Questions about ISY994i MicroSD card

[Wes Westhaver]

I never paid much attention to the fact that the ISY994i had a MicroSD card but I've started to wonder what the life expectancy is of the MicroSD card. I've been employing Raspberry Pi's around my house for many years now and have learned that it is always a good idea to keep backups of their MicroSD cards in case one of them fails. The easiest way to do this is to make an image file (.IMG) of the entire MicroSD card.

Would this be a good backup technique for the MicroSD card in the ISY994i?

I know the ISY994i Admin Console has a "File / Backup ISY" option but making an image file of the whole MicroSD card seems like it would be a quicker way to restore the ISY994i to working order in the event of a MicroSD card failure since an image file contains everything on the MicroSD card including the formatting.

Thoughts?

[Geddy]

@Wes WesthaverNot sure what the life of the SD card is. I've had my ISY since 2016 and haven't had any issues. I'm sure others have had it much longer without issues. As for having a spare...good idea to have, but the likelihood of buying one and losing it before you need it might be higher than just buying when needed. Just have to figure the cost of buying it now and hoping you know where you put it when needed rather than buying a new one if/when it goes bad. 

As for having a copy of the card...I don't think it's that easy. There is a process to follow to replace the card. It shouldn't take too long. The biggest part is having a recent backup of the system for when you get the new card installed and firmware installed to then restore the backup. 

Steps to replace the SD card are outlined in the Wiki.

Also, if you think that you're going to have a Polisy anytime in the near future then having a backup SD card for an ISY that won't be in use much longer isn't very wise (IMO). 

 

[larryllix]

Recreating an SD card for a ISY994 is very simple.
Insert the card
Connect via ssh and run the card format command. Can't remember.
Run the admin console and load the latest ISY version image.
Restore your best backup.
May need to set your password, time zone and lat,longitude.
Done

The whole thing takes about 30 minutes.
Format inside ISY guarantees format observes ISY sectoring and will not overrun the 2GB maximum capabilities of the card hardware.


Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[Wes Westhaver]

52 minutes ago, larryllix said:

1. Insert the card
2. Connect via ssh and run the card format command. Can't remember.
3. Run the admin console and load the latest ISY version image.
4. Restore your best backup.
5. May need to set your password, time zone and lat,longitude.
6. Done

If I have a mirror image of the current MicroSD card then it should be:

1. Burn .IMG file onto new MicroSD card.
2. Insert the MicroSD card into ISY994i.
3. Done

This seems simpler/quicker. MicroSD cards are dirt cheap and I always keep spares around. I also have Terabytes of storage available where I keep my image files.

52 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Format inside ISY guarantees format observes ISY sectoring and will not overrun the 2GB maximum capabilities of the card hardware.

Unless I'm missing something, a mirror image of the original MicroSD card should have the exact characteristics as the original MicroSD card. So there should be no need to worry about what special sectoring. And your password, timezone etc. are contained in the image.

[mmb]

2 hours ago, Wes Westhaver said:

I never paid much attention to the fact that the ISY994i had a MicroSD card but I've started to wonder what the life expectancy is of the MicroSD card.

I have the same question about the new Polisy device. 

I have one but I'm not even sure what kind of storage it uses - anybody know?

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, Wes Westhaver said:

If I have a mirror image of the current MicroSD card then it should be:

1. Burn .IMG file onto new MicroSD card.
2. Insert the MicroSD card into ISY994i.
3. Done

This seems simpler/quicker. MicroSD cards are dirt cheap and I always keep spares around. I also have Terabytes of storage available where I keep my image files.

Unless I'm missing something, a mirror image of the original MicroSD card should have the exact characteristics as the original MicroSD card. So there should be no need to worry about what special sectoring. And your password, timezone etc. are contained in the image.

If you feel that's all you need, why not go for it?

[mwester]

1 hour ago, mmb said:

I have the same question about the new Polisy device. 

I have one but I'm not even sure what kind of storage it uses - anybody know?

Standard SSD (mSATA if I recall correctly).

[larryllix]

5 hours ago, Wes Westhaver said:

If I have a mirror image of the current MicroSD card then it should be:

1. Burn .IMG file onto new MicroSD card.
2. Insert the MicroSD card into ISY994i.
3. Done

This seems simpler/quicker. MicroSD cards are dirt cheap and I always keep spares around. I also have Terabytes of storage available where I keep my image files.

