USB recommendations for Diversion / Skynet?

[thelonelycoder]

Wondering if i really need a case for my SSD drive. I have a couple of ssd drives laying around that i would like to use with my router. I always connect them with this sort of cable. Would it be ok to use this instead of a proper case enclosure?

I‘ve used such a cable for years on my routers. Remember, that‘s how HDDs are connected to the motherboard, no cases or fancy colors.

 

[fcoayuso]

You have 2x Raspberry Pi with only 0.5GB RAM available at best, already busy with what home router does and running almost everything on a single core. Connect 8 hard drives, why only 4? When your network starts crashing or you get corrupted drives come back here and ask more questions.

I dont really get what you mean......I have 2 routers (router + aimesh), I am just wondering if I can make use of all the USB ports available, this does not mean I am going to connect 4 drives....

 

[Tech9]

What I mean is your home routers are not NAS. You’ll understand better when you start using them as NAS.

 

[fcoayuso]

What I mean is your home routers are not NAS. You’ll understand better when you start using them as NAS.

you are right, i am not planning on using the router as a NAS, but you got me confused with the raspberry pi and the 8 ports that i didn't get what was all about...

 

[fanasus]

They don't die because of the heat, they die because they use up their write cycles.

Forget thumb drives and get what we all know works. External enclosure and a 128GB SSD or larger.

hello, Finally I recycled a 240GB SSD, and put it in a case advised by @Tech9 . I put 10Gb of SWAP, but I have a question about the SWAP, the "Asuswrt Merli AddOns" will use this space automatically, or you have to do something, it’s a question still unclear to understand! thanks !

 

[ColDen]

hello, Finally I recycled a 240GB SSD, and put it in a case advised by @Tech9 , I put 10Gb of SWAP, but I have a question, the "Asuswrt Merli AddOns" will use this space automatically, or you have to do something, it’s a question still unclear to understand! thanks !

You have nothing to do, if needed by an addon then it will. In my case while I do have several addons and a swap file, it have never been solicitated for my GT-AX6000 while it was with the same addons on my retired RT-AC86U. Since your router have the same amount of RAM as mine then it is possible that your swap file will also not be used (please note that I do not use Diversion).

 

[fanasus]

You have nothing to do, if needed by an addon then it will. In my case while I do have several addons and a swap file, it have never been solicitated for my GT-AX6000 while it was with the same addons on my retired RT-AC86U. Since your router have the same amount of RAM as mine then it is possible that your swap file will also not be used (please note that I do not use Diversion).

ok, thank you! but why was SWAP used in your case by one router and not the other!? brief.. (I do not use "diversion", but "Adguard Home). greetings

 

[L&LD]

Many factors affect the use of the swap file. SDK and drivers used by the router, the physical hardware and RAM available, and the specific configuration of the scripts (and versions of the scripts) used.

 

[sfx2000]

Many factors affect the use of the swap file. SDK and drivers used by the router, the physical hardware and RAM available, and the specific configuration of the scripts (and versions of the scripts) used.

Yes, and there are kernel tunables that come into play as well for vm.swappiness and others...

Just because a swap file is present, doesn't mean it will be used... and the swap file itself doesn't need to be that large...

One can always check memory usage with the "free" cmd on the shell, which should show what's in play...

sfx@vim1:~$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/zram1                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram2                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram3                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram4                              partition    254484    0    5
sfx@vim1:~$ free
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         2035904      220140     1215932       14296      599832     1776344
Swap:        1017936           0     1017936

 

[Kingp1n]

Yes, and there are kernel tunables that come into play as well for vm.swappiness and others...

Just because a swap file is present, doesn't mean it will be used... and the swap file itself doesn't need to be that large...

One can always check memory usage with the "free" cmd on the shell, which should show what's in play...

sfx@vim1:~$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/zram1                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram2                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram3                              partition    254484    0    5
/dev/zram4                              partition    254484    0    5
sfx@vim1:~$ free
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         2035904      220140     1215932       14296      599832     1776344
Swap:        1017936           0     1017936

Dumb question but why would the option to have a 10gb of swap during setup be there? I guess since it doesn't need to that big?

