LVM, usb drives, Active Directory

[gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On 12/16/2009 12:36 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
> On Dec 16, 2009, at 12:07 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>  =20
>> The OP's proposed solution was for 10 1TB USB drives. Depending on som=
e
>>    =20
> I think I missed a bit of that and assumed flash, but everything that h=
olds for USB flash holds for all USB mass storage.  In the end USB, even =
USB2, is terrible for disk performance and reliability.  USB was designed=
 for slow devices like keyboards and mice not fast devices like disks.
>
> If I already had the drives then I'd crack open all the cases, remove t=
he drives, see what the real underlying interfaces are, and buy a suitabl=
e enclosure for them.  If not then as you suggest I'd buy an enclosure an=
d appropriate drives for it.  All that said, I would consider FireWire if=
 I were severely limited by budget but the difference between FireWire an=
d eSATA is either negligible or probably leaning in favor of eSATA right =
now.
>  =20
Basically, I had implied cracking open the cases. USB drives are nice in
terms of portability in that you can easily throw them in a laptop case
and take them to a client site. If Scott really wanted to go cheap he
could use eSATA with the drives on a table or buy one of the cheap
internal cases assuming he has a system that already has SATA or eSATA.
Firewire also plays well with Linux. But, Scott apparently already has
the USB drives. Most of the USB drives you are going to see today are
eSATA (or SATA). Again, since Scott apparently already has the drives,
then I would then look for a an eSATA PCI card if the CentOS server does
not already have eSATA, and an external or even internal enclosure.

The next step (again based on Scott's email) is that under LVM just
stripe the drives together in a volume group with possible one logical
volume. As far as authentication, CentOS already supports LDAP directly.
That has nothing to do with the drives themselves. I think we beat the
LVM/USB thing to death. Maybe Scott can initiate an LDAP thread.


--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
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