Help selecting boot drive for new build

da_guy2 · 23. Oktober 2018

Hey So I read the above pined post and it had lots of good information but I'm still unsure of what to go wit. Option seem to be:

SSD:
With the falling price of SSD's I can get a 120GB SSD for around $30-$40 Canadian. it won't be the best brand but it won't be a garbage no name direct from china brand either (i.e. ADATA or Kingston, maybe Crucial)
Pro's:
Big
Fast
Guaranteed trim support
Cons:
A little more expensive
Uses a SATA port (though that's not a big deal for me right now)

USB flash drive:
Pros:
CHEAP! (<$15 for a Sandisk 32GB USB3.0 drive)
Small
Cons:
Unknown reliability (though Sandisk brand helps in this respect)
No TRIM support

SD Card and card reader:
Pros:
Possible trim support?
Cons:
A 32GB card + Card reader will be in the $30-$40 range (same as the SSD)
No guarantee I'll be able to get TRIM working. I did an experiment with my current SD card and card reader on a Ubuntu 16.04 system and was not able to get trim working. I'd hate to spend all this time and money just to find out the new one wont work either.
Big, and will likely block other USB ports.

I'm currently leaning towards one of the first two option, but would like a second opinion especially with respect to the lac of TRIM for a USB drive.

Thanks!

gderf · 23. Oktober 2018

A 120GB SSD for an OMV boot drive is a waste. I have been running mine for years on a Samsung 16GB SSD that you can still find used on ebay for sub $20USD, cheap enough for me to carry a few spares that so far I have not needed to resort to. I don't waste a SATA port with it either. It sits in an external USB case.

jollyrogr · 23. Oktober 2018

I'm running an Intel NVME drive which is entirely unnecessary. A good quality usb stick would work just fine with the added benefit that making OS drive backups (clones) and swapping OS drives is super easy.

superfrog73 · 25. Oktober 2018

I was running Rockstor on a 32gb thumbdrive for a little over a year without issue. The only real problem I had was it was sticking out the front of the box and I clipped it, ruining the front USB ports, wrestling with my kid. I know, stupid move, but eh? When I migrated over to OMV, I did the same as you, bought an inexpensive Kingston from Amazon, 120Gb for about $30. I did my testing of OMV on an USB drive, but I do notice a much quicker boot time, but that's really the only benefit. One thing to consider is if you're going to want to do any type of high speed swap or transcoding (like Plex does), you could use the SSD to make those processes much quicker. Even in a docker, you can assign the transcode folder within the root directory. USB won't provide much overhead for that, especially if you're trying to transcode full BR videos like I keep.

Markess · 26. Oktober 2018

One of my OMV setups uses a 16GB eUSB Disk on Module. These are used mostly for industrial applications, so they tend to be reliable and have a fairly long lifespan. Most I've seen have wear leveling and ECC as well.

In the US/Canada they are usually easy to find new on Ebay for about the same price as a low end SSD. They connect to an internal USB header, which puts the hardware out of the way inside the case, but keeps SATA ports free for data disks. Mine has a horizontal orientation, but there are ones with vertical orientations as well. The only downside is that they are usually USB 2.0. So, if you have applications needing fast disk transfer from your OS, they aren't as good a choice as a USB 3.0 flash drive or traditional SSD. I only transfer files on this machine though (no Plex & etc.), so have never had an issue with it.

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