Suggestion: Safe Mode with No Flash Writes

RouterOS General
1

Many users would really benefit from a “safe mode” that completely avoids writing to flash.

I have a powerful router, and I often need to make frequent changes — adjusting routing policies, firewall rules, and other configurations thousands of times a day. I shouldn’t have to worry about wearing out the flash memory every time I make a change.

I understand that RouterOS commits changes immediately for consistency, especially in the GUI, but it would be great if there were an alternative mode — or at least an API option — to apply changes temporarily in RAM only, without touching the flash.

This would be incredibly useful for testing, automation, and development environments.

2

:+1:

Actually that wouldn't be a safe mode as we know it today ... rather a mode much like many other vendors have ... where configuration changes (which remain active even if management session breaks while changes get applied) have to be explicitly saved to permanent storage (to survive reboots).

1 Like
3

You shouldn't. There was even the topic on "How durable are MT's flashes". I recall statements: "It happens so rarely that I/we do not remeber details or dates of such a failure".

4

Or my usual

I've been working with MikroTik since 2007, not a single device has been changed because it ran out of writes to the NAND/XOR Flash...
Not even the machines with active user-manager inside, that had continuous reading and writing...