you're striping then mirroring, so you get double the performance of a single usb drive and then you mirror that stripe to get redundancy
mdadm should handle it no worries, as for reading/writing speeds you are only running the OS from the usb drives, so the disk access to SATA should be just as fast as if you were running off a sata drive

Thanks guy, you sure gave me neat info. That, unlike an apple device, changes everything! (now considering some interesting pointless experiments with masses of otherwise useless sticks).

downloading debian 6.0.1 to mine now ;)
waiting for wifey to pick me up from work because i dont wanna take it on the train

so I ordered two of these from dessytek on sunday night

got confirmation email saying it was processed at 1:50am monday

website showed it had been shipped, but no tracking info available

I emailed them today to find out where my order is, apparently my order has been put on backorder. However a friend that ordered AFTER me on the same night has already got his!

not. f***ing. happy.

they claim they'll know by monday/tuesday next week if they can complete the backorders... don't like the chances seeing as every where else in Australia is out of stock.

just spec'd one of the three today with 5 x 3TB Hitachi drives

i'll stop rubbing it in now :p

whats that like 12TB? What the f*** are you going to do with that

I might write up a little mini-howto, as enough people have asked me (even though I'm learning this all myself as I go along). Would that be helpful if I did?

I think everyone missed this, defo do it

I will even host it for you

Host the review of the server on the server

We are waiting for the bosses to decide what's happening with the few we got in.

PITA

What the f*** are you going to do with that

they're under $200 now

In the last 6 months I've put more than 44 of these 3TB drives into custom built storage boxes for work, we use them for all kinds of distributed storage where we focus on many slower disks with huge storage than less smaller/faster/more expensive disks

I bought one for myself this time because I've needed a new nas for ages

No I just mean how on earth are you going to fill 12TB

Yeah, especially if you're on Optus now that they're blocking TPB :P

I thought I couldn't fill 2TB but that only took about 8 months, now I'm down to only 1TB left of my 4TB and starting to think about upgrading :(

HD movies (the ones I make at home) take up a massive amount of space.

Sadly, I'm a media hoarder :~(

Sadly, I'm a media hoarder :~(

Thinly veiled can I has the pr0n

Looks like there are some more in stock if anyone wants to jump on it now. Some guy on overclockers just bought one direct from HP. Details in his post.

Look how beautifully this usb drive mounts inside the enclosure
http://jack.unix.org.au/~brett/images/micro/micro1.JPG

http://jack.unix.org.au/~brett/images/micro/micro2.JPG


booting off a single USB drive at the moment, but it's suposedly the "fastest usb2.0 thumb drive ever"
5 x 3TB SATA disks (1 is in the 5.25" bay)

love these things

Mine is in pieces atm, doing some firmware upgrades on a couple raid cards im going to ebay. It's good to know you were able to fit 3Tb drives in there though, I'd love to know what temp the drives are running at given they're practically pressed up against eachother in the case.

the case actually appears to have pretty good ventilation
this is based purely on the suction I feel when I put my hand over the front panel in front of the drives

Teq's picture made me buy 2 .... :S ...

So is booting of a USB drive ideal is it ?

And why does it matter how fast it is ? Isn't it just going to load a minimal OS then sit there idle >?

the usb stick is slower than booting off a hard drive, im booting off USB so I can allocate all 5 disks purely to storage as 1 large raid5 array with a huge single partition
the idea being if the operating system fails, I have a backup on a spare usb key sitting in the desk
all i have to do is pug it in and away it goes

storage as 1 large raid5 array

What you using to do the Raid5 with? I thought the hardware controllers only did raid 0 or 1 ...

It is software raid5 because the hardware controller is s*** anyway

So the only real reason is to have the ability to keep the storage array discrete from the boot array.

The advantages are easier recovery from failed boot USB ?

I just don't 100% understand why you wouldn't just stick the OS on the RAID-5 array seeings it is somewhat redundant anyway ?

I just don't 100% understand why you wouldn't just stick the OS on the RAID-5 array seeings it is somewhat redundant anyway ?

allows you to rebuild the array or do a number of things without worrying about the OS.

Keeping OS drive and data drives on separate physical disks is generally best practice.

The advantages are easier recovery from failed boot USB ?

correct, if something f***s up it's a simple matter of replacing the USB key with a known-working bootable image

and yes it's all software raid because the "hardware" raid controller is poo, the machine has plenty of grunt to do software raid without batting an eye lid

because you can is the simple answer, because you can,

it also looks neat while getting all that space as just space, not OS in there, easier to swap out drives down the track too i would imagine

check it, building the array

root@micro:~# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --chunk=1024 --raid-level=raid5 --raid-devices=5 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde
mdadm: Defaulting to version 1.2 metadata
mdadm: array /dev/md0 started.

root@micro:~# date ; time mkfs.ext4 /dev/md0 ; date
Wed May 18 12:51:19 EST 2011
mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=256 blocks, Stripe width=1024 blocks
732569600 inodes, 2930265088 blocks
146513254 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
89425 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544, 1934917632,
2560000000

this is going to take aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages

It's been running 5 minutes already and it's only at 2400 / 89425

I estimate 186 minutes

Cat /proc/mdstat will tell you how long.

yeah it's only going to be another hour or so, it's at about 50% right now
I'll post some speeds when it's done, I don't expect it to be off the charts but anything over a few hundred megabit would be fine considering it's a sub $200 machine ;)

did you put more memory in it Teq? I saw over at OCAU someone was doing a memory special in the thread.

