USB harddrive boot ???

T

THL3

n00b
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Newb question.
Is it possible to boot a small farm from 1 usb external hd. :rolleyes:
Linux maybe. Let's say 4 mb's w/ memory only, a USB hub, 1 USB ext. drive

 
THL3 said:
Newb question.
Is it possible to boot a small farm from 1 usb external hd. :rolleyes:
Linux maybe. Let's say 4 mb's w/ memory only, a USB hub, 1 USB ext. drive

Click to expand...

Very possible if you see it supported in your BIOS options. My only warning would be that USB drives to have a "life span". To date I don't recall anyone burning one out however.

Luck




 
BillR said:
Very possible if you see it supported in your BIOS options. My only warning would be that USB drives to have a "life span". To date I don't recall anyone burning one out however.

Luck




Click to expand...

He's talking hard drive rather than flash drive so the lifespan shouldn't be a problem.

 
SmokeRngs said:
He's talking hard drive rather than flash drive so the lifespan shouldn't be a problem.

Click to expand...

Lol, good point, I'll work on my reading.

However the answer is still yes, if the BIOS supports booting from USB ;)
 
are you wanting to boot the 4 motherboards all off one usb hard drive via the usb hub?
 
THL3 said:
Newb question.
Is it possible to boot a small farm from 1 usb external hd. :rolleyes:
Linux maybe. Let's say 4 mb's w/ memory only, a USB hub, 1 USB ext. drive
Click to expand...
Nope. The USB hub is unidirectional - you can connect multiple devices to one host, not multiple hosts to one device. A USB KVM might do this.

 
For what you're trying to do, it would be easier to set one machine up as a fold server, and have the rest boot off the network from it.
 
RavenD said:
For what you're trying to do, it would be easier to set one machine up as a fold server, and have the rest boot off the network from it.
Click to expand...

Can you have Linux clients boot off an XP Server? I haven't done Unix in 20 years and only dabbled in Linux enough to get ShowEQ to work... Maybe I should research more before asking questions. :confused:
 
What mage has developed is called fold server, which requires 1 box with a HD and the rest to have PXE boot capabilities. The fold server then boots the clients and they do all the folding while caching the work on the server. It's all linux based, however, I am unsure if it could be run in a Virtual Server.

 
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