I started installing Elastix using 32GB and 64GB SSD SATA Drives. Also started doing some testing with CF memory with PATA and SATA adapters. The install takes longer since CF in PATA is slow (30mins).

the elastix boots very fast with SSD of CF and it runs cooler, less power and noise. In a 4GB CF you have almost 2GB free.

Also we started testing Intel ATOM Dual Core CPU motherboard ITX(330) and it works great. You need to re-compile the Ethernet card (Realtek 8168). This board together with a SSD or CF Drive is silent and very low power and very low cost solution. Add a redundant Power supply and this system should be running for years maintenance free with very few moving parts.

Ive been doing the same thing on the D945GCLF and D945GCLF2.

Make sure you do a few bits and pieces like noatime, as well as kill the advanced asterisk logging otherwise you'll kill your CF card in no time at all ... !

Chilling_Silence wrote:
Ive been doing the same thing on the D945GCLF and D945GCLF2.

Make sure you do a few bits and pieces like noatime, as well as kill the advanced asterisk logging otherwise you'll kill your CF card in no time at all ... !

What do you mean kill your CF card? If it means running out of space my Asterisk PBX in the office is 3 years old and it is 1.8GB. If you mean to much traffic for read and write that could be a problem. Damage to the CF by re-writing I have not found yet a limit. Only 1,000,000 hours MTBF and 10,000 insertions (remove and install the CF). If you have other info let me know.

Do CF cards not suffer from write-wearing as SSD's do .. ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Memory_wear

However if you have the likes of asterisk logging everything it does, plus other things, no doubt even with wear leveling it'd be harder to guarantee the life of the card wouldnt it? Or is 100,000 writes so far up in the sky that even a server thrashing logfiles wont reach it?

The SSD SATA Ridata that I am using have a 1,000,000 erase/write life. the CF have 100,000 erase/write and with wear leveling and ECC my hope is that it would last 3 years. I have a backup of the CF in case of problem. The Digium Asterisk devices and ATCOM IP04/08 are using flash memory and anyway I follow your recommendations and a added the anotime instruction. My elastix installation is using 54% of the 4GB CF and my old asterisk@home for 3 years only used 1.8GB. My experience with regular HD in Windows and SMEserver are 3 to 4 years before a drive failure. With the low power ATOM Motherboard and SSD SATA I am reducing the power requirements which allows the pbx to work longer with UPS and less heat. From test done with the single core ATOM 270 16.GHz is capable of running 30 calls at a time and the 330 dual core should be 20 to 30% faster which is good for most of my customers.

Ive run benchmarks and agree about 30 calls is a pretty safe bet.
The CF Cards I use dont have 1 million writes, far from it, but thus far have proved reliable even when *trying* to thrash them:
pcengines.ch/cfwear.htm
(Note: of course we use fresh ones in customer devices, not ones we've tested and tried to destroy ...)

Im using both the D945GCLF and D945GCLF2 boards, so far so good, just make sure the CPU fan doesnt stop working. We had a customer shift theirs into a dusty workshop environment without telling us, then the CPU fan died and it go SUPER hot!

We have monitoring in-place now that provides us with more information than ever required

I was just planning to deploy my next Elastix installation with a CF replacing the Hard Drive.. I'd like to hear your opinion on these matters:

1. Which size fits best? I think that for a standard PBX appliance a 2G should be enough, but perhaps could be a little undersized. A 4G shall fit better?
2. Should I use a simple internal usb card reader and boot from there, or is it better to purchase a CF to IDE/SATA adapter?

Thanks

Or buy a Alix board with 4G CF and then use this:
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Definitely purchase the internal CF Reader. 4GB is well worth the extra couple of dollars
The problem with using an Alix board is that you're quite limited by the hardware, specifically CPU speed. It'll do a few calls, but I wouldnt want it transcoding much ...