USB Raid? Mod in the works

[Joni Nitro]

I am wondering if two USB drives can be configured in Raid0. I want to use 2 300gb 16mb Matxors in Raid0 externally. Ultimately I would like to have these wired into the same controller so I ran hook them up with one USB cable. My first thought was to use the controller that cam in my external case and use a ribbon cable to connect to drives. Would the PC recognize this?

 

[drunknbass]

pretty sure it can, i read somewhere,i dont know where, this guy doingh weird raid setups and raided like 4 3.5 floppy drives together (i think by usb)
so i dont see why hd would be any different

 

[DougLite]

Why run RAID-0...on USB 2.0? There is not a single possible scenario where such a setup would show any benefit over running two separate drives, but it still has all of the problems of running RAID-0.

 

[Joni Nitro]

Honeslty I dont care if it is Raid0 or not. I would like it to show up as one 600gb hd and I want to connect them both with one USB cable. If I hooked the two hd and one optikal drive to a one usb hub would it slow the transfer speed between drives? Also, if each drive is being powered seprately will I need to use a powered usb hub or can I just use a passive one.

 

[defakto]

You're not planning on moving these between systems at all are you? If so, Scrath software raid on them all together it probably won't be able to move between.


Passive hub should work fine if the drives already have power.

 

[djnes]

Why run RAID-0...on USB 2.0? There is not a single possible scenario where such a setup would show any benefit over running two separate drives, but it still has all of the problems of running RAID-0.

Even more so, I'd say because the read/write over a USB bus isn't going to be as quick or sycnhronized as it will be over an IDE/SATA bus.

 

[feigned]

Honeslty I dont care if it is Raid0 or not.

Good. It's not happening.

I would like it to show up as one 600gb hd and I want to connect them both with one USB cable.

Not going to happen without an external array. That means more dollars, IF it's even possible. I think LaCie sells complete kits like this, and a few others. It's still a stupid option. Better to have them as seperate disks, just believe us on this.

If I hooked the two hd and one optikal drive to a one usb hub would it slow the transfer speed between drives?

If they were all transferring at the same time then oh yes...oh oh oh yes.

Also, if each drive is being powered seprately will I need to use a powered usb hub or can I just use a passive one.

Passive.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Here's a raid 1 enclosure, $400. Here's a raid 0 on firewire, $170. And finally here is a dual sata enclosure for the low, low price of $350. It does have e.sata, which could speed things up a bit, but still not a great idea to have normal 3.5" drives on the road, let alone two at a time. If you're using this as a way to get more capacity, wait another few months and buy a 600gb drive. Raid 0 plus external drive equals failure.

 

[Joni Nitro]

Ok you have now convinced me. So I am revising my plan. I will use the two drive seperately off of one hub and the optical off a different USB line. Plan was to build a case for this with a small PSU inside to power the three drives. I wanted to have all three drives inside so I could take it to other pc's easily and connected to my laptop.

 

[unhappy_mage]

This probably won't give you any more speed; most computers have only a single usb 2.0 controller, with a total of 480 mbit of bandwidth. So even putting the drives in different ports on the motherboard will give you the same speed as plugging them in the hub.