iPod Shuffle RAID

ricercar writes "So, what do you do when you and some friends are all getting iPod Shuffles? You make a RAID array out of them, of course! The original intent was to actually install OS X on the RAID and boot from that, but the OS X (Panther, 10.3.5) Installer wouldn't allow it."

Comments

hackaday.com

[Unreal7000]

This and other hacks can be found at hackaday.com

Re:If you could install it

[bigtallmofo]

I tried this a number of years ago. In fact, there's an CF->IDE interface board that is very inexpensive that I purchased. Turned out that CF was much slower than my hard drive.

Might be interesting to try it again with today's professional flash memory, but with readily available CF memory from about 3 years ago, I was able to install a Windows OS on it but it was slower than my hard drive.

If you really want something like this, there are memory drives that use actual battery-backed up RAM (take your pick of varities) that are as you would expect lightning quick. Last I checked though Bitmicro's Site, they were very expensive.

Re:Write life of flash again?

[jnd3]

Most NOR-flash is rated for at least 100,000 erase cycles. And some of the newer AMD flash devices have a minimum 1,000,000 erase cycle guarantee per sector. Even erasing the entire flash 100 times a day would give you about 27 years of life.

Re:If you could install it

[b1t r0t]

Um, you don't have DMA on flash media because you address it just like RAM.

Um, actually you don't. Linear flash went out of style years ago, as any Newton owner can tell you. With the exception of flash cards for older Cisco gear, all flash cards these days use an ATA interface. Anything that uses a non-PCMCIA slot (CF, MMC, SD, XD, SonyStick) is 100% ATA.