Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the now-thats-a-lotta-pr0n dept.
Delta-9 writes "Here is a writeup on how to combine 6 200GB IDE drives into a small tower and hack together some firewire controllers to give you one giant 1.2TB firewire drive." Very cool project, both technically and aesthetically.
When I wired up 5 60MB SCSI-25 drives back in the day to get a whooping capacity of 5x60MB...
And still that amount of data is almost half of one of today's most popular RO mediums.. =)
But none the less, nice article and with the disk prices these day's it's getting closer within rage for many of the people that spend that much on electronics... I sure do =P
he used fire wire and not usb or scsi - or well anything else. this will save us from the hundred or so "Why not firewire?" posts every time somebody discusses some other method of moving data around.
.
-- It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
/.'ed
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A few years ago while browsing the Halted Anniversary Sale, I came across a 4 bay 5.25" SCSI drive case for something really cheap (I think $35). I can't pass up a deal like this so I snagged it. Well it sat around for a long time, past the point of me giving up on SCSI. I had replaced my 3 36GB SCSI drives with 2 80GB IDE drives and never wanted to go back. So it sat. While performing the SparcStation ITX hack, I discovered that firewire to IDE bridgeboards could be had in the $50 to $80 range. After using one there I started a little thread in the back of my mind about what other nefarious uses I could find for these little gems. Then one day I saw an ad for a full height 5.25" box that held 3 3.5" hard drives. Suddenly inspiration struck me like a bolt of lightning, and in true Dr. Bob fashion, I took it to an extreme.
The largest drive available at the time I started this hack was the Maxtor 200GB.
What do you think?
Here's how I did it:
1. Start with the empty case.
2. The original case fans were very noisy. In addition to that, the fan grilles cause lots of turbulence noise. So I cut them all out and replaced them with PanaFlow fluid bearing fans and wire grilles. I had to make custom power cable harnesses for these fans as well
3. As long as I was replacing noisy fans, I replaced the fans in the drive carriers with think PanaFlow FDB fans. I threw their grilles out altogether as they operate with their doors closed and the grille is, well, pointless.
4. Next I downloaded the art work for the firewire logo from Apple's web site. I printed out one that would fit and glued it to the boring beige top case. Black indicated material to be removed. First I drilled pilot holes to get the tool bits in. Then I started cutting to remove the big chunks, then I cut closer to the edges with my dremel tool, and finally filed it smooth with my half round bastard (not shown here). Those that know the joke are now snickering.
5. After this the whole case was sanded and painted with Krylon Fusion Burgundy Red. This paint takes 7 days to fully polymerize so I set it aside and focused on the electronics. I also bought a hunk of clear acrylic from TAP plastics and a 30mm round for the center of the logo.
6. OK I've got a firewire hub that mounts in the same hole as the old Centronics connector did (firewire depot), and 3 dual drive FireWire to IDE controller cards. Plus I need to supply power and route the cables for data and the LED's. I decided to mount them on the empty panels between the back of the drives and the back panel. First I had to measure the card for the stand off. Never leave home without your trusty calipers.
7. Now the cards can be mounted on my 3/4" standoffs and 4/40 screws. This project would be impossible without round IDE cables. The powered hub is visible in the lower left of the 1st picture.
8. This might look like a chaotic mess to you, but it's actually a carefully choreographed symphony of cable. The truth is, it's the only way it would all fit.
9. This is glue. Strong stuff.
10. When the front was dry, I hit it with some 3M Imperial Hand Glaze. That made it nice and shiny. Mmmmmm Shiny. (droooool)
11. Now it's time to get silly. I installed 2 6" and 2 12" tri-color cold cathode lamps. These will really spice up my life. After messing with EL wire, I have decided that it's not bright enough to be worthwhile for almost any use. CCFL lamps however are bright enough to be seen in any lighting conditions including camera flash. EL wire is only visible in low light. CCFL lamps also last longer.
12. Like EL wire, cold cathodes require a high voltage inverter.
13. Finally I mounted some LED's in the front connected to the busy signal outputs on the firewire controller cards. I may at a later date remove this metal grill to improve the lighting and airflow.
All done. Here are some beauty shots:
Please visit my archive of art work photos for this project. Click on any picture for a very high resolution photo. Some of these really move me.
