[Soekris] HD suggestion

[Robert Woodcock]

On Monday, July 17, 2006, Gustavo Rios wrote:
> i forgot to mention, this machine will run as a firewall appliance,
> downtime due to hardware failure is not an option, so, a HD vendor and
> model will be highly appreciated.
>
> On 7/17/06, Gustavo Rios <rios.gustavo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > this is my first contact with soekris and i am very interested in
> > using it. I am interested in using net4801-60 model. I am aware that
> > HD heat may be an issue that prevent stability.
> >
> > I am seeking reports on usage that soekris model with openbsd on
> > stability and reliability. Which would it be a killer HD for me to buy
> > if i would maximum reliability.

You never mentioned why you wanted a hard drive, specifically.

Environmental issues aside, hard drives die. They have moving parts,
ergo, they will eventually die.

CompactFlash cards have no moving parts. Flash memory has gone through
washing machines, human intestinal tracts, etc. without dying. For the
price of any laptop hard drive, you can get a CF card up to 1GB in size.

CF does wear out after a hundred thousand writes, but you can run your
firewall with a read-only filesystem to prevent this from being a
problem. Many people don't take this precaution and haven't had problems.

SanDisk CF cards seem to work best with the Soekris boards.