A few questions about Helios64

[Kellogs]

Dear all,

 

I am highly interested in the Helios64 and registered for the next batch.

 

Here are a few questions, I hope that your guys can answer.

The OS is Embedded Debian I assume.

 

Questions are quite simple:

 

1) Hard drive numbering on startup

Under Debian, the hard drives in a RAID array are renumbered on each startup by random: /dev/sda,  /dev/sdb, etc ...

This means that if drive /dev/sdb fails ... it is not necessarily the second hard drive in the bay.
I already lost a RAID server extracting the wrong disc in an array.
Then I migrated to a Synology NAS and notices that this problem had been fixed as discs are clearly numbered.

This was never fixed in Debian, so I assume the same under armbian?

 

Can you confirm?

 

Example :

Let's assume that and array /dev/md0 contains /dev/sda /dev/sdb anb /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd

Eject /dev/sda. Reboot. Now your raid array has /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc and the last disc is absent.

In fact, Debian and Linux renumbers the discs on each boot, which is highly insecure as you never know which disc to eject.

 

2) Virtual machine isolation

I am not sure how to isolate a virtual machine under ARM. Is KVM supported?
What can used to run several machines and VLAN under the same host.

Is that as easy as under x86?

 

3) Power management

I don't like my ARM Synology NAS going completely idle, it takes sometimes 10s to come back from idle.

Is there a way to slow down the ARM processor and idle all discs, to make it faster to respond to a query.

 

I would prefer the system to be on NVMe and the processor running on 1 core waiting for connections, but being completely available.

In fact I would like the Helios64 be able to run in a low consumption mode, but not completely idle.

 

By the way, what is the Helios64 power consumption in Watts?

 

4) Team going away

 

Keep-on the good work, you are making the future which is ARM.

In a few years, NAS will all have 8core, hardware encoding and only NVMe discs.

So just keep designing the new NAS and you will have it manufactured one way or another.

Don't give up because ot manufacturing difficulties and rising costs (I am prepared to pay up to 500EUR for a good NAS with plenty of RAM and cores).

 

Thanks in advance,

Kellogs

Edited April 29, 2021 by Kellogs

[meymarce]

for 1)

I would not call it a debian issue. It is more like a general Linux issue and has been addressed in the way there is /dev/disk/by-{id,partuuid,path,uuid} to reliably address the disks.

 

for 3) the 10s is if I'd guess, to spin up the disks. Quick research shows me hdparm should be helpful. Never use that myself though.

if your board is running stable in stock settings, then all cores will go to the lowest clock possible.

Overall consumption in idle will be dominated by the spinning disks if they are running.

Also check the wiki on consumption: https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/hardware/#power-consumption

[Igor]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:19 AM, Kellogs said:

The OS is Embedded Debian

https://docs.armbian.com/#what-is-armbian

[Werner]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:19 AM, Kellogs said:

2) Virtual machine isolation

KVM is enabled in kernel, tough there aren't many people that ever really played with it so its status is unknown.