Unless I'm missing something, a mirror image of the original MicroSD card should have the exact characteristics as the original MicroSD card. So there should be no need to worry about what special sectoring. And your password, timezone etc. are contained in the image.

That depends on what type of imaging software has been used. Some do low level formatting and sectoring and some only do higher level imaging and do not understand low level sector formatting. I am not real familiar with the sectoring quirks of SD cards though. I just know many SD cards crash after being used for some time as the sectoring can be formatted for more space than the hardware can handle and then the software crashes. As time progressed, the sector tables for storage had several different limitations and larger SD cards and HDDs exceeded the limitations of the hardware at times.

I think after you see how easy it is to get the latest image on a new SD card inside an ISY994, there isn't much need to store an SD card containing as old image that will be out of date every time you edit a program or update your ISY with a new update.

[Michel Kohanim]

@Wes Westhaver,

The whole purpose of the procedure is to make sure bad sectors and files are not burned into the new SD Card. Not sure why following the manufacturer instructions should not be followed and, instead, use a method that may make things worse?

With kind regards,
Michel

[lilyoyo1]

53 minutes ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@Wes Westhaver,

The whole purpose of the procedure is to make sure bad sectors and files are not burned into the new SD Card. Not sure why following the manufacturer instructions should not be followed and, instead, use a method that may make things worse?

With kind regards,
Michel

Experience is the best teacher. It's been said countless times on these forums not to take shortcuts as it often ends badly. This is shown often with those who import their previous setups from other controllers. 

Sometimes you cant say anything. You just gotta let them fail.

[Wes Westhaver]

@Michel Kohanim If bad sectors exist on the MicroSD card and they happen to contain user data then it's a loss no matter what method of backup is employed (File / Backup ISY or Card Imaging.)

I suspect that ISY994i MicroSD card failures are going to be pretty rare. I base this on a post I found that advised that there is no way to do an orderly shutdown of the ISY994i, just pull the plug. This would be terrible advice if the ISY994i was writing to the MicroSD card. But since the recommended shutdown is "pull the plug" I have to assume the MicroSD card is strictly read-only unless a configuration update is being executed.

[Techman]

21 hours ago, mmb said:

I have the same question about the new Polisy device. 

I have one but I'm not even sure what kind of storage it uses - anybody know?

From UDI website:

Polisy is powerful. It boasts 1Ghz Quad Core AMD CPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB 3D NAND SSD, 3 x 1 GB Ethernet ports, and extensive I/O features. Its prowess is assured by a lean fine-tuned version of BSD Unix. Its security hardened by TPM boot. Its reliability, viability, and support is guaranteed by the same team that brought you the ISY.

[lilyoyo1]

6 minutes ago, Techman said:

From UDI website:

Polisy is powerful. It boasts 1Ghz Quad Core AMD CPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB 3D NAND SSD, 3 x 1 GB Ethernet ports, and extensive I/O features. Its prowess is assured by a lean fine-tuned version of BSD Unix. Its security hardened by TPM boot. Its reliability, viability, and support is guaranteed by the same team that brought you the ISY.

You should've created their Polisy marketing page

[Techman]

12 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

You should've created their Polisy marketing page

No need to, fortunately Michel and his staff have done a great job

[MrBill]

2 hours ago, Wes Westhaver said:

I have to assume the MicroSD card is strictly read-only unless a configuration update is being executed.

It's not.. both logs are written to the SD card, "log" and "error log"

The size of the logfile is a factor in how fast the SD card fails to.  Before node servers the log named "log" could have months of data in it, after node servers the "log" was getting overwritten very quickly-- less than 24 hours.  I've since adjusted how often some nodesevers update to lengthen that.  There's also a method via telnet to increase the size of the logfile, which I've considered but haven't implemented.  Michel said somewhere a long time ago that size considerations needed to be balanced, but he never provided us with a forumula.   When I purchased my ISY it had a 4GB microSD card in it... today its 16gb (yes i've had one fail), so I have plenty of space to make the log bigger, which should slow down on contant re-writing of the same blocks or sectors... but I don't know what the other half of the equations for balancing the size is.

[Michel Kohanim]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:27 AM, Wes Westhaver said:

But since the recommended shutdown is "pull the plug" I have to assume the MicroSD card is strictly read-only unless a configuration update is being executed.

Precisely. We only write to the SD when we have to flush the log or save configuration, or save init values for variables. Regardless, it's always best to follow what's been tested and we know works.

With kind regards,
Michel