Hi
My original 2TB WD Green HDD just died in my B3 after continuous service since 2011, so that's impressive.
I use my B3 with original OS, and only for backups over WFS, it's very few read/writes a year. it's mostly idling.
Thinking of installing an SSD. Is it something i should think about if doing so?
Can i change some settings to prolong the life of the SSD, or some other settings that puts B3/SSD to sleep when it's not needed, fast access time is not of importance in this case.
Does original OS have support for TRIM?
Lastly, does anyone have a link to the latest recovery image 2.6.0.3 for the B3, the one on my Excito USB dongle containing software version 2.1.99.
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B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
Re: B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
Hello,
Using SSD in a B3 is possible however I did not test it with the original b3 firmware. In any case UBoot is capable of booting the OS from an SSD. Regarding settings I don't know what would be relevant. Note that using SSD in a B3 does not have much impact on the performance of the system, processor being old is way slower than any HDD IMHO.blacklodge wrote: ↑08 Aug 2023, 09:45 Thinking of installing an SSD. Is it something i should think about if doing so?
Can i change some settings to prolong the life of the SSD, or some other settings that puts B3/SSD to sleep when it's not needed, fast access time is not of importance in this case.
Latest kernel version on the original Excito OS is 2.6.39 so expect no or little TRIM support.
There is no install image for 2.6.0.3. Latest images were produced for 2.4.1.1. Everything has been archived and not available anymore given that there is no more updates ; the hotfix service has been closed so you cannot update from 2.4.1.1 to 2.6.0.3 without manual ssh intervention. That being said I can provide you with the 2.4.1.1 image although I would strongly advise you not to use it. There are a couple of alternatives available here on the forum, the debian image and the gentoo image with original excito packages and services ported. Both are available in the development section.blacklodge wrote: ↑08 Aug 2023, 09:45 Lastly, does anyone have a link to the latest recovery image 2.6.0.3 for the B3, the one on my Excito USB dongle containing software version 2.1.99.
Re: B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
The comment about SSD is not completely accurate. Hardware wise there is no limitation, however U-Boot must recognize the drive's firmware in order to be able to boot from it. This is usually not the case with modern price friendly SSDs. The community U-Boot should be able to recognize a lot more drives, but there is no guarantee that it will recognize your SSD. It's pretty much the same deal as with USB sticks, not all of them work and that can be annoying.
One way to get around it is to have U-Boot load a secondary boot loader from USB, however by default the B3 will not boot from such a device on itself. You'll need to start the B3 in service mode (power button pressed while connecting the PSU) or manipulate the U-Boot environment which is pretty tricky from user space. The Gentoo system mentioned above uses such a secondary boot loader and I do utilize the USB trick to boot one of my B3s that has an unsupported SSD.
TRIM actually sounds like a pretty bad idea to use on SSDs as this will in fact cause you to write to the same memory location in rapid succession for frequently written to files (e.g. log files) and such spots will become locked pretty fast. Better to leave disk management as is.
Should you decide to go for a mechanical drive I recommend you get a Red drive, especially when choosing a more recent operating system. The Red drive is mechanically the same as the Green drive but it does not contain the 'idle' logic that shuts down the drive when not being accessed for a couple of seconds. While this may seem appealing to you (since you asked how the B3 can be made to go to sleep when not accessed) it is actually harmful for the drive and the update from Bubba OS 2.4 to 2.6 included a fix that disabled this idle timer on the drive you used until now.
PS did you know you can turn your B3 into a (backup) time machine? I setup such a thing for work and currently have six years of data, all full backups, counting over 20TB, on a 2TB disk that is not nearly full. And no I'm not using any type of compression. The trick is that every backup is in reality an incremental backup but by using hard links every backup folder contains a full backup. The additional advantage is that should your system become compromised it is practically impossible that each and every backup gets compromised too (unless of course you hold an open SMB connection to the top level directory that holds all the backups). Only tools you need is rsync and ssh for Windows, which you can get from CygWin.
One way to get around it is to have U-Boot load a secondary boot loader from USB, however by default the B3 will not boot from such a device on itself. You'll need to start the B3 in service mode (power button pressed while connecting the PSU) or manipulate the U-Boot environment which is pretty tricky from user space. The Gentoo system mentioned above uses such a secondary boot loader and I do utilize the USB trick to boot one of my B3s that has an unsupported SSD.
TRIM actually sounds like a pretty bad idea to use on SSDs as this will in fact cause you to write to the same memory location in rapid succession for frequently written to files (e.g. log files) and such spots will become locked pretty fast. Better to leave disk management as is.
Should you decide to go for a mechanical drive I recommend you get a Red drive, especially when choosing a more recent operating system. The Red drive is mechanically the same as the Green drive but it does not contain the 'idle' logic that shuts down the drive when not being accessed for a couple of seconds. While this may seem appealing to you (since you asked how the B3 can be made to go to sleep when not accessed) it is actually harmful for the drive and the update from Bubba OS 2.4 to 2.6 included a fix that disabled this idle timer on the drive you used until now.
