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 C42AE1382C5 for ; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:48:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 20B9EE0BBB; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:48:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ot1-f52.google.com (mail-ot1-f52.google.com [209.85.210.52]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D2DF6E0BAB for ; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:48:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-ot1-f52.google.com with SMTP id o11so12458294ote.4 for ; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 08:48:38 -0800 (PST) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to; bh=LP/PGGELfxkrUlE1u/78HeuruShszP9BQvkpnXW91i8=; b=laNIH5cvB+Q7zD8vbKbCDTcRy8nXMzZyjpQyvWiG07F6zl/If4ghdOCM3L4jOr6Z/p iZ0Lb8t5MWbu+QA8zTPz2Ck3swF50zGbKkbocCKq0H4GRmk2HzYz0EIIjHvU12+48GbX GCcEWKgTrmtnaNkA9EYMCC0kzVALssDbnlNdEGc4nkbj6ZiFzA9PbhseSDl9I1UD9rzr Qk372EZr/049ZxCq+6mUndS/d0Fmt3J5Av4LJVJ3YjsIScSLGHbAZ724Siqr+T5Z+reM W2YCyCLqiAggrq1QT4iN668JlW5eTFFicOHSIKKXPdx7hZkpntESFV/TQJ5a4qbaIG0Y 2jGA== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM533CBi25BKRYphXCo3DIY/irCYRo5er9Zf4xVK/VU7no9hZm877C sxRj+0uWTgA/klr5bAvJ2dBZ8pPJzvHE+uX2gLdkNsOa X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJydKjNJhIKb3x3dBGnqKtEeAkj8lbQ4HfbKbJelegesEVcEKsnEFl44rQcpUXY/dzu5sQjPHzqSS3PBArKwZ/4= X-Received: by 2002:a05:6830:1205:: with SMTP id r5mr16017489otp.51.1608655717816; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 08:48:37 -0800 (PST) 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 References: <5420897.DvuYhMxLoT@peak> <12671169.uLZWGnKmhe@peak> In-Reply-To: <12671169.uLZWGnKmhe@peak> From: Rich Freeman Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2020 11:48:26 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Big USB disks To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Archives-Salt: ae77a71d-e5b0-4963-b863-8716142ddd6d X-Archives-Hash: 61770e4461b7c8241cc2e4b4ad7e1647 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). 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. 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. 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. -- Rich