>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Martin <[email protected]> writes:

Brian> I'm considering a FreeNAS installation for a client.  FreeNAS
Brian> is *really* built around the idea of separating it's software
Brian> from the data, to the point that it needs a dedicated "disk"
Brian> for itself.  The FreeNAS folks were really thinking of this as
Brian> being a USB key, since they only need 2G.  I don't really like
Brian> the idea of using a USB key for this, because:

Brian> 1) it sticks out of the machine somewhere where it can get
Brian> bumped/broken/etc.  (Yes, I could arrange to have it on an
Brian> internal or a new USB add-on card that has an internal slot,
Brian> but that seems like a bother).  2) I'm generally not thrilled
Brian> about a production machine's life and death hanging on the
Brian> reliability of a USB key.

Brian> What I would really like to use is a CD-ROM, but the media
Brian> needs to be read-write, so that's out.  There will be a small
Brian> but steady amount of writing to the media for logs, temp files,
Brian> etc., so it's not static by any means.

Brian> I'm considering using an CF card instead of a USB key, but I am
Brian> wondering if the underlying hardware is really any different.
Brian> Is it just a USB key in a different package?  Do any of you
Brian> folks have thoughts about reliability of these various media
Brian> choices or others I haven't considered?

Over in OpenWrt land, they make extensive use of overlay filesystems.
Something that would let you run from read-only storage with a tmpfs
or some other mutable storage on top.  Depending on the degree to
which you need those writes stored permenantly, you could move them
off somewhere else.  Or something like that.


-- 
Russell Senior, President
[email protected]
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