🚀 go-pugleaf

In calgary.general Dice <dice@wilddice.org> wrote:

> Dan,

> I think the USB path isn't a bad idea, but I'll suggest a few things.

Dice, yours is easily the most helpful post in this thread.  I think you
"get" what I am trying to do.

> 1) Buy a separate PCI/USB Controller card (or two) for this, they can be 
> had as cheap as $30. Because USB is a shared network (and not all that 
> fast to begin with) spreading the drives across a couple of separate 
> controllers, or at least dedicating a controller just to this, will 
> greatly improve the performance. I know that may not be your goal, but 
> neither is something that is so slow it becomes nearly unusable.

No PCI slots on my server, unfortunately.

> 2) Ditch the idea of using a hub, it'll just be a bottleneck.

What you're saying makes complete sense, but unfortunately, my constraints
rule out multiple USB buses.   Thankfully, performance isn't important - As
long as I'm getting reasonable and realiable throughput, that's sufficient.


> 3) make sure that enclosure has a couple of fans in it besides the power 
> supply fan, if possible. Hard drive do generate a lot of heat.

Very true, and a point worth emphasising.

> 4) If you wanted to get real fancy, consider having the drives them 
> selves in those removable drive bays you can buy, and hook the usb 
> adapter kits to those. This way you could have the advantages of making 
> it easy to hot swap drive in and out, and the USB convenience. It would 
> cost a bunch more money, but it is an interesting idea.

Another excellent idea.  Although this increases cost, this will make adding
and replacing disks down the road easier.    I'm sure if I keep my eyes open
on ebay, I will find a lot auction for cheap.

> 5) If you hook it up to a Linux box, as opposed to a windows one, you 
> might want to explore using RAID on them to make them appear as a single 
> larger volume (RAID5). I have no idea how good it would work in 
> practice, but it might be interesting to play with.

That's exactly where I'm headed.  My server is Linux, and I want to hook up
this "Poor Man's JBOD", Raid5 it with software, and use it as a backuppool
for TSM.

> Let us know how it turns out. I'd also be interested in knowing if the 
> Ebay deal pans out. I have two 40GB USB drives, by Microsolutions which 
> use their goofy backpack (Colorado) hardware. It is a major pain as you 
> need special drivers to deal with them. I wouldn't mind retrofitting 
> them with a real USB/IDE kit of some sort.

I don't think it'll be hard to get adapters off of Ebay.  There're plentiful
and cheap on there already, and I'm sure will get more plentiful and
cheaper down the road.

This thread has helped me cement some of the ideas I was tossing around in
my head.    I think the next step for me is to do some napkin-math to figure
out costs and options, and depending on the numbers, start looking for a 
cheap 7-bay enclosure.    If I pursue it, I'll definitely post the outcome
here.




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