iPod Shuffle RAID 324
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."
Linux (Score:2, Funny)
Of course I have no idea what one can do with a linux iPod shuffle.
Re:Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Oh.
Re:Linux (Score:4, Funny)
You can impress the ladies with it.
If you could install it (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, anyone know of any flash hard drives for PCs/Macs that work via SATA? This would be interesting to do, almost instant boot.
Re:If you could install it (Score:2, Informative)
Spoiled kids these days... (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, anyone know of any flash hard drives for PCs/Macs that work via SATA? This would be interesting to do, almost instant boot.
I remember doing random file access on a DEC TU16 (9 track reel to reel tape drive) That was a trip. Slow, but cool to watch.
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn you had it easy. We just had punches back in my day. Our fists would get bloody entering in the simplest of instructions. And then, after every operation, we had to punch everything in again to check it.
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
If anybody goes "Spanners? You had spanners?" then I'm gonna lynch them.
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spoiled kids these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you could install it (Score:5, Informative)
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 [bitmicro.com], they were very expensive.
Re:If you could install it (Score:3, Informative)
Some of the newer cards do support better transfer modes. These are usually cards marked as 44x or 40x or whatever CF. And they usually cost $10 more.
Re:If you could install it (Score:2)
DMA is needed on hard drives because seek times are measured in milleseconds. (1/1000th of a second), but once you are there, you know you are going to be reading the file off the drive like a ribbon at megabytes per second. All the data comes in a burst, and the computer usually caches large chunks of the file system in RAM so it doesn't have to access the device to find it.
Re:If you could install it (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:If you could install it (Score:2, Informative)
RAID Array? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RAID Array? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RAID Array? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:RAID Array? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:RAID Array? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:RAID Array? (Score:3, Funny)
Awesome Hack! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:4, Funny)
Being a nerd and all....
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:4, Funny)
I await for the first person to eat one!
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's probably unlikely to end with a Darwin Awards entry, though, unless there's a mjor design flaw.
A RAID of 40GB iPods would be orders of magnitude more useful, but if you've got that kind of money you'd be better off buying an Xserve RAID; you can get a 1 TB unit for the price you'd pay for a 600GB iPod RAID, without the rats nest of firewire cables (not to mention the really slow performance).
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:4, Funny)
In my experience it's hard NOT to ruin delicate fiddly hardware and NOT to mangle code or scripts when under the influence. It's also somewhat less rewarding, should I pull it off.
A RAID of 40GB iPods would be orders of magnitude more useful, but if you've got that kind of money you'd be better off buying an Xserve RAID; you can get a 1 TB unit for the price you'd pay for a 600GB iPod RAID, without the rats nest of firewire cables (not to mention the really slow performance).
I can see it now ... Darwin Award entry:
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:2)
So youre saying its not that useful then?
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:2)
See lessons from history:
Re:Awesome Hack! (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Mac mini Maxi" [appletalk.com.au]
http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/index.php?
No one cares (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No one cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No one cares (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No one cares (Score:2)
I would like to make a RAID out of serial EEPROMs typically found on SDRAM/DDR and Ethernet cards. Some of those are huge, like 256 bytes each. And the size of the grain of rice. If you spent like $100 you could probably get like a whole page of memory.
Re:No one cares (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No one cares (Score:5, Funny)
Not out of expensive disks
Re:No one cares (Score:2)
Yes you can, as long as you keep them Independent
Steps to success (Score:4, Funny)
Look... (Score:3, Interesting)
<br><br>
<a href="http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm">Link
hackaday.com (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hackaday.com (Score:2)
A Thumb Drive Raid Array (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A Thumb Drive Raid Array (Score:2)
But, but, the DUPE-O-TRON in Slashcode is a *feature*, not a bug.
Injustice (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the justice?
