What type of thumb drive For jffs ?

[Ragpuss]

hi all,
I have been searching but have not found an answer to what is likely a very noob question.
I have tried 4 different thumb drives to run the custom jffs scripts (entware etc’) and only my old USB2 8gb and 16gb seems to work !
When I tried a 128gb USB3 drive it just kept getting memory errors even when just trying to run simple shell commands. I then tried a USB3 64gb drive and that won’t even get recognised on router reboot, so I have to remove and reinsert the drive manualy.
I would like to mount a larger thumb drive but I don’t want to keep buying ones that don’t do the job.
Is there a rule to follow or a type of thumb drive that needs to be used ?
Both of the USB3 drives were of a good brand and supposed to be fast write and read USB3 speeds but my old slow USB2 are the only ones so far to work :/
As a note I put the USB3 drives into the USB3 port and my old USB2 drives into the USB2 port, does the USB2 port work better for the scripts ?
Any help here please ?
Thank you in advance.

 

[accolito]

You forgot to mention which router you own

 

[Ragpuss]

You forgot to mention which router you own

Oh right
RT-AC86U

 

[XIII]

FWIW: the SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive works fine on my AC86U (and I have plenty of free space).

 

[Ragpuss]

FWIW: the SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive works fine on my AC86U (and I have plenty of free space).

I tried the same drive but the 128gb and it kept locking out of memory on ext2 is 128 to big for these as a thumb drive ?
Thx

 

[jtp10181]

Check your setting under wireless > professional > 2.4 band
Reducing USB 3.0 interference

Try toggling that, maybe it is causing a problem. I think if you have it enabled it basically disables the USB 3 support and the port functions like a USB 2 port. Maybe that is causing the issues? Could also try your USB3 drive in the USB2 port, should work in either though.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I tried the same drive but the 128gb and it kept locking out of memory on ext2 is 128 to big for these as a thumb drive ?

What does "locking out of memory" mean? What errors do you see in the syslog (be specific)?

 

[Ragpuss]

Check your setting under wireless > professional > 2.4 band
Reducing USB 3.0 interference

Try toggling that, maybe it is causing a problem. I think if you have it enabled it basically disables the USB 3 support and the port functions like a USB 2 port. Maybe that is causing the issues? Could also try your USB3 drive in the USB2 port, should work in either though.

Hi, yes I do have that enabled, I thought that was something that was needed, I didn’t realise that it dumbed down USB3, I will try disabling it and retry my drives

 

[Ragpuss]

What does "locking out of memory" mean? What errors do you see in the syslog (be specific)?

Hi,
I have sent that drive back to Amazon now, as it was unusable but the errors were in Terminal when pretty much trying to do anything.
At one point I did manage to make 4 partitions and format them to EXT2 but then I tried to install Entware and it was just error messages everywhere.
Then even just trying to do fdisk -l or blkid for instance it would just say “error can’t hook” or something similar to do with memory, it must have been the drive as my old cheep ones are fine. I had reduce USB3 interference on , so as the other guy said, maybe that :/ but I just couldn’t get the drive to do anything and it was very slow at formatting.
The other USB3 drive I tried would all work ok all be it very slow again during formatting from about half way, like it had some bad sectors although nothing showed on a scan, but on rebooting the router, the drive would just disappear , then I would have to unplug it manually and reinsert it to make it show again, so no good for running Entware.
I have just bought a 64gb USB2 drive and so far all seems good, so maybe it is something with USB3 and larger capacities ? It’s a shame because the extra speed might have been nice
Will turning off the reduce USB3 interference cause any other problems on the WiFi ?

On a totally different matter, would you know why my iPad shows 2 IPv6 addresses in the connection information, even though it is turned off on the router and my AP doesn’t have the option, both are RT-AC86U units ?
I am getting occasional internet dropouts and wonder if that’s something do with it, I am running Merlin alpha2 firmware but I think it still showed the ipv6 addresses with the latest stable. The alpha2 firmware keeps the QOS settings after reboot so that was my main reason for an early firmware upgrade.
Thank you.

 

[ColinTaylor]

On a totally different matter, would you know why my iPad shows 2 IPv6 addresses in the connection information, even though it is turned off on the router and my AP doesn’t have the option, both are RT-AC86U units ?

One of them is probably a link local address. Does it start with fe80:: ?

 

[Ragpuss]

One of them is probably a link local address. Does it start with fe80:: ?

Hi,
Yes, there are 2 addresses that say for IP that start fd80 and then one that says router that starts fe80 :
What local addresses would use IPv6 and why would one say router ?
Thank you,

 

[accolito]

1) If you are out of memory, you need to make a swap partition/file, there are plenty of informations here...
2) I own the same usb pendrive @XIII recomended and I find it cheap and fast - around 65mb read and 65mb write. It's not the fastest speed, I know, but I'm ok with it. I really don't know if it is a waste of money if you buy something larger, I don't really know that the speed will improve much (I highly doubt it). Also keep in mind that a mechanical drive is always best if you need to make swap due to limited lifespan of ssd/usb pendrive chips.
3) I suggest you to use partition magic to make partitions/format/test, it's pretty good linux live distro you can install it on an usb pen and boot it when you need.
I hope this will help you in some way. Cheers

 

[Ragpuss]

