RB1100AH 41MB HDD Storage (Instead of 512mb)

lsjohnson2 · January 14, 2012, 9:22pm

My Company just recently bought a RB1100AH with the assumption that it has 512mb on-board NAND memory Chip. However ours out of the box it states it only has 41.7MB. We have upgraded it to ROS 5.11 and Firmware 2.38. What is it that we are doing wrong?

uptime: 1d22h9m3s
version: 5.11
free-memory: 1504380KiB
total-memory: 1555216KiB
cpu: e500v2
cpu-count: 1
cpu-frequency: 1066MHz
cpu-load: 20%
free-hdd-space: 4KiB
total-hdd-space: 41768KiB
architecture-name: powerpc
board-name: RB1100AH
platform: MikroTik

Thanks,
Logan

normis · January 16, 2012, 6:50am

with the > assumption > that it has 512mb

RouterBOARDs are coupled with enough NAND to run RouterOS unless specified otherwise.

it states it only has 41.7MB

yes, that’s normal for this model

marekm · January 16, 2012, 12:44pm

http://routerboard.com/pdf/353/rb1100ug.pdf - page 4:

Storage Device
The device is equipped with one 512MB NAND nonvolatile memory chip.

NAND flash is cheap, one would expect more of it in a high-end device. Even the RB1100AHx2 has only 41MB, not much for things like logs, metarouters etc.

normis · January 16, 2012, 1:04pm

metarouters

metarouter is not supported in this device, see metarouter manual

http://routerboard.com/pdf/353/rb1100ug.pdf > - page 4:

that manual is for all three devices, RB1100, RB1100AH, RB1100AHx2. That sentence lacked specifics so we edited it now.

Wazza · January 16, 2012, 1:41pm

Hang on, are you saying that Metarouters are not supported on the RB1100AH???

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Metarouter

Seems to indicate that it is supported. (RB1100AHx2 is not listed.)

No doubt, a bit more NAND / Flash space would be useful for the supported boards.

I’ve specifically purchased several RB1100AH’s to run metarouters (there have been a few issues, but so far everything is okay, not great, okay)…

Thanks,

Wazza

normis · January 16, 2012, 1:43pm

sorry misunderstood you, I meant the RB1100AHx2

RB1100AHx2 is not listed

not listed means not supported.

It will work fine on your RB1100AH and the space is more than enough to run RouterOS metarouters (RouterOS metarouter images don’t use any space, they use files from the host system)

marekm · January 18, 2012, 1:53am

Any chance the RB1100AHx2 will support metarouter in the future, like the x1 does? The winbox menu option is there (unlike RB1200), but any attempt to create it fails with “not enough resources”. Ideally, make it possible to use micro-sd card for storage, if the router itself has so little NAND flash (why, much smaller and cheaper RB450G could have 512MB). Dual core seems better for virtualization, could save a physical box to run freeradius etc. With so much free RAM, if there was enough storage, it should be possible to run as a guest even a full Debian, not just OpenWRT.

normis · January 18, 2012, 7:09am

Currently it is not supported because of the different hardware (multicore and such), it’s possible we will add support in the future, but can’t say for sure at this point.

scampbell · March 1, 2012, 11:01pm

Coming back on topic, the specification for the RB1100AH clearly states it is fitted with a 512MB NAND yet the System Store in Winbox shows only 41MB Total.

I have checked on an RB1100AH running RoS 5.14, FW 2.39.

Why is this please ?

normis · March 2, 2012, 6:06am

where does it say that? you are quoting an old manual, for the previous model.

bakkerl · March 2, 2012, 8:36am

A previous model? My RB1100AH shows the 512..

