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This looks really cool. I may be deploying a fleet of Raspberry Pi or similar servers in the near future and this might save us a ton of headaches. The target

This looks really cool. I may be deploying a fleet of Raspberry Pi or similar servers in the near future and this might save us a ton of headaches. The target context is a medical facility in a remote location without Internet (or extremely limited Internet), though. Is there a way to distribute updates by USB stick? What's the best place to read stories of people who have tried deploying with Balena on RasPi-type servers and/or contexts without Internet access, and learn about their successes and difficulties? Thanks!

walrus01 8y ago
please do yourself a favor and don't remotely deploy rpi or anything that uses microsd cards for OS image and boot. The write lifetime of those, even using "industrial" cards, will mean a huge failure rate even with very light usage. Only use some sort of real sata3 or nvme bus SSD.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  There are ways to reduce the risk, though, depending on your workload. It is possible to use the sd card just to boot, with all actual file systems in a USB attached device. You can also use some of the (very limited) memory as a ram disk for things with lots of writes...
  - walrus01 8y ago
    Yes, but even so, the write wear leveling algorithm in a $50 consumer class SSD and dwpd (drive writes per day) are vastly better than microsd media.
    - milesvp 8y ago
      Will second this. A friend of mine had to write his own wear leveling software to make use of SD cards in his hardware, sadly bom made anything better way too expensive to be commercially viable.
      - dogecoinbase 8y ago
        If your friend has written about this anywhere or is able to share any code, I would love to learn more!
alexandros 8y ago
Hey there -- we have a bunch of case studies on our blog, click the "case study" links on this page -- https://www.balena.io/customers/ https://www.balena.io/customers/ And if you're interested in a board that is as easy to program as the Pi but more robust, you can check out -- https://www.balena.io/blog/introducing-project-fin-a-board-for-fleet-owners/ https://www.balena.io/blog/introducing-project-fin-a-board-f...
- zestyping 8y ago
  Hi, thanks! From the description at https://www.balena.io/fin/ https://www.balena.io/fin/, it looks like I'd be spending ~$170 instead of ~$35 to get: - Ability to run on 6V to 24V power - Low-power coprocessor - Battery-powered real-time clock The rest of the interfaces all look pretty much the same, except that the Fin loses two USB ports and the headphone jack. Given that my plan is to run off of 5V USB power and I don't intend to write special software for the coprocessor, can you help me understand whether there might still be good reasons to use a Fin?

walrus01 8y ago

please do yourself a favor and don't remotely deploy rpi or anything that uses microsd cards for OS image and boot. The write lifetime of those, even using "industrial" cards, will mean a huge failure rate even with very light usage. Only use some sort of real sata3 or nvme bus SSD.

sdenton4 8y ago
There are ways to reduce the risk, though, depending on your workload. It is possible to use the sd card just to boot, with all actual file systems in a USB attached device. You can also use some of the (very limited) memory as a ram disk for things with lots of writes...
- walrus01 8y ago
  Yes, but even so, the write wear leveling algorithm in a $50 consumer class SSD and dwpd (drive writes per day) are vastly better than microsd media.
  - milesvp 8y ago
    Will second this. A friend of mine had to write his own wear leveling software to make use of SD cards in his hardware, sadly bom made anything better way too expensive to be commercially viable.
    - dogecoinbase 8y ago
      If your friend has written about this anywhere or is able to share any code, I would love to learn more!

alexandros 8y ago

Hey there -- we have a bunch of case studies on our blog, click the "case study" links on this page -- https://www.balena.io/customers/ https://www.balena.io/customers/ And if you're interested in a board that is as easy to program as the Pi but more robust, you can check out -- https://www.balena.io/blog/introducing-project-fin-a-board-for-fleet-owners/ https://www.balena.io/blog/introducing-project-fin-a-board-f...

zestyping 8y ago
Hi, thanks! From the description at https://www.balena.io/fin/ https://www.balena.io/fin/, it looks like I'd be spending ~$170 instead of ~$35 to get: - Ability to run on 6V to 24V power - Low-power coprocessor - Battery-powered real-time clock The rest of the interfaces all look pretty much the same, except that the Fin loses two USB ports and the headphone jack. Given that my plan is to run off of 5V USB power and I don't intend to write special software for the coprocessor, can you help me understand whether there might still be good reasons to use a Fin?