Tech Specs:
Firewire 400 (sustained transfer rate of 35MB/s, max for firewire 400)
Oxford 911 chipsets
6 Maxtor 200 gig ATA 133 hard drives
4 cold cathode lamps with a combined output of 12 watts
16 LED's
Powered firewire hub
Please visit my archive of art work photos for this project. Click on any picture for a very high resolution photo. Some of these really move me.
Something tells me he's regretting that right now.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
What good will that do you?
by
psoriac
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a 1.2TB firewire drive if you can't serve any content from it?
-- I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Forgive my hardware ignorance but...
by
Kethinov
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
if you use firewire controllers to give you one giant 1.2TB firewire drive, doesn't that essentially make 6 hard drives pretend to be one? (AKA the OS doesn't realize it's many) And if just ONE of those drives failed, aren't you shit out of luck with your data?
Again, forgive my hardware ignorance if I'm way off.
-- You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Re:Forgive my hardware ignorance but...
by
kasperd
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Doesn't sound like ignorance to me. If the six 200 GB drives make up a 1.2TB logical drive, there cannot be any redundancy. Six IDE drives, and no redundancy - I don't hope he have any important data there. Had he at least used RAID-4 or RAID-5 giving him a 1TB logical drive and one redundant disk, he would have a fair chance of keeping his data (assuming the broken disk gets replaced before the next fails).
Re:Forgive my hardware ignorance but...
by
JimRay
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's a little confusing, especially if you're not on an OS X box, but this guy has built a software RAID setup. Essentially, all six disks are acting as one because he's used the OS X Disk Utility to set them up as one.
The problem with this is that OS X's Disk Utility doesn't support RAID 5 in software, at least not out of the box. So, you either have to stripe the six disks (lots of space, no redundancy) or mirror them (as much space as your smallest drive, full redundancy) . It looks like he went for the striping option, which is how he got over a terabyte. However, as it's been pointed out several times already, this is a bad idea because if one of those disks fails, his data is lost. And I seriously doubt he's backing this "disk" up...
What he should do (and quite possibly is doing for all I know, it's not detailed) is use something like Raid Toolkit to create a RAID 5 setup. Since RAID 5 uses both data striping and parity, his data is protected even if a disk gets hosed.
However, software-based RAID 5, at least in my understanding, isn't exactly a performance champ, so if he's doing a lot of reading and writing to that drive, he's probably better off getting a real RAID controller. However, this would make a killer media backup box.
The linux based software RAID HOW-TO is actually pretty informative for a general understanding of software RAID.
Cheers
-- My other computer is your Windows box
Re:Forgive my hardware ignorance but...
by
afidel
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Wrong calculations, that's for a 3 drive RAID-5, for a 6 drive array it's 5/6ths or 1TB in this case. In general it is (N-1)*capacity.
-- There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:Slashdotted again...
by
green+pizza
·
· Score: 4, Funny
So you've got a terrabyte of data, but can it handle Slashdot?
1.2 TB RAID -- $900 386-based Web Server -- $0.25 The satisfaction of a slashdotting -- priceless
6 drives, no redundancy.. Stupid.
by
Ferrule
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Ok, so the guy goes to great lengths to build a 6 drive 1.2TB external storage device.
Doesn't menton how the drives become one.. It's not raid-5 as that would be 5X200MB + 1 parity drive. So it's either striped, or the large volume properties were faked.
IMO buying 6 drives and not running RAID 5 is really dumb.
What is this tear-uh-bite that you speak of? I've never heard of such a thing. Please tell us how big this drive is in units of Libraries of Congress or in terms of how high a stack of floppies it would take.
-- "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Re:Slashdotted again...
by
s20451
·
· Score: 5, Funny
It is my purpose in life to get Slashdot to post a link to a station wagon full of DVDs.
Do you think he might be compensating for something, eh? </Shrek voice>
buying drives for an array
by
MarcoAtWork
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I would hope that this person (and anybody else that is thinking about creating an array) is not going to buy all 6-8 drives at the same time from the same supplier.
More often than not drives built in the same batch tend to fail fairly close to each other, and if more than one fail at the same time you can kiss goodbye to your RAID-5 array (and you were backing up your 1+TB of data, weren't you? after all it takes 'only' about 250 DVDs to do it, doesn't it?)
