Re: Using USB Drives for a RAID
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.
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