I've heard that overuse of a flash storage will degrade the quality of the storage device over time.

 

Will you eventually experience stability issues with the flash drive, having unRaid installed on a machine that is on ALL the time?

 

Is there a more reliable storage contraption that makes sense?

 

if this topic has been covered before, I apologize for being redundant.

 

thanks!

 

Only writes effect the lifetime. UnRAID only writes during a shutdown. I doubt that that the drive will fail from overuse.

This is the reason that some people like to use card readers such as the Kingston MobileLiteG2, so that if and when the flash memory dies, you can simply replace the SD card and keep the same GUID (meaning that your unRAID software license will still be valid).  You should also keep a backup copy of your flash drive's contents somewhere other than your unRAID server.

 

While flash memory wearing out over time is a valid concern, as dgaschk said it is pretty rare that it actually becomes an issue.  Most of us leave our servers running 24/7 and only reboot them a few times per year.  Flash drives can certainly handle a few writes per year without wearing out.  The issue arises when you are using add-ons that write to the flash drive more frequently, such a script that captures your syslog every hour.

... The issue arises when you are using add-ons that write to the flash drive more frequently, such a script that captures your syslog every hour.

 

... or when you have an unreliable electrical supply so that the system is shutdown frequently - sometimes several times in one day?

Go with the moblite card reader if you are concerned.

The frequency of failure,  is that it happens often enough for people to post about.

It's happened to me with 2 flashes.

I also put allot of addons on the card. I do not do frequent periodic writes.

What's required is a flash device large enough to leave allot of free space.

As sectors get re-allocated due to wear level write cycles, there should be plenty of space to re-assign those sectors. I.E. leave a minimum of 20% free space.

 

Every stop or start of the array updates the superblock. It's a small file.

For a machine on 24x7 there are not writes unless you reconfigure the array, settings, shares or stop/start the array.