[bakkerl@MikroTik] /system resource> print 
                   uptime: 3w6d6h3m45s
                  version: 5.12
              free-memory: 1422132KiB
             total-memory: 1555424KiB
                      cpu: e500v2
                cpu-count: 1
            cpu-frequency: 1066MHz
                 cpu-load: 5%
           free-hdd-space: 479500KiB
          total-hdd-space: 520192KiB
  write-sect-since-reboot: 613
         write-sect-total: 53389
               bad-blocks: 0%
        architecture-name: powerpc
               board-name: RB1100AH
                 platform: MikroTik
[bakkerl@MikroTik] /system resource>

normis · March 2, 2012, 9:04am

Why don’t you simply accept the fact that new RB1100AH/x2 don’t have 512MB NAND, and that we will try to make it bigger in the future, ok?

bakkerl · March 2, 2012, 1:39pm

It is nice to know that the ‘old’ 1100AH had 512 and the ‘new’ 1100AH got less.
In my example i use the 1100AH mostly to run meta routers. So the less storage space is a nice to know before you buy issue.

And so the 41MB isn’t that normal as you say in http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/rb1100ah-41mb-hdd-storage-instead-of-512mb/53359/2

rmichael · March 2, 2012, 1:49pm

Here’s the problem I have with Mikrotik:

nowhere in the brochure or any distributor (strakwave/roc-noc/balticnetworks) site states that it’s limited to only 41.7MB NAND storage, if fact neither AH or AHx2 brochures state the size of NAND
It’s advertised as “extreme performance” vs RB1200 “affordable device” which has got 64MB (based of the info from the brochure)
Until recently it was said that it supported 8 MetaRouters

scampbell · March 2, 2012, 8:35pm

Here is the info I was using and the latest pdf http://routerboard.com/pdf/348/RB1100AH.pdf from your website is identical except suddenly no NAND value specified. Has there been an issue with the NAND chips I wonder ?

If indeed my info is for an old RB1100AH then the new one should be listed as a Rev2 on the brochure (and actual product) and specify current NAND amount as we need that info for our customers.

And to make matters worse the same RB1100AH won’t work reliably with a microSD card !! The microSD dissappears when you do a soft reboot. Only a hard power cycle will bring it back. Tested on Ros 5.14/FW2.39 on 2 x RB493G and 2 x RB1100AH Rev2(LOL).

A shame the RB1100 has less NAND than an RB493G (128MB) or RB450G (512MB NAND - for now).

normis · March 5, 2012, 6:24am

Product was replaced by a new one, brochure was updated because of it. CPU was also changed, as was motherboard design.

rmichael · March 5, 2012, 1:16pm

Was it intentional for the updated brochure not to list nand storage capacity? It seems that many who purchased the revised RB1100AH did not expect it to be only 41.7MB

normis · March 5, 2012, 1:24pm

Some times, based on stock changes, we might introduce a bigger NAND than 42MB to some devices. As the NAND size isn’t a big factor for running RouterOS, we decided to not show it, as this could vary sometimes. Of course we could include the minimum, but most router manufacturers don’t list their NAND size anywhere. Always assume that “Enough” NAND is installed to run RouterOS.

lahoras · March 6, 2012, 12:50pm

Normis, all your answers are clear, it is true, you have edited all the datasheets, none now says which is the size of the NAND, anyway, you should definitely relive special subject have degraded the product, I always had full confidence in the Mikrotik company and this action is disappointing.

ARIEL

roc-noc.com · March 12, 2012, 5:10pm

I understand why people are concerned. ROS has been growing in size over time. The RB1100 family is supposed to the best that Mikrotik offers.

Yet, this is the least amount of Flash that I have seen on a RouterBoard since I started using them in 2005. Back then the standard was 64MB. Then as RouterBoards evolved, we began seeing 128, 256 and 512MB as total flash.

The new RB1100AH and x2 do have a Samsung 64MB Flash chip on board. All I can guess is that it is not fully decoded. The engineers didn’t have enough address selects available so they made do with available resources and we ended up with 41.7MB.

Granted, the new RB1100AH came in $100 less than last year’s model. But this type of penny pinching seems a bit careless. Especially if you can’t fit Dude and other advanced packages on board.

Tom