I think that ideally you'd want to buy your drives over a 6-8 months period from different suppliers for every drive, while it's definitely messier in terms of warranty etc. the additional protection from 3 drives failing at the same time should be worth the hassle...
just my 2c
-- --
the cake is a lie
I tried this on Linux with some problems.
by
Rolman
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I tried this on Linux and got terrible performance at the first try, I got a 23MB/s RAID-0 when each HDD is capable of 26MB/s by itself (everything according to Bonnie++ and hdparm). I didn't know what to blame, the bus, the cables, the Linux SCSI layer, or the whole IEEE1394 support on Linux. Windows was noticeably faster with up to 28MB/s.
Then I made some more research and it turned out the problem was caused by the sbp2 kernel module. This module had some good fine-tuning parameters (sbp2_max_sectors, sbp2_max_outstanding_cmds and spb2_max_cmds_per_lun) up to 2.4.20, but these got ditched in 2.4.21 in the name of a "better way of handling these parameters". I understand the logic behind this move, but the tweakable granularity should have been kept.
Using 2.4.20, I managed to get better performance by tweaking these parameters, then modified sbp2.c on 2.4.22 to reflect the changes. However, I haven't been able to get the 35MB/s this guy got so easily on MacOS X, I'm currently stuck at 29.22MB/s maximum and it's painfully slow to test all combinations of those variable parameters on the sbp2 module.
I just wish there was some document which could explain more about the relationship between these parameters for people not actually involved on the linux1394 project. The comments on sbp2.c are not helpful beyond this point.
By the way, I'm using two Oxford-based bridges to connect two 8MB cache Matrox HDDs, and I'm using Bonnie++ and hdparm for testing. YMMV but the least I can say is Linux RAID support on Firewire still has a long way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
This guy is wishing he hadn't posted 3 megs worth of pictures.
When I wired up 5 60MB SCSI-25 drives back in the day to get a whooping capacity of 5x60MB...
And still that amount of data is almost half of one of today's most popular RO mediums.. =)
But none the less, nice article and with the disk prices these day's it's getting closer within rage for many of the people that spend that much on electronics... I sure do =P
'Fraid it's only a mozilla grab... clicky. Images are still uploading, but I got them all...
he used fire wire and not usb or scsi - or well anything else. this will save us from the hundred or so "Why not firewire?" posts every time somebody discusses some other method of moving data around.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The largest drive available at the time I started this hack was the Maxtor 200GB.
What do you think?
Here's how I did it:
1. Start with the empty case.
2. The original case fans were very noisy. In addition to that, the fan grilles cause lots of turbulence noise. So I cut them all out and replaced them with PanaFlow fluid bearing fans and wire grilles. I had to make custom power cable harnesses for these fans as well
3. As long as I was replacing noisy fans, I replaced the fans in the drive carriers with think PanaFlow FDB fans. I threw their grilles out altogether as they operate with their doors closed and the grille is, well, pointless.
4. Next I downloaded the art work for the firewire logo from Apple's web site. I printed out one that would fit and glued it to the boring beige top case. Black indicated material to be removed. First I drilled pilot holes to get the tool bits in. Then I started cutting to remove the big chunks, then I cut closer to the edges with my dremel tool, and finally filed it smooth with my half round bastard (not shown here). Those that know the joke are now snickering.
5. After this the whole case was sanded and painted with Krylon Fusion Burgundy Red. This paint takes 7 days to fully polymerize so I set it aside and focused on the electronics. I also bought a hunk of clear acrylic from TAP plastics and a 30mm round for the center of the logo.
6. OK I've got a firewire hub that mounts in the same hole as the old Centronics connector did (firewire depot), and 3 dual drive FireWire to IDE controller cards. Plus I need to supply power and route the cables for data and the LED's. I decided to mount them on the empty panels between the back of the drives and the back panel. First I had to measure the card for the stand off. Never leave home without your trusty calipers.
7. Now the cards can be mounted on my 3/4" standoffs and 4/40 screws. This project would be impossible without round IDE cables. The powered hub is visible in the lower left of the 1st picture.
8. This might look like a chaotic mess to you, but it's actually a carefully choreographed symphony of cable. The truth is, it's the only way it would all fit.
9. This is glue. Strong stuff.
10. When the front was dry, I hit it with some 3M Imperial Hand Glaze. That made it nice and shiny. Mmmmmm Shiny. (droooool)
11. Now it's time to get silly. I installed 2 6" and 2 12" tri-color cold cathode lamps. These will really spice up my life. After messing with EL wire, I have decided that it's not bright enough to be worthwhile for almost any use. CCFL lamps however are bright enough to be seen in any lighting conditions including camera flash. EL wire is only visible in low light. CCFL lamps also last longer.
