31 Terabytes of storage?

[Terry Wilson]

Isn't Google Great?

If Firewire supports 63 devices ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394 )
and you got 500 GB external drives (
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=102653 )
could you build a system with 31 Terabytes of storage? (more with USB)
Granted, cost of 31 grand.

I would suspect running into problems long before reaching more than a few
terabytes.
I'd appreciate some comments from folks who have built or seen high capacity
storage systems and how
they did it. Maybe a link or two? Thanks.

Terry

 

[Scott]

Isn't Google Great?

If Firewire supports 63 devices (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394 )

and you got 500 GB external drives (
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=102653 )
could you build a system with 31 Terabytes of storage? (more with USB)
Granted, cost of 31 grand.

I would suspect running into problems long before reaching more than a few
terabytes.
I'd appreciate some comments from folks who have built or seen high capacity
storage systems and how
they did it. Maybe a link or two? Thanks.

Terry

Good luck looking for that elusive file though ;-)

It would probably take Windows an hour to search all drives

Scott

 

[Hamman]

Isn't Google Great?

If Firewire supports 63 devices (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394 )

and you got 500 GB external drives (
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=102653 )
could you build a system with 31 Terabytes of storage? (more with USB)
Granted, cost of 31 grand.

I would suspect running into problems long before reaching more than a few
terabytes.
I'd appreciate some comments from folks who have built or seen high capacity
storage systems and how
they did it. Maybe a link or two? Thanks.

Terry

USB2 would probably be a better solution, then you can get 127 devices from
each root hub. Since the average PC has say 2 onboard ones, and 5 PCI slots,
each of which could have say 3 root hubs on.

hamman

 

[patrick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394 )


USB2 would probably be a better solution, then you can get 127 devices from
each root hub. Since the average PC has say 2 onboard ones, and 5 PCI slots,
each of which could have say 3 root hubs on.

hamman

1. Run a GNU/Linux, or a *BSD.
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

2. Use SCSI for multi access, multi-write (*BSD/GNULinux=concurrent, not
like MS=consecutive, access!) PLUS, you can cluster an unlimited number
of towers, and pool all of the resources! Do like GOOGLE.com!

3. USB1.1 and 2 divides the access speed by the number of devices.
Super Sloooooow after about 5 devices!

 

[Jonba]

1. Run a GNU/Linux, or a *BSD.
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

2. Use SCSI for multi access, multi-write (*BSD/GNULinux=concurrent, not
like MS=consecutive, access!) PLUS, you can cluster an unlimited number
of towers, and pool all of the resources! Do like GOOGLE.com!

3. USB1.1 and 2 divides the access speed by the number of devices.
Super Sloooooow after about 5 devices!

Ouch, plus the electricity requirements to run all those devices.

 

[Peter]

Isn't Google Great?

If Firewire supports 63 devices ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394 )
and you got 500 GB external drives (
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=102653 )
could you build a system with 31 Terabytes of storage? (more with USB)
Granted, cost of 31 grand.

Not sure how windows handles drive letters above Z, and with your 63
devices, how would it deal with giving each one a unique letter
identifier?

 

[Terry Wilson]

Not sure how windows handles drive letters above Z, and with your 63
devices, how would it deal with giving each one a unique letter
identifier?

From MS:

Mounted drives, also known as volume mount points or drive paths, are
volumes attached to an empty folder on an NTFS volume. Mounted drives
function the same way as any other volume, but are assigned a label or name
instead of a drive letter. Mounted drives are robust against system changes
that occur when devices are added or removed from a computer. They are not
subject to the 26-volume limit imposed by drive letters, so you can use them
for access to more than 26 volumes on your computer.

So I gather you could name volumes anthing you like using NTFS

 

[nooneimportant]

Not sure how windows handles drive letters above Z, and with your 63
devices, how would it deal with giving each one a unique letter
identifier?

Doesn't each array in a RAID have its own drive letter?? In this case i can
see some massive 0+1 Arrays.... just a problem of how to do RAID over
firewire....

 

[Don Taylor]

I recall hearing that folks trying to carefully implement USB
discovered all sorts of problems as the number of devices got large,
and not even close to the maximum number spelled out in the standard.
Apparently sorts of companies had never tried their products with a
few dozen or more of them hanging on the bus at once.

So I think that well before you run out of drive letters, or thousand
dollar bills to buy the drives with, you will find other things to
worry about.

General rule: If you didn't test that particular configuration,
it is probably broken.

 

[Toshi1873]

Not sure how windows handles drive letters above Z, and with your 63
devices, how would it deal with giving each one a unique letter
identifier?

Mount points in NTFS is one option. If you RAID'd them
in groups of 8, now you only have 8 drives to be
partitioned. So as long as you only create 1 partition
per RAID set, you'll only need 8 drive letters.

I've heard rumors of a 400GB SATA drive, so assuming one
could find a 48-drive case combined with (4) 12-port
SATA RAID cards would give you (8) arrays, each with
roughly 1.83TB. (The 3Ware cards are limited to 2TB per
array, AFAIK.) That still only comes out to 14.6TB and
doesn't have any ability for hotspares.

 

[Terry Wilson]

Mount points in NTFS is one option. If you RAID'd them
in groups of 8, now you only have 8 drives to be
partitioned. So as long as you only create 1 partition
per RAID set, you'll only need 8 drive letters.

I've heard rumors of a 400GB SATA drive, so assuming one
could find a 48-drive case combined with (4) 12-port
SATA RAID cards would give you (8) arrays, each with
roughly 1.83TB. (The 3Ware cards are limited to 2TB per
array, AFAIK.) That still only comes out to 14.6TB and
doesn't have any ability for hotspares.

Hey that would actually work! I like the way you think.