Using USB drive for main profile storage

[FlashEngineer]

I’m wondering if it is safe to use a USB drive for main storage of the profile and database informations?

I have a 60GB SSD but I think that maybe overkill for this and I could use the drive elsewhere..

Has anyone have their profile stored on USB and running for years without issues? This is for my home use, but I’d still like it to be robust.

[atheling]

You are probably right to be concerned. Unlike some other embedded Linux distributions, Zeroshell insists on logging a number of items to a disk based file system.

After about 1.5 to 2 years of use I started having problems with my net5501 Zeroshell box that I attributed to the compact flash card wearing out. The net5501 Zeroshell setup uses the CF as its disk.

Wasn’t too hard to fix: Make sure I had a current profile saved to my laptop, flash a current version of Zeroshell to a new CF, install the new CF and up load the saved profile back to the box.

I’ve considered temporarily removing the CF and making a copy of it with dd so that I can quickly setup a new CF and throw it in if required. But I’d probably have to still upload a current profile as I have a tendency to make changes every couple of months.

So if you are running in a commercial environment, I’d really recommend you run on a server class machine with a profile/logging drive that can handle the writes. For home or SOHO environment, it is a bit less than ideal but if you are willing to throw a new flash drive at the box every year or so you can make it work.

[FlashEngineer]

So you’re saying the flash is not good to save the profile stuff?

But what about the zeroshell boot img file, can that be stored on flash drive and be ok since it’s loaded into ram anyways?

[atheling]

The boot image that is expanded into RAM disk should be fine on flash storage.

I do wish there were an option to keep the logs in RAM disk. I haven’t really delved into it, but it sure does look like logs and such go into the profile area which is detrimental to long life on flash media based systems.

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