smallest possible "hard drive" for installation?

[johnsonx42]

I'm trying to design a small, minimum cost Untangle box for home use (without modules like Reporting and Web Cache). As I notice my bigger untangle boxes haven't used more than 4-6GB of disk, I'm pondering the use of a small SSD or CF card instead of a hard drive.

Questions then (and I have searched, but all that I found was inconclusive or out of date):

a) what's the smallest possible hard drive that the standard installer will partition correctly and install to?

b) can I go smaller with an expert install?

Thanks

[dmorris]

a) not sure. I think it will have as much to do with the drive as the size when it comes to partitioning correctly.

b) I don't think expert changes anything, but it may help you partition the drive successfully if the normal install fails.

remember there are many frequently-written areas on the disk (logs, databases, quarantines, virus-file scans, etc) so CF might be problematic. I suspect SSD would be fine.

Keep in mind the minimum requirements. You are free to run it on a 4 gig drive, but it is outside the spec of what untangle designs to and tests on. If you have problems it will be in your court to solve them.

[johnsonx42]

Thanks, and no problem with the warning on the minimum requirements. I know I'm going outside what you can support.

Thanks for the heads-up about the CF usage. I knew of course there are write limitations on CF's, but I hadn't thought through all the different things that Untangle would be writing all day long even without the obvious things like Reports and Web Cache.

CF isn't such a hot idea, and the cheapest 8GB SSD still costs the same as a 160GB 2.5" HD.

Perhaps I'll see if I can find a good source of discount-priced 80gb 2.5" HD's. Fry's has or at least had some new Seagates for $30, but I'll bet I can do better than that. That way I meet the hardware specs and hit my price point.

[johnsonx42]

wow, if I could figure out how to interface it to a regular 40 pin IDE interface, this would be tempting to try: http://www.overstock.com/Electronics...1/product.html

[Jon_Starr]

Hi there,

You might be interested to know that it's just a normal ATA interface.
ST1 Series Product Manual
You could quickly design a simple adaptor board for it (I would probably put some decoupling on the board as well as these things are sometimes a bit finicky about that).
PCB-Pool are great for small runs, and pretty cheap with small boards like this.

For the Flex connector side you'd need to measure the pitch to see what ZIF connector you need, JAE or Molex should have something suitable. Pretty much every connector manufacturer makes female/male IDE box headers

Cheers,

Jon

[johnsonx42]

Thanks for the info Jon_Starr. I knew it was simply a tiny ATA interface, but have found no evidence of any pre-fab adapter for it.
Getting an adapter board made, even at what is considered reasonable pricing for this sort of thing is WAY beyond what I want to do. Besides, there's no promise at all that an Untangle box would be functional for long, if at all, on a 5GB drive.

[sky-knight]

Personally I wouldn't mess with anything smaller than 10gb. In production the smallest drive I sell is 36gb.