Re:Injustice (Score:3, Informative)
But this was one time I'm actually glad I live in the hellhole called southern California. 9 Apple Stores within an hour's drive, and 2 more within 100 miles. I started calling them one by one... "No, we're all out and we don't know when we'll
Re:Injustice (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Injustice (Score:3, Funny)
The best feature (Score:5, Funny)
who will the RIAA bust... (Score:4, Funny)
It's a shuffle -- they'll flip a coin (Score:2)
Very James Bond (Score:5, Interesting)
It could replace those security systems where 2 people have a key and there are 2 locks which must be opened at the same time for it to work.. just have 2 usb keys stripped, with a pgp key on them, which must be then inserted in to the security system at the same time for it to work or something
i dunno, im just spouting things!
Re:Very James Bond (Score:3, Insightful)
Alot of sensitive stuff can fit in 8K, and RAID does not magically encrypt stuff.
Re:Very James Bond (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Very James Bond (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, I can't se
Re:Very James Bond (Score:2)
Still, it would make more sense to have them all be separate drives, and to create a set of keys that require two (or three, or four) out of five (or ten, or twenty) to activate - one of those 'any two senior officers' kinds of things.
--Dan
Re:Very James Bond (Score:2)
Why not simply use a key with a hard-coded key that is two parts and requires the presence of both to generate a hash.
Or simpler, wire two household deadbolt locks (keyed differently, of course) to complete a circuit when in the latched position, and design your application with an NOR gate that detects when both circuits are open.
Re:Very James Bond (Score:3, Interesting)
With two key drives (or two disks of any kind) it's possible to do perfect (uncrackable) encryption pretty easily using a one-time pad. You fill one key drive with random bits (the pad). The second drive contains the XOR of your data
iApache (Score:5, Funny)
RAID? (Score:5, Funny)
Gave up because the installer wouldn't let them? (Score:5, Insightful)
When Solaris 10 wouldn't allow installation on my Ultra1, I hex-edited the ISO, reburned, and installed anyways (and that only took me one evening).
It's SOFTware for crying out loud! Show some initiative!
Cant boot from USB anyway (Score:2)
Re:Gave up because the installer wouldn't let them (Score:2)
Re:Gave up because the installer wouldn't let them (Score:2)
You must be able too.
I used to use a software RAID on my primary boot disk in Windows NT years ago. As long as the boot loader is aware it's not a problem.
Re:Gave up because the installer wouldn't let them (Score:2, Funny)
Hell no...
Yeah (Score:5, Funny)
Cluster Computing For Better Sound? (Score:4, Funny)
Ooh, ooh! I know! Setup an Uber iPod (uPod) add in wireless (wiPod? because!). If we got normal iPods with built-in wireless in the future, we could have one hell of a distributed computing network
Useless tech implementations rock
Re:Cluster Computing For Better Sound? (Score:2)
Ted Tschopp
Re:Cluster Computing For Better Sound? (Score:3, Interesting)
the reason (Score:2, Informative)
I understand Apple went with USB 2.0 to cater to the PC crowd, but making the drive firewire would have been revolutionary.
The Kangaru Fire flash drives KILL USB 2.0 in transfer speeds and CAN boot a Mac OR a PC.
A raid would have been possible otherwise.
Re:the reason (Score:2)
I don't think Macs can boot off of USB 2.0. That would be one reason.
That's not correct - I know that modern macs can boot off of USB devices. My new ibook certainly does. Someone has told me that any mac newer than a "Yikes" G4 (which used the old G3 motherboard) ought to be able to as well. I haven't verified that, however.
Mirrordot (Score:2, Informative)
Mirrordot Mirror (Score:3, Interesting)
Btw, Why not automatically create a mirror on mirrordot and link it here? Why do we need a nerd to search for the mirrordot link if we have enough nerds to fix a small problem like this?
As seen on Pinky & The Brain (Score:5, Funny)
Brain: Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?
Pinky: Yeah, Brain, but if we could get that many iPod Shuffles and set them up as a RAID device would we still be able to listen to music on them?