 

[ColDen]

Dumb question but why would the option to have a 10gb of swap during setup be there? I guess since it doesn't need to that big?

@thelonelycoder have presioulsy provided an answer to your question in the following link: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/amtm-3-2-x-the-asuswrt-merlin-terminal-menu.73585/post-733102

 

[bmn1]

Samsung T7 is under $80 for 1GB/sec transfers, 1TB size, and it's the size of 3 credit cards stacked on top of each other.
Yeah I used to use a thumb drive, but it ran hot, slow, small capacity, stuck out, and thumb drives are not meant to be used constantly. They are for occasional copy / paste of files from one device to another. The T7 sits right below the router raising it about 3mm and you don't even know it's there.

I guess that's overkill if you really don't need a shared network drive, but I use it every day for working from home (sharing work files amongst multiple PCs) and streaming video and audio files to my Roku and stereo.

If you are cheap I would say maybe buy a used T5 or a smaller T7 but the 1TB version is not much more than the 256 or 500MB versions. But seriously spend ~$50 on a real drive like this. It works great and provides you a free network share in the future.

As for USB 3.0 interference on 2.4Ghz, I only use 2.4Ghz for its superior range, and I've never noticed any problems, though I've read the Intel paper and am aware of the potential for increased noise.

 

[ika]

Lately, when I need to deploy a router and need storage for Entware and scripts only, I just use the 256GB version of the M80 (there are bigger options, but the 256GB is more than enough).
Cheap and fast enough. I don't know how long they will last, but no regrets so far.

 

[mrkennethtong]

Honestly did not realize this. The thumb drive is burning hot with just Diversion and Skynet!

This should be a hint for all: Use an SSD and not a thumb drive to run scripts on.

 

[Tech9]

The thumb drive is burning hot with just Diversion and Skynet!

Perhaps common bad thermal design USB drive. It probably will burn itself without Diversion and Skynet.

 

[mrkennethtong]

Just bought a Samsung 1TB External SSD cause of here!

 

[sfx2000]

Wonder if folks are overthinking this...

This is what's plugged into my router... 32GB thumbdrive...

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/usb-flash-drives/sandisk-ultra-fit-usb-3-1?sku=SDCZ430-032G-G46

It's a disposable item/throw-away - but it's been running for a while without issues...

32GB as a logging drive is more than enough - I've got Single Board Computers (like Raspberry Pi) with less storage and it's not really been a problem.

Maybe it's not bad storage, rather, it's bad code...

 

[sfx2000]

Maybe it's not bad storage, rather, it's bad code...

And also what I can say - last I checked, I've got about 250K devices on 2GB/8GB (RAM/eMMC) that have been running for a few years now - much of the logging is actually in RAM via Busybox, so we don't write much to flash..

Some would say 250K devices for Science Project isn't that many - ok, how many devices have you designed and produced - enough said...

An 8GB eMMC is pretty nice, as we can lock down bootloader, have two banks for kernel/rootfs, and a single bank for userdata with a fair amount of headroom...

Having two banks for kernel/rootfs also allows for safe firmware OTA updates...

 

[ika]

Perhaps common bad thermal design USB drive. It probably will burn itself without Diversion and Skynet.

Nands do not mind heat very much, some actually perform better when they are hot, but the vast majority of the controller chips do need a good cooling solution, that is why some thumb drives are made out of metal, so the case can act as a heat sink as well, because it is a lot more preferable to have the entire thing being hot and dissipate/radiate away the heat than have the inside "cook" itself without "help".

ps.: The one I model posted above are actually SSDs, and they work quite well (at least that is my experience).

 

[JTnola]

Question:

If we use a SSD/Enclosure connected by USB cable … is it still advisable that we use the USB port in USB 2.0 mode only, or is it OKAY to go ahead and use USB 3.0 (?)