• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

USB pen drive RAID help

M

monkoosbob0

n00b
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
44
What I really want to make is a portable RAID. I need it for databases, so it just has to have fast access times (probably RAID 5), and it must be windows compatible.

I've seen people do this before, but not with Windows compatibility, and i'm not sure if theirs are PnP.

It would be really cool if i could just use the windows disk management util, but it only works on dynamic disks, which is (almost) impossible to get to work on a flash drive.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any programs that you know of that might help?

My next step is to try out that Hitachi Microdrive driver that I've heard works for this, but I've also heard that it doesn't work in 64-bit vista, which is what my machine is running right now. So, it's not impossible, it just makes it very difficult to do. http://www.usbhacks.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5&sid=7dc9533127bc8c5d0e82383e39c2feca

Thank you in advance.
 
Since a RAID of flash drives will be completely software based, what happens when you move to another machine?

I did this awhile back in OS X. Its Disk Utility has the ability to "RAID" usb drives into a single logical volume, but since it doesn't do anything to the drives, when you unplug them they are just single standalone flash drives.

I can see this working, but it will not be able to be moved from machine to machine.
 
I'm just wondering what thoroughput you would get for such a setup...USB on a good day with good flash drives should get around 25-30MB/s at best? Add that with other USB flash drives as well as RAID 5 overhead through software, I'm not sure if the performance will be worth it, but then again I don't know what flash drives you plan to use this scheme for, but it definitely is new to me. Good luck at that. :)
 
That may or may not be able to RAID that flash drives (try it), but you are still facing the larger problem. Once these drives are unplugged, they are just normal flash drives. When you plug them into a different PC then what? Its going to see them as all separate and if you did something along the lines of RAID5, Windows probably won't even be able to read what is on them.
 
Well, anything flash based with be extremely slow with anything database related. You're better off getting a small external hard drive.
 
Yes, that's understandable, but that's what the RAID will hopefully be helpful for. The reason flash might be better is random access times, right?
 
Get a 2.5" 7200RPM hard drive and a USB powered enclosure, ideally with ESATA support as well. That's a better option by far.
 
May I ask what your origional intention as to why you specifically require RAID 5?

I don't want to thread crap, but it sounds like you would be MUCH better off simply getting even a cheap jmicron controlled SSD and portable enclosure and just being done with it.
 
vsboxerboy said:
May I ask what your origional intention as to why you specifically require RAID 5?

I don't want to thread crap, but it sounds like you would be MUCH better off simply getting even a cheap jmicron controlled SSD and portable enclosure and just being done with it.
Click to expand...

I don't specifically require RAID 5, but I just figured it would be the cheapest way to do it. (fewest drives)

I really appreciate all the feedback you guys, but one of my main requirements of the project was that it be cheap.
I'm not sure if i was clear about that earlier; furthermore, I can't spend much over $100, not on a college budget. (-;
 
I think a mobile raid 5 I think will end up costing you more money because of needing a device capable of supporting 3 or more disks... plus large disks are so cheap these days.. I'd stick to raid1 for redundancy and ease of finding a decent inexpensive external chassis. Also, raid5 with flash disks (be it usb or ssd) is not good... the parity disk would get so hammered with mass writes all the time it would end up slowing the array...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top