Brain: stares blankly at Pinky
continues (Score:5, Funny)
Brain: Pinky, have you been reading Slashdot again?
So *that's* why they're so hard to find! (Score:3, Funny)
Here I thought they were just really popular...
RAID with floppies (Score:2)
Re:RAID with floppies (Score:2)
Yep, here's the link [8k.com].
To install OS X on the RAID (Score:3, Informative)
Word to the wise: running your iPod drive that hot, that frequently causes your battery to lose its longevity pretty severely. I regret having done it last year.
Shuffle OS (Score:3, Funny)
Damn it! Windows95 again!
iPod Shuffles to be carried at Circuit City (Score:2, Interesting)
No, I've never linked before.
Not the coolest RAID (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and you can't boot OS X from a USB RAID. I'm pretty sure you can boot from an IDE RAID (I mean an OS X software RAID, not a hardware RAID where the computer never sees the individual drives), and maybe even from a Firewire RAID, but USB is right out.
Was the site hosted on an iPod shuffle RAID? (Score:2)
Secure storage? (Score:3, Funny)
Not until you reassemble and say, "Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!" will the data be accessible again (a la Ford Fairlane).
Could happen.
Boring (Score:2)
This RAID array is just meh.
Wow... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm seriously not trying to troll or anything, but I remember when I used to hear Kevin Rose (of the Screensavers) talk about stuff he read on Slashdot. Now I read stuff on Slashdot that Kevin Rose talked about last week. No longer is it "news for nerds" it is more like "news nerds have already heard". Sad, truly sad.
On a happy note, congrats to Kevin Rose for doing a better job of sharing the news with me.
Re:redundant redundant and again, redundant (Score:5, Funny)
Whoever moderated this post "Redundant" is an evil, evil person...
m-
OS X would work... (Score:3, Informative)
It's obvious what their problem was ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Instead of OS X... (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh, OK, let's get round that by thinking of a use for this... in fact I know a good one.
RAID 5 your very sensitive data onto say 5 shuffles. Then unplug them and all five people take one each.
You then can't access the data on those sticks unless you are quorate - 4 or more people needed to mount the volume.
Hmmm, I was trying to think of an example of what to put on this and all I could think of was terrorist plans. Does this make it a bad idea?
Re:Instead of OS X... (Score:5, Funny)
-Charles
Re:Instead of OS X... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Instead of OS X... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have 1/5th of the data (plus parity) you can even duplicate your iPod Shuffle as needed to keep the data intact.
Just make sure that 4 out of your 5 all fly on the same plane or travel in the same car (or really, attend the same conference) with their share of the data.
You can also scale it up and down (4 drives needing 3 or 25 drives needing 24).
The only downside with RAID5 is that you can only lose 1 device, so with larger numbers you need a higher and higher majority of your group to unlock the data.
Another idea is to RAID the data and form a tontine using iPod Shuffles. It worked for Abe Simpson [snpp.com].
Re:Instead of OS X... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Write life of flash again? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Must be (Score:2, Funny)
I look forward to never seeing it again, just as we never hear "All Your Base" jokes anymore.
Oh wait.
Crap.
Bwahahaha! (Score:5, Funny)
And then the Darkness descended, and a storm of nerds fell upon the thread, and tore it hither and thither with their teeth and keyboards and mice, and the jokes made were of a putridness hitherto unknown even in the dark ASCII-porn and GNAA-filled underbelly of Slashdot.
Yea, and verily was there a gnashing of teeth and a banging of heads as Natalie Portman, petrified and covered in hot grits, reminded YOU that all your old Korean ladies were now belong to us
And lo, for in this time of despair a glimmer of hope appeared, as finally was revealed the Secret Concealed from all since time immemorial, the unknown last-but-one step in the great Slashdot Business Plan. The answer was found to be simp...
ATH+++
NO CARRIER
Re:Must be (Score:2)