Installing FreePBX on a SDHC instead of HDD

[jrinco11]

Hi all,

I was curious if there would be any issues with installing freepbx on a SDHC card as opposed to a traditional hard drive. I've read over the post at http://pbxinaflash.com/community/threads/compactflash-freepbx-asterisk.985/?t=985 discussing using a compact flash card, and a few people say they had it working - but that's 2 years old and was curious if anyone is currently running with this kind of setup and can comment on it (using a SD card). Is there a recommended minimum write speed?

I am not planning on recording calls or any advanced features (that may require more disk space than the average sd card) - I'll just be using it for handling at most 2 calls at a time, 2 extensions, basic voicemail, and that's essentially it. I've got a few sandisk extreme II 4gb sd cards laying around, so I figured it would be great if I could utilize them to build a new freepbx server as opposed to buying a 2.5" hdd (with an unused atom mini-itx setup collecting dust...)

any thoughts?

thanks!

 

[Stewart]

I think once you get past the extra steps to actually get it installed, I think the biggest problems will be:

1) Speed. Those cards are specced at 15 MB/sec. CF is usually much faster than SD. Low end SSD's would be at least 6X faster for comparison.

2) Write limitations. SD quality flash doesn't have any advanced wear-leveling or overage built in and aren't meant to be written to very often. I would expect it to wear out pretty quickly.

I know you're looking to save on the expense, but I wouldn't rely on it for a production system. As a proof of concept or just to have a good time I say go for it. Just realize that CF is IDE pin-compatible (ish). That's why it works. You'll need to read up on installing linux on a USB drive since that's how your system will see it through the adapter.