Need to make a single 3TB partition

[Char Jackson]

The problem with putting the drives through a RAID controller is that
I'd have to bring these drives into the computer case and and connect
them permanently. I am trying to keep them as backup drives, therefore
they need to remain in the external case.

With sufficiently long cables, you wouldn't have to bring the drives
into the computer case.

From 1999 until about 2003 I had a system that was maxed out with 4
IDE hard drives, so I installed 4 more drives in a second computer
case and powered them from the power supply in that PC case, but
connected their data cables to an IDE controller card installed in my
main PC, giving me a total of 8 (smallish) drives. Before that, I did
essentially the same thing with some SCSI drives, (the controller was
internal but the drives were external), so the concept of "external
drives that think they're internal" has been around for a long time,
including a long time before I stumbled upon it.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

With sufficiently long cables, you wouldn't have to bring the drives
into the computer case.

The purpose of these drives is not for full-time storage needs, they are
only for backup and archival requirements. Think of them as fulfilling
the same purpose as tape drives. So connecting them to an internal
SATA/RAID controller is totally out of the question, the drives in
question may be powered down and put away in a closet after backups.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Char Jackson]

The purpose of these drives is not for full-time storage needs, they are
only for backup and archival requirements. Think of them as fulfilling
the same purpose as tape drives. So connecting them to an internal
SATA/RAID controller is totally out of the question, the drives in
question may be powered down and put away in a closet after backups.

Yousuf Khan

Sounds like you need a less expensive version of this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165200

Up to 4TB capacity, multiple USB ports, 2 10/100/1000 ports, etc.

 

[Daniel Prince]

Bought a dual-disk USB enclosure and a couple of 1.5TB drives to put
into it. First of all, the enclosure has a built in concatenation
feature. When using that, Windows and Linux both see it as an 800 GB
drive, rather than a 3000 GB drive! So I put it back to regular mode,
and we see two separate 1.5 TB drives again.

Why do you need the two drives to be seen as one 3 TB drive and not
two 1.5 TB drive? Are you that low on drive letters?

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Sounds like you need a less expensive version of this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165200

Up to 4TB capacity, multiple USB ports, 2 10/100/1000 ports, etc.

Yeah, *way* less expensive! Considering the price of the rackmount unit
you linked to ($1652), I'm not doing too badly with what I put together
at 3TB, and a cost of less than $250. I might also have trouble putting
that rackmount into a closet or cupboard later.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Why do you need the two drives to be seen as one 3 TB drive and not
two 1.5 TB drive? Are you that low on drive letters?

Well, I already have 4.5 TB of online disk space on this system, spread
out over multiple drives. My requirement is to archive the multiple
sources into a single source. I can then clear off the old stuff.

Yousuf Khan

 

[andy]

Are you using something like this, which has a self-contained RAID
interface?
MobileSTOR MS2UT+ - 2 Bay eSATA/USB RAID/SAFE33/50 (Silver)
http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/moms4.html

 

[Arno]

Yeah, *way* less expensive! Considering the price of the rackmount unit
you linked to ($1652), I'm not doing too badly with what I put together
at 3TB, and a cost of less than $250. I might also have trouble putting
that rackmount into a closet or cupboard later.

Yousuf Khan

For cupboard I reccomend using 2.5" drives, far lower heat
generation. I have one running in my cupboard for several
years now, it is a factor.

Arno

 

[zappo]

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Yousuf Khan




For cupboard I reccomend using 2.5" drives, far lower heat
generation. I have one running in my cupboard for several
years now, it is a factor.

Arno

He's not talking about running it in his cupboard, he's talking about putting
it in his cupboard after its been written to, after its been disconnected.

And you can not get two 1.5TB drives in 2.5" format currently anyway.

 

[Char Jackson]

Yeah, *way* less expensive! Considering the price of the rackmount unit
you linked to ($1652), I'm not doing too badly with what I put together
at 3TB, and a cost of less than $250. I might also have trouble putting
that rackmount into a closet or cupboard later.

Yousuf Khan

I admit, I was trying to shock you a bit.
But seriously, I was going on the assumption that your current
hardware isn't doing what you need, at least so far. So my next
question was whether any hardware would do what you want, and I think
the answer is yes. So now it's just a matter of finding something
affordable, or finding a way to make your current hardware work.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Are you using something like this, which has a self-contained RAID
interface?
MobileSTOR MS2UT+ - 2 Bay eSATA/USB RAID/SAFE33/50 (Silver)
http://store.sansdigital-shop.com/moms4.html

No, this is what I have.

Tsunami - Tsunami eData II 3500 3.5″ JBOD Black - EDATAJBODBK
http://pricecanada.com/p.php/Tsunami-eData-II-3500-35-JBOD-Black-EDATAJBODBK-649067/

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I admit, I was trying to shock you a bit.
But seriously, I was going on the assumption that your current
hardware isn't doing what you need, at least so far. So my next
question was whether any hardware would do what you want, and I think
the answer is yes. So now it's just a matter of finding something
affordable, or finding a way to make your current hardware work.

Well, I had thought that the hardware that I got would do what I needed.
But the concatenation didn't work right.

Yousuf Khan

 

[UI.Designer]

Yousuf -

When I went to the Tsunami web site to look up the details on this
drive enclosure, I found that there's an internal jumper for switching
between JBOD (2 separated disks) and BIG (one bunched disk). Have you
set that jumper properly?

- Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Yousuf -

When I went to the Tsunami web site to look up the details on this
drive enclosure, I found that there's an internal jumper for switching
between JBOD (2 separated disks) and BIG (one bunched disk). Have you
set that jumper properly?

- Paul

Yes, and it's not an internal switch, it's quite visible on the outside.

Yousuf Khan

 

[phoneslammer]

You can't span drives over a USB interface, use eSata instead.

Hi there, maybe I can shed some light on the topic, given recent experience.

About 6 months ago, I purchased a MediaSonic Probox, 4 Bay HDD enclosure, with USB and eSata II interfaces.

Initially I had slotted in HDDs from my old PC to organise and consolidate the data. I used the USB interface, and it simply recognised all 4 individually formatted drives.

After a bit of read up I found out that using the eSata connection would allow me to enjoy higher transfer rates. I also replaced the old drives with 4x 2TB Western Digital Green HDDs (WD20EARS). I also Spanned 2 of the drives to make a 4TB Drive under Win 7 64Bit Ultimate. I had an eSata Controller card, and everything worked like a charm ... for 6 months.

Looks like my eSata Controller card stuffed up, so I went back to the USB interface. I expected everything to work the way it should, but the Win 7 reported that the Spanned Drives had a failure.

I used Active@ File Recovery to recover the data from what I thought were failed HDDs over the USB interface.

I then bought a new eSata Controller card, and moved back to the eSata interface .... and guess what ... those 2 failed Spanned HDDs that Win 7 was reporting as a failure under USB, magically started working again.

So in short ... you can't span drives over a USB interface, even if the enclosure can support multiple drives, eSata however will.

That being said Active@ File Recovery still manged to logically mount the Spanned drives over USB for Data recovery purposes.

Cheers
phoneslammer.