12. Like EL wire, cold cathodes require a high voltage inverter.
13. Finally I mounted some LED's in the front connected to the busy signal outputs on the firewire controller cards. I may at a later date remove this metal grill to improve the lighting and airflow.
All done. Here are some beauty shots:
Please visit my archive of art work photos for this project. Click on any picture for a very high resolution photo. Some of these really move me.
Tech Specs:
Firewire 400 (sustained transfer rate of 35MB/s, max for firewire 400)
Oxford 911 chipsets
6 Maxtor 200 gig ATA 133 hard drives
4 cold cathode lamps with a combined output of 12 watts
16 LED's
Powered firewire hub
Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a 1.2TB firewire drive if you can't serve any content from it?
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
if you use firewire controllers to give you one giant 1.2TB firewire drive, doesn't that essentially make 6 hard drives pretend to be one? (AKA the OS doesn't realize it's many) And if just ONE of those drives failed, aren't you shit out of luck with your data?
Again, forgive my hardware ignorance if I'm way off.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
... 1.2x10^12 bytes or 1.2x1024^4 bytes?
So you've got a terrabyte of data, but can it handle Slashdot?
1.2 TB RAID -- $900
386-based Web Server -- $0.25
The satisfaction of a slashdotting -- priceless
Ok, so the guy goes to great lengths to build a 6 drive 1.2TB external storage device.
Doesn't menton how the drives become one.. It's not raid-5 as that would be 5X200MB + 1 parity drive. So it's either striped, or the large volume properties were faked.
IMO buying 6 drives and not running RAID 5 is really dumb.
Sure is a purty case though.
No no no - it's not slashdotted. He's just running Norton Disk Doctor. Check back in November.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
What is this tear-uh-bite that you speak of? I've never heard of such a thing. Please tell us how big this drive is in units of Libraries of Congress or in terms of how high a stack of floppies it would take.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
It is my purpose in life to get Slashdot to post a link to a station wagon full of DVDs.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
FireWireDepot has a few of them.
Do you think he might be compensating for something, eh?
</Shrek voice>
I would hope that this person (and anybody else that is thinking about creating an array) is not going to buy all 6-8 drives at the same time from the same supplier.
More often than not drives built in the same batch tend to fail fairly close to each other, and if more than one fail at the same time you can kiss goodbye to your RAID-5 array (and you were backing up your 1+TB of data, weren't you? after all it takes 'only' about 250 DVDs to do it, doesn't it?)
I think that ideally you'd want to buy your drives over a 6-8 months period from different suppliers for every drive, while it's definitely messier in terms of warranty etc. the additional protection from 3 drives failing at the same time should be worth the hassle...
just my 2c
-- the cake is a lie
I tried this on Linux and got terrible performance at the first try, I got a 23MB/s RAID-0 when each HDD is capable of 26MB/s by itself (everything according to Bonnie++ and hdparm). I didn't know what to blame, the bus, the cables, the Linux SCSI layer, or the whole IEEE1394 support on Linux. Windows was noticeably faster with up to 28MB/s.
Then I made some more research and it turned out the problem was caused by the sbp2 kernel module. This module had some good fine-tuning parameters (sbp2_max_sectors, sbp2_max_outstanding_cmds and spb2_max_cmds_per_lun) up to 2.4.20, but these got ditched in 2.4.21 in the name of a "better way of handling these parameters". I understand the logic behind this move, but the tweakable granularity should have been kept.
Using 2.4.20, I managed to get better performance by tweaking these parameters, then modified sbp2.c on 2.4.22 to reflect the changes. However, I haven't been able to get the 35MB/s this guy got so easily on MacOS X, I'm currently stuck at 29.22MB/s maximum and it's painfully slow to test all combinations of those variable parameters on the sbp2 module.
I just wish there was some document which could explain more about the relationship between these parameters for people not actually involved on the linux1394 project. The comments on sbp2.c are not helpful beyond this point.
By the way, I'm using two Oxford-based bridges to connect two 8MB cache Matrox HDDs, and I'm using Bonnie++ and hdparm for testing. YMMV but the least I can say is Linux RAID support on Firewire still has a long way to go.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
mirror
Not an invitation for a DOS, but I would like to see what some real traffic looks like.
This is not a challenge for bots, just an underutilized server on a big pipe.