[Leaplist] Backup to external USB md RAID 1/5?

[Mark W. Alexander]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 07:00:48PM -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Jason Boxman wrote:  
> > I ended up there myself.  Unfortunately, you need to chain USB2
> > enclosures off of it.
> 
> Plus it's an aged Intel IXP (XScale microcontroller with Network
> Processor Engines, NPEs).  Great for a host based adapter (HBA) about
> 2-3 years ago.  But not good as a general microprocessor doing OS, plus
> NIC plus storage.
> 
> At the price for many of these units, you can build a far more powerful
> Mini-ITX that is even smaller than MicroATX.  Intel has introduced such
> more recently with their fixed BGA Socket-479 solutions (processor
> soldier to board) at $60, undercutting ViA's slower options in price.

If you can point me to any itx < $100, I'd consider it. For the price of that
mainboard, you can get everything in a case slightly smaller that a video tape.

> > I think I'm still a fan of commodity PC harware using Bryan's mATX
> > mainboard suggestion and the really small cases.
> 
> I choose MicroATX because it's the most commodity priced solution.
> 
> But Mini-ITX is an even smaller option, at a favorable price-point
> compared to these "less than adequate" microcontroller solutions.  You
> have AMD Geode NX (embedded Athlon), Intel Yonah (embedded Core
> Solo/Duo) and ViA C7 options for similar prices with a lot more power.

Favorable price-point being... what, 3, 4, 5x  the price, plus build time
and effort?  I'm not saying "Hey, get this thing to do everything you could
possibly want." I'm saying for what you can do with them, they are _very_
economical, quiet, no moving parts and they just work. Need double the
processing power? Buy another one. Then get backup redunancy by running unison
between them. Sure it will run all night. And maybe the next day, too. So...
what?  External USB disk are pretty cheap these days, too. Honestly, I
don't care if one fails after a few years, as long as it doesn't take my data
with it.

The question (paraphrased) was "Everything I have works. How to I compress
space?" It's far more practical to replace perfectly functional machines that
take up too much space for $100 than for $300 or more.  For $300 bucks, I'd just
keep my tower running and, well, keep the $300 bucks.

mwa
-- 
Mark W. Alexander
slash at dotnetslash.net

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