PS did you know you can turn your B3 into a (backup) time machine? I setup such a thing for work and currently have six years of data, all full backups, counting over 20TB, on a 2TB disk that is not nearly full. And no I'm not using any type of compression. The trick is that every backup is in reality an incremental backup but by using hard links every backup folder contains a full backup. The additional advantage is that should your system become compromised it is practically impossible that each and every backup gets compromised too (unless of course you hold an open SMB connection to the top level directory that holds all the backups). Only tools you need is rsync and ssh for Windows, which you can get from CygWin.
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blacklodge
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 29 Dec 2010, 11:44
- Location: Sweden
Re: B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
I tested with an smal SSD that i had laying around, installed without any problem, been running stable for over a week now. I notice that the B3 is running much cooler with SSD as expected, just over room temperature, so that's good.
My original Excito USB thumbdrive contained software version 2.1.99 so that's what's running now on the SSD.
I probably have 2.4.1.1 in a ZIP-file, so no need to upload it for me, was thinking that 2.6.0.3 was available as an install image.
Thanks for info about B3 being picky about SSD's, was just about to order a Samsung 860 EVO.
What OS are you guys running? i am used to run Debian based distros so the Debian image for B3 is most natural if i decide to start tinkering and go down that road.
With the Debian image, will i get the same web user interface, services and experience as with original Excito right after install?
Will see what i will do with my B3, wish to keep using it for nostalgic reasons, its a good machine and it is a beautiful design piece.
My original Excito USB thumbdrive contained software version 2.1.99 so that's what's running now on the SSD.
I probably have 2.4.1.1 in a ZIP-file, so no need to upload it for me, was thinking that 2.6.0.3 was available as an install image.
Thanks for info about B3 being picky about SSD's, was just about to order a Samsung 860 EVO.
What OS are you guys running? i am used to run Debian based distros so the Debian image for B3 is most natural if i decide to start tinkering and go down that road.
With the Debian image, will i get the same web user interface, services and experience as with original Excito right after install?
Will see what i will do with my B3, wish to keep using it for nostalgic reasons, its a good machine and it is a beautiful design piece.
Re: B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
I use the debian image (makes sense since I am the maintainerblacklodge wrote: ↑17 Aug 2023, 17:21 What OS are you guys running? i am used to run Debian based distros so the Debian image for B3 is most natural if i decide to start tinkering and go down that road.
With the Debian image, will i get the same web user interface, services and experience as with original Excito right after install?
). This image does not include the excito user interface, it's just the base OS with ssh server added. The only alternative image with original web interface and services is Gordon's bubbagen image, based on gentoo. Both are well maintained.Re: B3 - HDD died, switch to SSD
Obvious I run Gentoo 
I actually initially started making the Bubba packages compliant with newer Debian but I found creating and maintaining Debian packages way too complicated to my taste. The original leg work for the Gentoo image was done by a girl who identified as Sakaki, who also created images for Arch and Fedora to run on the B3. I grabbed the opportunity to switch my attempts to make the Bubba User Interface work with more recent Linux to the distro I was knowledgable with which led to Bubbagen (Bubba-Gentoo).
The look and feel of the user interface in Bubbagen is the same as that of the original OS. Like the original OS out of the box available services are File and Print services for both Windows and Apple, a web server with large file upload capability, ftp server, email server, Apple iTunes server and Logitech Media Server. What was dropped is MySQL server due to its high demand for system resources and consequently Bubba-PhotoAlbum that accessed it (I included an alternative in the form of Singapore Gallery aka sgal). Also dropped was torrent download support as it turned out to be impossible to keep this service up without a full rewrite of the associated code which goes beyond the objective of my project and no other person volunteered for it.
Bubbagen comes in the form of a Live-USB, i.e. you can write it to a USB stick and it will run from it fully functional without touching the B3 internal drive. If you don't like it, just ditch the USB and the B3 will start on the original installed OS again.
I actually initially started making the Bubba packages compliant with newer Debian but I found creating and maintaining Debian packages way too complicated to my taste. The original leg work for the Gentoo image was done by a girl who identified as Sakaki, who also created images for Arch and Fedora to run on the B3. I grabbed the opportunity to switch my attempts to make the Bubba User Interface work with more recent Linux to the distro I was knowledgable with which led to Bubbagen (Bubba-Gentoo).
The look and feel of the user interface in Bubbagen is the same as that of the original OS. Like the original OS out of the box available services are File and Print services for both Windows and Apple, a web server with large file upload capability, ftp server, email server, Apple iTunes server and Logitech Media Server. What was dropped is MySQL server due to its high demand for system resources and consequently Bubba-PhotoAlbum that accessed it (I included an alternative in the form of Singapore Gallery aka sgal). Also dropped was torrent download support as it turned out to be impossible to keep this service up without a full rewrite of the associated code which goes beyond the objective of my project and no other person volunteered for it.
Bubbagen comes in the form of a Live-USB, i.e. you can write it to a USB stick and it will run from it fully functional without touching the B3 internal drive. If you don't like it, just ditch the USB and the B3 will start on the original installed OS again.