XigmaNAS

I'm playing with a HP Microserver 40L and NAS4Free 9.1.0.1 804 embedded installed on a USB pendrive.
I noticed the entire boot process lasts almost 3 minutes!! In my opinion, it's too long.

Is there some possibilities to improve this boot time by changing USB pen drive? Any suggestion on the USB pen drive to use?

booting from USB IMHO sucks
I prefer these if you have a spare PATA or SATA port
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/f ... sh_modules
here is a speed comparison on a 1600 MHZ Cellron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcfeRPWCBWM
about 33 seconds YMMV
I also prefer the method shown here to USB [also faster]
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=4810

If you get a well rated USB drive which has high read speed it will boot faster. Nas4free simple copies an image to a RAM disk when you boot up and this is what takes the time. From there on you are running in RAM. Maybe some BIOS only support USB 1.1 for booting which would slow it down more too.

siftu wrote:If you get a well rated USB drive which has high read speed it will boot faster.

It should be nice to know how much the boot time could be improved with the best and fastest USB drive available on the market. From 3 minutes, where could I arrive? 2 minutes? 1 minutes? 30 seconds? 10 seconds?
If the biggest improvement let reduce the boot time from 3 minutes to 2.5 minutes, I will stay with my USB pen drive.

siftu wrote:Nas4free simple copies an image to a RAM disk when you boot up and this is what takes the time. From there on you are running in RAM.

I noticed USB pen drive filesystem is mounted under /cf mount point as a read-only fileystem. How is this possible? What happens if I change NAS4Free configuration (for example, through webgui)? How config.xml is changed if it is on a read-only filesystem?

armandh wrote:I prefer these if you have a spare PATA or SATA port
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/f ... sh_modules

I really have a spare SATA port. Do you suggest to use Flash drives from Emphase, or are you suggesting just the idea to use a Flash memory on SATA port? Anyway it's a quite expensive solution, starting from 40EURO!!

armandh wrote:I also prefer the method shown here to USB
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=4810

I don't understand.

ok
the method described involves a 2.1 Gb Hdd salvaged from a xerographic printer
it holds the N4F embedded OS and config files but spins down 5 minutes after booting.
the embedded boot process is the establishment of a ram drive
transferring the N4F OS and configuration to that ram drive and executing the boot.
Almost as fast as a SSD when compared to USB flash but much less expensive.

yes the 1 Gb SATA flash drive is a bit pricy
but it has wear leveling not found in cheap USB sticks.

how often does one boot?
one of mine has been up 97 days
at one time a FN-7 of mine was "up" over 250 days
3 minutes once or twice a year is not so bad.
if it is turned off when not in active use [often]
what is 3 minutes of your time worth

the method described involves a 2.1 Gb Hdd salvaged from a xerographic printer
it holds the N4F embedded OS and config files but spins down 5 minutes after booting.
the embedded boot process is the establishment of a ram drive
transferring the N4F OS and configuration to that ram drive and executing the boot.
Almost as fast as a SSD when compared to USB flash but much less expensive.

If I understand what you wrote, you propose to use a simple HDD to boot embedded NAS4Free, instead of USB pen drive (if SSD, that is faster, is not available).

how often does one boot?
one of mine has been up 97 days
at one time a FN-7 of mine was "up" over 250 days
3 minutes once or twice a year is not so bad.
if it is turned off when not in active use [often]
what is 3 minutes of your time worth

I want to power off the server when inactive (often) and to wake it up only when needed (WOL). It should be nice to have a shot boot time.

You can usually come out of s3 in just a few seconds.

acpiconf -s3

Then WOL to wake it up

You can usually come out of s3 in just a few seconds.

I don't think my server supports s3. It's a HP ProLiant Microserver N40L.

Then WOL to wake it up

I'm not able to wake my server from LAN... see this thread.

well there is always using the web gui to shut down and an arduino to power up

If boot time ~3 minutes, just not shutdown server.
N40L need very low power for work, need only send your disks to sleep sometimes.

See this thread with my boot time tests.
The best result for me was 2:11 minutes. Looks like a FreeBSD issue when compared to the Linux boot times.

Is it possible to have better results with current USB flash pendrive?

pozz wrote:Is it possible to have better results with current USB flash pendrive?

USB-3 is not supported and I am not sure if any hardware boots from USB-3
my son's junk box NAS again uses an old small Hdd to boot the embedded
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=7842

see below for 3 different idle wattage uses