Sif not XFS for large volumes*

* no scientific evidence available other than trog saying to use it.

yeah I have 4gb of ram here for it, I just haven't bothered putting it in yet
the format just finished

Writing inode tables: rdone
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 20 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

real 147m10.672s
user 0m25.530s
sys 3m41.490s
Wed May 18 15:18:29 EST 2011
root@micro:~#

and the final size is...

root@micro:~# mount /dev/md0 /mnt/storage
root@micro:~# df -h
/dev/md0 11T 159M 11T 1% /mnt/storage

11 terabytes yo


as for speed

root@micro:/mnt/storage# for i in 1 2 3 ; do hdparm -tT /dev/md0 ; done

/dev/md0:
Timing cached reads: 1814 MB in 2.00 seconds = 906.48 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 716 MB in 3.00 seconds = 238.55 MB/sec

/dev/md0:
Timing cached reads: 1814 MB in 2.00 seconds = 907.27 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 780 MB in 3.03 seconds = 257.80 MB/sec

/dev/md0:
Timing cached reads: 1790 MB in 2.00 seconds = 895.27 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 788 MB in 3.00 seconds = 262.37 MB/sec
root@micro:/mnt/storage# bonnie++ -u root
Using uid:0, gid:0.
Writing a byte at a time...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading a byte at a time...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.96 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
micro 2G 360 97 29389 5 21204 5 2179 91 312308 33 554.3 20
Latency 22375us 529ms 471ms 38125us 136ms 98671us
Version 1.96 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
micro -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 15980 41 +++++ +++ 21803 40 20097 51 +++++ +++ 23335 43
Latency 349us 797us 882us 333us 29us 63us
1.96,1.96,micro,1,1305690744,2G,,360,97,29389,5,21204,5,2179,91,312308,33,554.3,20,16,,,,,15980,41,+++++,+++,21803,40,20097,51,+++++,+++,23335,43,22375us,529ms,471ms,38125us,136ms,98671us,349us,797us,882us,333us,29us,63us
root@micro:/mnt/storage#

could be better but for a cheap nas at home I don't think anyone would complain :]

So... tell me folks, I understand that the one or two places that were selling these little gems are sold out...

Anyone know of an alternative source at the awesome (or similar) price??

Also... I F***ING HATE Monthly pay..

http://qgl.ausforums.com/index.php/439207/?agn=thread&id=3056119&startid=90#103

So this is the go

A specific hp supplier decided to drop the price on these units, two retailers decided to grab as many as they could and dump them at sub $200 (I am not going to name names) OCAU got wind and then built up

First up you guys need to know that hp have heaps of separate divisions which deal in several channels and one hand doesn’t always wash the other

Hp's server division have stated that the supplier did it on their own and had no idea how this had happened or how they acquired the stock so cheap. They have said that they can't supply at the special disty price since its below that division of hp's cost

In the interim Hp retail arm have had huggggge amount of complaints and response by selling through the call centre only for $199

Some f***ing retard keeping posting this onto ozbargin and similar site and further smashes stock levels across all the channels

Who wants to make me a USB boot drive or two ?

Preferably something that can run a Media GUI with remote or something?

Which OS? If ubuntu, there are options and instructions about making bootable USB sticks on their download page:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

XBMC Live?

dont use a live disc unless you're using the disc to "install" it to a usb stick or something
you want to be able to modify your filesystem so your changes stick

finally got hold of mine for the low low price of $155 through work just need another 2 now

Its sitting in the box and I honesty don't have the time to even unpack it at the moment it has to wait until after I get back from Malaysia before I can start playing with it

Plans are
4x Hitachi 2tb or 3's (512k model) have not made up my mind yet which one
8gb of eec ram
solaris express 11 with napp-it

I was going to use comstar but I thin napp-it will be fine for my needs

HL ^ If I give you 160 + something for your trouble will you buy me one? :) I can't seem to get one at the moment....

Sorry matey we can't get any more in at the moment dicker are out ingram what the equivalent of the national deficit per unit.

I need another two total of three for what I am doing or going to do

herbal have you tried calling HP directly?

also skitz they take 5 drives if you're chasing max storage and dont need a cdrom

Thanks HL. Might have to call HP directly then..

Yeah I have 5x1TB drives sitting here doing nothing and this will be perfect!! ZFS or WHS.

yeah teq gots me the hp hookup but they can't get any more at the cheap price and now the retail channels stock as been raped too

Lucky find HL grats.

If anymore pop-up or are located... Please post it.

There are still a number of us keen on snagging one... they'd be a greay buy for >$200 but at $5/600 they aren't nearly as attractive.