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Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 12th 08, 03:53 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
Boll Weevil
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Posts: 15
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

My computers HD crashed again and I have to reinstall everything. Recently,
these USB flash drives are getting quite reasonable and I began to think how
nice it would be if I could used them as a boot drive instead the traditional
head thrashers. I was looking at the 3.5 inch dead HD and perhaps you could fit
about a dozen of those USB flash drives into a case. Then, with a onboard raid
controller, it could stripe it to create a large LUN. Of course this is all
speculation. I've not run into such a animal while googling.
  #2  
Old June 12th 08, 04:19 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
nik Simpson
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Posts: 20
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

Boll Weevil wrote:
My computers HD crashed again and I have to reinstall everything. Recently,
these USB flash drives are getting quite reasonable and I began to think how
nice it would be if I could used them as a boot drive instead the traditional
head thrashers. I was looking at the 3.5 inch dead HD and perhaps you could fit
about a dozen of those USB flash drives into a case. Then, with a onboard raid
controller, it could stripe it to create a large LUN. Of course this is all
speculation. I've not run into such a animal while googling.



There is a company that builds an adapter that takes CF-cards and turns
them into a SATA drive, see:

http://www.provantage.com/addonics-a...f~7ADDO1A7.htm



--
Nik Simpson
  #3  
Old June 12th 08, 08:54 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
[email protected]
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Posts: 37
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATAdisks.

On Jun 12, 9:53*am, Boll Weevil wrote:
My computers HD crashed again and I have to reinstall everything. *Recently,
these USB flash drives are getting quite reasonable and I began to think how
nice it would be if I could used them as a boot drive instead the traditional
head thrashers. *I was looking at the 3.5 inch dead HD and perhaps you could fit
about a dozen of those USB flash drives into a case. *Then, with a onboard raid
controller, it could stripe it to create a large LUN. *Of course this is all
speculation. *I've not run into such a animal while googling.



What's wrong with a flash SSD like those available from any number of
vendors?
  #4  
Old June 12th 08, 09:02 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
Boll Weevil
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Posts: 15
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:54:16 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

What's wrong with a flash SSD like those available from any number of
vendors?


Well, they are too small for one thing and if you get the 32GB ones you have to
loose limbs. To be comfortable for windows XP, you need about 20GB minimum.
But I wouldn't even entertain that. Vista..... forget it.

It would be nice to have a HD sized case where I can plug in 10 to 20 SD, Flash,
CF cards to be striped into one big logical disk. Like I said, this maybe
another year or two before we see anything like this...... I am thinking.

  #5  
Old June 13th 08, 02:23 AM posted to comp.arch.storage
Lon
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Posts: 99
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

Boll Weevil wrote:
My computers HD crashed again and I have to reinstall everything. Recently,
these USB flash drives are getting quite reasonable and I began to think how
nice it would be if I could used them as a boot drive instead the traditional
head thrashers. I was looking at the 3.5 inch dead HD and perhaps you could fit
about a dozen of those USB flash drives into a case. Then, with a onboard raid
controller, it could stripe it to create a large LUN. Of course this is all
speculation. I've not run into such a animal while googling.


You'd need need a raid controller with a usb driver, and since they are
cheap, perhaps take somewhere between 6 to 8 of them and make a raid5
parity group so you don't lose your data if an individual flash drive
fails.

Or you could use two and mirror them with a controller where you could
break the mirror and move one copy to another system.

If you truly can't find one, look for some startup capital and go for it.
  #6  
Old June 13th 08, 03:18 AM posted to comp.arch.storage
nik Simpson
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Posts: 20
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATAdisks.

Boll Weevil wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:54:16 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:
What's wrong with a flash SSD like those available from any number of
vendors?


Well, they are too small for one thing and if you get the 32GB ones you have to
loose limbs. To be comfortable for windows XP, you need about 20GB minimum.
But I wouldn't even entertain that. Vista..... forget it.

It would be nice to have a HD sized case where I can plug in 10 to 20 SD, Flash,
CF cards to be striped into one big logical disk. Like I said, this maybe
another year or two before we see anything like this...... I am thinking.

My bet is that you'll never see it, the price wouldn't be that much
better than a conventional flash drive, maybe even worse. Give it a
couple of years and nobody will care because the flash-based drives will
be cheap enough for all practical purposes.

--
Nik Simpson
  #7  
Old June 14th 08, 05:58 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
[email protected]
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Posts: 2
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

Ok, looks like there is a critter as such:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/periphera...ive-237908.php

But, the page doesn't say anything about who makes it!!
  #8  
Old June 16th 08, 12:02 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
Rolf Blom
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Posts: 15
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

On 06/14/08 06:58 PM, wrote:
Ok, looks like there is a critter as such:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/periphera...ive-237908.php

But, the page doesn't say anything about who makes it!!


It's from a company called Century.
A few similar designs around for IDE or SATA, using CF os SD memory.
(google for 'DIY SSD')

http://www.itechnews.net/2007/02/19/...b25sd-diy-ssd/

One user describes using a unit with 3 CF on raid 0/5 config:
http://blog.geekstuff4u.com/index.ph...aid5-with-3-cf

(But as flash is not as reliable as a hd for rewriting, I think I'll pass).

/Rolf
  #9  
Old June 17th 08, 06:51 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
Boll Weevil
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Posts: 15
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:02:30 +0200, Rolf Blom wrote:

(But as flash is not as reliable as a hd for rewriting, I think I'll pass).

/Rolf


Can you elaborate on your technical insite?
  #10  
Old June 18th 08, 03:54 PM posted to comp.arch.storage
Rolf Blom
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Posts: 15
Default Crazy idea........USB flash drives converted to IDE or SATA disks.

On 06/17/08 07:51 PM, Boll Weevil wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:02:30 +0200, Rolf Blom wrote:

(But as flash is not as reliable as a hd for rewriting, I think I'll pass).

/Rolf


Can you elaborate on your technical insite?


There is often no wear-levelling on CF or usb-sticks
what I've seen in the specs. (some do have them, but not all)

This (IMO) makes the use of cheap CF/USB memory in a normal disk
configuration less optimal than a 'real' SSD drive, since blocks cannot
be remapped due to wear on the cheaper DIY version, and they will thus
break sooner.

If the disk is only written to very seldom, it is acceptable, but for
logging filesystems (NTFS,ext3 etc) I don't think would be so good to
use DIY flashdisks, if you know there is a lot of rewrites.

/Rolf
 




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