[XCSSA] 1 step forward...(DIY NAS Continued)

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

On May 26, 2009, at 11:23 AM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio  
wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 2:07 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San  
> Antonio <
> xcssa at xcssa.org> wrote:
>
>> .....
>> In fact, if I really wanted to, I could even do
>> software RAID on the USB sticks (I would just have to bind the sticks
>> somehow to a specific device, so they don't get shuffled around).
>>
> http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html has what you're  
> looking
> for.
> The following is an example document in german (but linux commands  
> are clear
> enough) for id'ing usb raid sticks.
> http://www.rob-schulze.de/publikationen/frickelworx/usb-raid/ .
> Enlish document example: http://cs.joensuu.fi/~mmeri/usbraid/
> I guess what'd be different is how to create a mega usb port so one  
> could
> raid a whole bunch of mini-usbs  (terabyte grouping of all those  
> free usb
> giveaways!).
> Or somehtin where the postage is more than you'll pay for the usb  
> stick(s)&&
> hub http://www.miniflashdrive.com/
>

Yep udev would be the way to go. Thanks for the docs on that note!  
Playing with udev isn't exactly fun...another way might be to use the  
UUID's or LABEL's to indicate which device it is.

On the note of USB RAID, I had this idea a while ago to make a huge  
RAID of SD cards. It could definitely work. The problem is the speed  
of the USB bus. You will only be able to lump around 3 SD cards onto  
each USB channel before bandwidth will be the limiting factor. So one  
would have to use multiple PCI USB controller cards, so then you can  
bump up against the PCI bus. Practically, though, you could rival an  
SSD drive in speed for at least non-cached read/writes and do so for a  
cheaper price tag. Kinda useless, but fun :)

>
>
>> Anyways, point is, USB sticks are cheap, large, and plentiful.  
>> Since I
>> find that they are a bit easier to back-up, I think I'm going to go
>> that route. Slow boot-up times do not bother me, and neither will the
>> lack of wear leveling (which CF cards do not support natively as far
>> as I am aware), particularly since I am still going to minimize  
>> writes
>> to the USB stick where possible. If I really wanted to, I could also
>> use cramFS or something like that to put the working OS in RAM  
>> anyway.
>
>
> USB raid would be faster than a floppy raid
> http://www.everyjoe.com/thegadgetblog/totally-awesome-but-useless-floppy-raid/

Heheh we did that when I was working at UT (Austin)'s College of  
Education. We had a ton of USB floppy drives and used OS X to make a  
huge RAID. It was awesome. Streaming MP3s from floppies in real-time,  
oooh!

Tim S.