Avoid KINGSTON usb Sticks

[evillone]

Rebuilt my whole FREENAS system at the end of August, and just over a month of using this KINGSTON DTR3.0 16G - it died. Failed to read this morning -

I'm pretty sure I've read on this forum to avoid KINGSTON, but couldn't find the post again.

Just putting out the warning again -

I was using SANDISK for 6 years glitch free before, and bought a new SANDISK Cruizer 16gig this time round.
Hoping for the best...

 

[jgreco]

The new ZFS boot system is a lot rougher on USB sticks. I used to have problems with the OLD USB boot strategy and failing USB keys.... not really a Kingston thing I'd say.

 

[Ericloewe]

Even when reliable, USB flash drives can be painfully slow. Honestly, I'm on the fence when it comes to recommending alternatives like DOMs or real SSDs (or HDDs, but with small SSD pricing these days...). I'm slowly getting tired of waiting an hour for an update to finish...

 

[joeschmuck]

SSD is the only way to go, even a very cheap SSD. I don't think your Kingston USB drive is to blame although my USB flash drive has been rock solid for years. I think the new stuff is crap, the old stuff is more reliable. My ADATA PD7 is the bomb and if I could buy a few of these, I would but they do not make them any longer. So for the price of a good USB Flash drive you could buy a cheap SSD and odds are it will last longer, update faster, give you less grief overall, and you don't need to mirror them in my opinion and others as well.

 

[evillone]

yea, you guys have a point, although my updates never take as long as mentioned by Eric, and have never noticed any performance issues. I'll see how long this one lasts, and most likely replace it with an SSD.

Thanks for your input guys. :)

 

[jgreco]

It's kind of a matter of how long stuff takes when you commit changes to the configuration, etc. It can range from annoyingly laggy to turtle-paced with USB.

 

[SMnasMAN]

I agree with OP, the *ONLY* usb sticks that have given me consistent problems, are the Kingston DataTraveler series.

They are enticing (deceiving even), bc they are so low cost, and are one of the few that dont take up much space when inserted into a usb slot.

but they are horrible. I have well over 10x of these (from a while back), and recently bought 3x more. Nothing but problems in regards to FN. As install media they often dont boot. as the boot/OS device (1st boot after install), they often fail to boot or fail during boot. I have never had a successful boot with them. (only 1 time did it actually fully boot, only to then not load web gui)

Ive been testing / playing w FN for over 6 months now, so ive been using exclusively USB boot. I will be using SSD once i settle on my final setup/config.

I like the ADATA S102 sticks. (or the best are the Samsung drives, but they block the 2nd USB port, so thats often a big issue)

 

[Ericloewe]

Since this is being revisited 4.5 years later, I'll add that SSDs are unequivocally the way to go for most servers these days. Booting from USB flash drives is too much pain to save a couple of bucks.