[vox-tech] NAS/Printer Server/Web Server?

[Alex Mandel]

On 06/24/2010 07:13 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Alex Mandel (tech_dev at wildintellect.com):
> 
>> Anyone have any thoughts on connecting something like the following as
>> an external usb 2 drive hardware RAID?
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182144
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121060
> 
> That's just two drives in one box.  (Personally, I rather like the idea
> of each drive having its own USB/Firewire box w/PSU:  No SPoF.)  You
> would need to furnish your own hardware RAID HBA.
> 
Indeed I should have read the specs closer. I guess what I was looking
for no longer exists.

> I'm unclear on how you'd do hardware RAID serving to _USB_:  By
> contrast, if you used the eSATA connectors (instead of USB), you could,
> I guess, but I'm (speaking for myself) a little unenthusiastic about
> SATA hardware RAID, generally.  Be careful what you pick; most
> RAID-capable SATA HBAs are still fakeraid (manufacturer-specific
> software RAID).
> 
>> I guess the other question, for a use case like this, infrequent copies
>> of data for backup does it matter if it's software or hardware RAID?
>> I kind of liked the idea of just popping in a drive and having build the
>> RAID without me doing anything.
> 
> I don't think configuring md RAID1 for remirroring is exactly a big
> deal, is it?  Actually, I'll be able to speak to that question soon,
> because my server's recently failed one of its md RAID1 mirrored pair of
> antique 18GB SCSI drives, and I'll need to replace it RSN.
> 

I don't really know either, the only time I've had to mess with RAID was
on a clunky old workstation with 3 drives and a terrible RAID BIOS.

Single point of failure on the power supply doesn't worry me too much
since I can live with downtime and it's seems to be a relatively
ordinary part. But you do bring up some good points and I plan to shop
for 2 independent drives to see how that compares.

It will mean more work to configure since the NAS boxes seem to have
print serve, file server, media serve all ready out of the box.

Thanks,
Alex