[talk] other hardware suggestions

[George Rosamond]

On 12/7/19 11:21 AM, Mark Saad wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Dec 7, 2019, at 11:16 AM, George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>> On 12/7/19 12:07 AM, Pat McEvoy wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> On Dec 6, 2019, at 18:55, George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Not to distract from Patrick's thread, but I am looking at two needs
>>>> right now:
>>>>
>>>> * some sort of well-supported amd64 hardware comparable in price and
>>>> specs to the PCEngine APU2. More than one NIC is good, but I'm wary of
>>>> relying on mSATA SSD's as Sony deprecated their line IIRC. m.2 seems to
>>>> be the next gen of storage for that world.
>>>>
>>>> * similar hardware with four or more USB ports, for the role of a serial
>>>> console server. I assume there are still people out there not looking to
>>>> go rely on custom hardware for that role, and really assuming there are
>>>> some of us not living solely in the smog.
>>>>
>>>> I am interested in others' experiences with the ethernet to serial
>>>> dongles for remote serial...
>>>>
>>>> Not a fan of going the Intel NUC route, as closed hardware, locked down
>>>> BIOS' and endless binaries still doesn't excite me.
>>>>
>>>> Also the ARM SoC game is played for me, so long as it's relying on
>>>> microSD cards, and the BSD ARM64 platforms still lag behind amd64
>>>> support AFAIK.
>>>>
>>>> g
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>
>>> It is still early days yet, but the Rock64 pro might fit the bill in days to come. Especially since the pro laptop has hit the market. I know some folks were buzzing about the possibilities at the last BSDCan. 
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but again it's relying on microSD and eMMC which I also had bad
>> experiences with.  m.2 SSD or other SSD already proved a lot more
>> reliable to me.
>>
>> g
>>
> 
> George that’s reliability is really a function of the media . I have a apu2 running on a class 10 sd card for the last two years with no issues . I do mount it read only . Prior to that I had an inexpensive 16g m2 sata disk which had trouble and died after about 18months . 
> This is running FreeBSD . I wonder how it would be with openbsd ; I suspect the os drivers do play a big part in how well this stuff works and sata is definitely better supported.

Well, yes, mount media as ro and you're in good shape for reliability!
Humor aside, I really should considering mount with ro in a few cases...
tmpfs/mfs is already in play, but ro mounts could also be worked in too.

In some cases I'm using full-disk encryption, so that adds to the wear.

SSD is better supported, and my past experiences with eMMC were not
pleasant (OpenBSD and FreeBSD).

I still feel like when it comes to SSD, "no one ever got fired for
choosing Sony".

g