1) If you are out of memory, you need to make a swap partition/file, there are plenty of informations here...
2) I own the same usb pendrive @XIII recomended and I find it cheap and fast - around 65mb read and 65mb write. It's not the fastest speed, I know, but I'm ok with it. I really don't know if it is a waste of money if you buy something larger, I don't really know that the speed will improve much (I highly doubt it). Also keep in mind that a mechanical drive is always best if you need to make swap due to limited lifespan of ssd/usb pendrive chips.
3) I suggest you to use partition magic to make partitions/format/test, it's pretty good linux live distro you can install it on an usb pen and boot it when you need.
I hope this will help you in some way. Cheers

Hi,
It’s not actually out of memory it’s just some sort of error on the pen drive as it will do it when just trying to format , then if I close terminal and start a new session it will let me do 1 small thing and then mess up again.
I think the error was something like “cant do (what I was trying to do) can’t fork or no fork”
I don’t know what a fork is other than for eating dinner but terminal couldn’t find one
This was the only pen drive that had this problem all my others work fine other than being slow, to small or disappearing on re-boot.
I think it might be best to pay a little more and get a 2.5” hard drive for it instead, then I can partition a section of it for file sharing too. I assume Entware and everything will work on a USB3 hard drive instead of a pen drive ?
Are there any drawbacks of using a hard drive instead of a pen drive for running Entware, AMTM, AB-Solutions, Pixel’ and the rest of them ?
Can you still set it to sleep mode when running Entware or does it need to be on 24/7 ?
Thank you

 

[accolito]

AFAIK you must disable sleep mode if you use a mechanical hd just because it needs to be on 24/7.
I tried previously an external usb hdd (wd 1tb) but I was not pleased with the speeds and noise, so I opted for a sandisk cruzer ultra flair 32gb pendrive: after all, speed is acceptable, its cheap (ten bucks or so) and easily replaceable.

 

[Ragpuss]

AFAIK you must disable sleep mode if you use a mechanical hd just because it needs to be on 24/7.
I tried previously an external usb hdd (wd 1tb) but I was not pleased with the speeds and noise, so I opted for a sandisk cruzer ultra flair 32gb pendrive: after all, speed is acceptable, its cheap (ten bucks or so) and easily replaceable.

For using a swap file, you said its best on a mechanical drive but if Entware is installed on a pen drive wouldn’t the swap file also need to be on the same physical drive ?
I was going to make a 2gb swap file for running the add’ blockers etc’ more efficiently

 

[accolito]

Yes, it's 'better' to use a mechanical hd due small lifespan of usb pendrives chips... but we are talking about cheap stuff.

No, you don't need such a large swap: 256/512mb is more than enought. Also there is no need for partitions. I just create a folder on the pendrive and share it on my network via samba.

Yes, you can create a swap file on your pendrive: ADAMM's skynet firewall has an installation wizard that creates the file and configure it for you automatically on every boot.

I suggest you to format the pen (32/64gb) in ext2 filesystem for optimal performances.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I was going to make a 2gb swap file for running the add’ blockers etc’ more efficiently

The thing to remember about swap is the access times are thousands of times slower than RAM, whether it's on a HDD or flash drive. Swap is only useful if you have so little RAM that you cannot run all your required processes. In an ideal world you wouldn't use swap at all. But if you must use it you want the amount of I/O to it kept to an absolute minimum otherwise things will get reaaalllllly slllllooooowwwwwww.

 

[Ragpuss]

The thing to remember about swap is the access times are thousands of times slower than RAM, whether it's on a HDD or flash drive. Swap is only useful if you have so little RAM that you cannot run all your required processes. In an ideal world you wouldn't use swap at all. But if you must use it you want the amount of I/O to it kept to an absolute minimum otherwise things will get reaaalllllly slllllooooowwwwwww.

So the smaller the better ?
It’s just that my RAM is running at 96% now without the ab-solutions etc’ so thought that a swap would help keep things moving. I remember when I used to build my own performance PC’s that they worked well with a 50/50 swap and RAM but RAM was a lot slower then.

 

[Ragpuss]

Yes, it's 'better' to use a mechanical hd due small lifespan of usb pendrives chips... but we are talking about cheap stuff.

No, you don't need such a large swap: 256/512mb is more than enought. Also there is no need for partitions. I just create a folder on the pendrive and share it on my network via samba.

Yes, you can create a swap file on your pendrive: ADAMM's skynet firewall has an installation wizard that creates the file and configure it for you automatically on every boot.

I suggest you to format the pen (32/64gb) in ext2 filesystem for optimal performances.

I guess that I’m just used to having a separate partition for each share or process type, so I would have the swap in it’s own one and media in another then programs in another and each partition having several folders for each subset :/
It’s just what I’m used to.
I have used ext2 for the pendrive and ext4 for my share drive that’s on my AP running the Samba shares.
I think it’s getting used to Linux and trying not to do as I did with Windows for about 30 years, lol.

 

[Ragpuss]

So is it best to use a usb3 pendrive or will usb2 do the same job ? Or is it worth using a small quiet usb powered 2.5” usb3 hard drive instead ?
I wanted to upgrade my 1tb media samba share drive to 4 or 5tb so I would have my 1tb going spare anyway ?
Thanks.