Depending on the NAS software, the need for RAID might be subsumed by the use of snapshots or daily/hourly backups, in either case stored on a second non-mobile drive. I hadn't thought of the drive quality and fragility issue, but I can confirm Trevor's right. And even if you buy the best HDD money can buy and are using (e.g.) a USB-SATA adapter with it, all that moving around WILL reduce the drive's lifespan.
Hartmut, can you elaborate on why you think you need to connect this drive to a PC directly, in the first place? There may be a better solution for your problem.
-Adam
-----Original Message----- From: Roundtable roundtable-bounces@muug.ca On Behalf Of Trevor Cordes Sent: Monday, January 23, 2023 9:57 PM To: Hartmut W Sager hwsager@marityme.net Cc: Continuation of Round Table discussion roundtable@muug.ca Subject: Re: [RndTbl] USB3 to Ethernet, to make NAS
On 2023-01-23 Hartmut W Sager wrote:
Can someone here recommend some specific USB3 to Ethernet hardware adapters, to make a reliable NAS drive. I want this architecture because the external USB3 drive will frequently need to be disconnected from NAS usage and connected locally to another computer via USB (for certain data updates).
If your plan is to do:
USB-HDD <-> USB-LAN
It cannot be done. There has to be a "smart" device, i.e. computer of some sort, that speaks both USB-HDD and USB-LAN in between the two. The only way it would work is if you found some magical product that is "USB-LAN-can-speak-usb-hdd-protocols". I'm not sure I've ever seen such a thing?
Ah...
On 2023-01-23 Chris Audet wrote:
- https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1762899257.html
- Just search for "Mini WAN NET Giga NAS FTP Dongle GIGA NAS FAT
32 / NTFS USB 2.0 Network Storage Adapter Dongle for FTP Server"
What Chris found is basically the magical product what you'd be looking at (nice find!). But USB2 only will be dog slow. Anyhow, it's just a little SBC computer doing the work for you as described above. Probably with Linux. You could do the same thing with a Pi or other mini solution. I think these types of devices died out many years ago, and not sure if they ever made a USB3 one.
I will warn that external USB HDDs are (usually) the worst quality garbage drives the companies can produce. Especially Seagate. They often explicitly state FOR BRIEF USE ONLY, i.e. not always-on in a NAS. They aren't lying. The motors/bearings are designed to fail after a tiny number of hours. WD might be slightly better.
If you do want to do such a thing, you might want to make sure you RAID-1 the system. Not sure how you do that with your plug-in-via-usb-for-updates requirement... then again, why not plug it into your "update computer" via Gb Ethernet? Either Gb Ethernet or USB3 will probably max out the rust speed, so nothing is gained via USB.
Whenever I need to do a "moveable" HD solution, I use the "5.25 bay to 3.5 sata rust drive external bay" things where there's a bay(s) you put in computer(s) and drive caddies that slot into them that you can put your drive(s) in. They are cheap ($40ish?) and work well and protect the drive better than external USB drive cases do. You'd then need to build a "real" NAS box that has a 5.25" bay for it. (Still have the problem of re-syncing any RAID though.) I'd just build something with a small size but-with-5.25"-bays case and some old mobo. Pis won't help though, as they don't have SATA. You need an Atom or ITX or NuC type thing. Then run FreeNAS or just roll your own with your fave distro. _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable