Raid support USB drives

[Keitje]

Hi,

I want to know if it is possible to create a RAID (1) storage with different USB harddrives? Say that I want to use 2 1 TB drives with 2 USB ports. Possible to create a Raid1 storage then? I have limited access to create more drives in the system that is running FreeNAS.

 

[matthewowen01]

remember USB is a shared bus that maxes out at a theoretical (and never near) 480 mb/s

 

[Keitje]

remember USB is a shared bus that maxes out at a theoretical (and never near) 480 mb/s

Thnx for your reply. Yes I know, it is not for the performance, more for a safe but cheap solution. But I dont know if it is possible. But I assume from your answer that it is possible?

 

[matthewowen01]

anythings possible, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to do. you may have to do it at the cli.

 

[survive]

Hi guys,

Honestly I'd just like a feature that would let me clone my key....so I could plug in a second key and have the whole FreeNAS install "dd"ed over to it.

-Will

 

[pallfreeman]

anythings possible, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to do. you may have to do it at the cli.

Surely not! What's the point of it all, then? You might as well just run vanilla FreeBSD.

 

[pallfreeman]

Honestly I'd just like a feature that would let me clone my key....so I could plug in a second key and have the whole FreeNAS install "dd"ed over to it.

You clearly already know how to "dd" a copy of your key.

Is that *really* the thing you'd like most?

Man, you're aiming low. Developers take note. :)

 

[Keitje]

So its not possible to create a RAID 1 set with 2 USB harddrives?

 

[pallfreeman]

Sorry, it looks like nobody actually bothered to answer your question. :)

Yes, of course it is.

 

[Keitje]

Sorry, it looks like nobody actually bothered to answer your question. :)

Yes, of course it is.

Thanks for your reply! I will get into this a little bit deeper then. I'm new with FreeNAS but didn't want to put much energy in to it if it was not possible.

 

[praecorloth]

Thnx for your reply. Yes I know, it is not for the performance, more for a safe but cheap solution. But I dont know if it is possible. But I assume from your answer that it is possible?

I would be very cautious about this. I've had issues having too much bandwidth from USB web cams where images from one bleed over in to another. I would hate to think what this might do to data.

 

[pallfreeman]

I would be very cautious about this. I've had issues having too much bandwidth from USB web cams where images from one bleed over in to another. I would hate to think what this might do to data.

Y'know, if I could reliably reproduce that kind of fault, I'd be fascinated to see how ZFS copes with it.

I've experimented with ZFS on USB sticks which don't work reliably with UFS, using a
mirror vdev instead of a geom mirror, and it doesn't even break into a sweat.