On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 12:59:22AM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote: > On Saturday 18 August 2007, Ron Johnson wrote: > > On 08/18/07 20:35, Hal Vaughan wrote: > > > On Saturday 18 August 2007, Ron Johnson wrote: > > >> On 08/18/07 19:39, Hal Vaughan wrote: > > >>> Has anyone built a RAID out of USB drives? I'm considering it > > >>> but I'd rather hear from others who may have done the same thing > > >>> first. I can see several possible problems. Last time I was > > >>> working with USG devices, if I unplugged the drives and did not > > >>> plug them in using the same order /dev/sda could become /dev/sdb, > > >>> so I could see that as an issue, for starters. > > >>> > > >>> If anyone has experience with this, I'd like to hear about it and > > >>> if it's a good or bad idea. > > >> > > >> What's the problem that you are trying to solve? > > > > > > At this point I'm exploring several possibilities. > > > > Possibilities of using USB drives instead of internal drives for a RAID. > It would provide something close to hotplug and also > > > Are you trying to solve a portability problem using high-capacity > > external drives, or a speed problem with USB thumb drives? > > There's several reasons I'm looking into it. I suspect one issue with > the box I've been using could be circulation, which I could solve with > separate drive enclosures. It would make drive swapping easier and it > could also make it portable. I don't know what else, which is why I > asked the question. If people say, "Yeah, I've tried it and it doesn't > work," then I drop the idea. If people tell me, "I've tried it and > found it was a benefit because of a, b, and c, then I know it's worth > looking into and perhaps worth using. > > That's why the original question: Has anyone tried this and what kind of > experience did they have? I find when I'm looking at a new > possibility, focusing on only my ideas can often close off discussion > about other possibilities or benefits I hadn't thought of. > > > > If USB RAID is > > > not practical or workable, then I'll just drop the possibility and > > > stick with sata or pata drives. > > > > Many companies sell multi-drive USB & firewire enclosures, and lots > > do RAID-5. Get one with 5 slots, stuff 750GB drives in it, and get > > 3TB of easily transportable storage in the size of a large shoebox. > > That's an idea I might find useful! Thanks!
Check out addonics. The other issue is throughput. If you put multiple drives (3TB!?) that have to interface via a single USB then it won't be fast. Is portability an issue? Get a big computer case with 5.15" bays. Add drive-bay adapters with integral fans. Turn it into a file server; decide what speed ethernet you need and from that decide how much processing power you need and put in a decent MB to match. Assuming that you're using SATA drives, any MB with lots of SATA ports probably will have enough oomph. Depending on your needs, you may find a cheap/free MB/CPU/ram combo even if it is in a dinky case. You may find a cheap box on eBay that will work, perhaps an old server. In summary, start with the case and work inward. As for my personal experience, I've never used a USB hard drive. People give me their old computers and I turn them into firewalls, X-terminals, or fileservers, adding fans ad lib. As for portability, my big mult-drive Athlon64 came with casters :) Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
