From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D17851382C5 for ; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 18:11:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 24502E0BD0; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 18:11:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smarthost01d.mail.zen.net.uk (smarthost01d.mail.zen.net.uk [212.23.1.7]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 97979E0BAA for ; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 18:11:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [82.30.216.240] (helo=peak.localnet) by smarthost01d.mail.zen.net.uk with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA256:256) (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1krm7s-0005I0-Pn for gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 18:11:12 +0000 From: Peter Humphrey To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Big USB disks Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2020 18:11:12 +0000 Message-ID: <2751508.e9J7NaK4W3@peak> In-Reply-To: References: <5420897.DvuYhMxLoT@peak> <12671169.uLZWGnKmhe@peak> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org X-Auto-Response-Suppress: DR, RN, NRN, OOF, AutoReply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Originating-smarthost01d-IP: [82.30.216.240] Feedback-ID: 82.30.216.240 X-Archives-Salt: 5bdcb4f1-3559-4212-aca7-10db93c0e31f X-Archives-Hash: 197183a99a281e191fc5931622622722 On Tuesday, 22 December 2020 16:48:26 GMT Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 11:36 AM Peter Humphrey wrote: > > I wondered about that. I'm nervous, though, because this is my ultimate > > backup disk, and of course I don't want to endanger it. This disk is an > > external USB unit, not for booting from. > > Oh, if you aren't booting from it then I don't think the firmware > would be involved at all. Only the OS should matter, so as long as > that is something modern you should be fine (not sure how linux from > 1998 handles a 14TB USB drive). Er... it's 4TB, and although I didn't say so, this is the Thinkpad T61 I mentioned in another thread, which is having Gentoo installed. I ditched the Windows partitions, since there was no point in keeping a possibility of recovering the OS - it was XP! So far in the new installation, Gentoo can't see any partitions. I'd better check through all the FS settings I have in the kernel. > Your biggest issue is probably going to be that if you have a lot of > data to back up then it will take forever if the system only has USB2. Yes, that's true, but the laptop's disk is only 120 GB. > I'm actually storing a lot of my data on USB3 external drives now with > lizardfs. With Pi4s having 2x USB3 hosts you can keep up to four > spinning disks near-100% occupied, and this is mostly for static data > so I could handle more disks than that (rebuilds are going to be > limited by the gigabit LAN port). I was using LSI HBAs but have been > having SATA errors with those - I suspect that the ones you can get > cheap on eBay have a LOT of hours on them and are getting flaky - plus > one of those HBAs probably pulls more power than a dozen Pis anyway. > I wouldn't do this with older Pi models due to the USB being far more > limited (USB2 only, and the LAN was shared with that too) - there are > other SBCs that are options as well. Lots more interesting ideas there - thanks again Rich. > Obviously none of this is going to be competing with block storage > solutions on SSD/NVMe. This is just for media/etc where capacity and > redundancy and cheap matters most. I only have a couple of home machines to think about, so only fairly modest backup is in order. -- Regards, Peter.