR2, and I don't plan
> to expand that.

Two words: bit rot.


We have been discussing dm-integrity on another thread.  I am still 
trying to figure out if it is production ready and supported/ integrated 
on Debian 10.


> OpenMediaVault, to its credit, is very lightweight and
> RAM efficient. Perfect for the home NAS on an old system.

I have mixed feelings about pre-rolled appliance distributions.  If I 
can fumble my way through the UI and solve my needs without 
understanding what is going on under the hood, okay.  I did this with 
IPCop for years.  (And, it was simple enough that I could mess around 
under the hood.)  But, when I tried to make changes and understand what 
was going on under the hood of FreeNAS, it was a disaster.  I started 
over with FreeBSD RELEASE and rolled my own.


> Thanks for your input.

YW.  :-)


David

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Thread

Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-22 06:10 +0200
  Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2020-08-22 11:00 +0200
    Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Keith Bainbridge <ke1th3216@gmail.com> - 2020-08-23 02:50 +0200
      Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-08-23 10:20 +0200
    Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-23 20:30 +0200
      Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2020-08-23 23:30 +0200
        Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-24 04:40 +0200
        Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-08-24 10:40 +0200
          Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2020-08-24 11:20 +0200
      Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2020-08-24 01:00 +0200
        Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2020-08-24 02:50 +0200
  Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Jonathan Dowland <jon+debian-user@dow.land> - 2020-08-24 11:50 +0200
    Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-24 18:30 +0200
      Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-08-25 08:40 +0200
        Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-25 19:10 +0200
    Re: Homebuilt NAS: System Drive Filesystem? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2020-08-25 02:40 +0200

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