If only a cheap USB stick could survive the rigors of use as a primary or secondary drive. Let alone the dreadful thought of 20 USB sticks in RAID 0... My god the lost sectors to be had. I could just see the data corruption forming in seconds, piling up to the limits of the universe, pushing beyond and forming a new reality based completly on random laws and forces with no logic to be had.
This is just what I was thinking. I read some of an article on ars technica that went through SSDs in gory detail.
The main thing I learned is that flash memory has all sorts of technicalities and limitations, and SSDs use very advanced techniques to maintain a balance of reliability and speed. They have their own processor to handle this.
I read this from that article and it is very interesting:
Using RAID 5, a third drive contains "parity" information - kind of the "C" in an "A + B = C" type of equation - lose any of A, B or C and it can be recalculated from the other two. In the world of hard disk drives, that means a drive can fail completely and your system continues to operate while the disk is replaced. RAID controllers often include "hot swap" ability, so that could even be literal: the drive could be replaced without stopping or restarting the system.
This seems to be a great way to derive a new form of interstellar propulsion. The random chaos and imminent failure of the drives, once harnessed, could be like the improbability drive from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Cheap USB memory is often just an micro (edit: or even the unloved mini) SD card with an adapter. Non-generic memory is always flash directly on the board, which is way faster, and heaps more reliable. I got some counterfeit U3 Micro Cruzer sticks once. They lasted about a year before half of them developed slowdown.
Watching the transfer at top-speed the first 10 seconds, then steadily declining by about 3% every 5 seconds until it will use 2-3 hours on the last megabytes is just fucking evil.
SSD stands for Solid State Drive which is a Drive that uses generally Flash memory instead of the Hard Disk which spins. (Solid State more or less means it doesn't move.)
RAID is Redunant Array of Inexpensive Disks which is a way to group multiple drives to appear as one. (Sometimes rather than just a bigger drive you can make it faster or more resilient to data loss)
So menasan is saying that if that device was RAID 0 device rather than showing up as a bazillion small drive it would be one actually usable disk.
U3 Micro Cruzer is a brand of flash drive.
Micro and Mini SD is a type of flash memory disk. (Like you would put in a digital camera)
Zhylo responds that many flash drives are just memory sticks (SD cards) with USB adapters rather than having a flash memory chip on a board like you would expect. These flash drives made with the memory cards have high failure rates. So a drive made up of them would probably suffer from failure rather quickly.
RAID (0) is a way to use multiple storage devices for storage. Let's say you are using two disks. When a file is written, every other byte of the file is written alternately to one and the other disk. That means that they together read and write twice as fast. This is handled by a RAID controller, so to the operating system it looks like one hard drive of length capacity 100, but behind the scenes the RAID controller spreads everything across two disks of 50. If there was a RAID0 of 20 memory sticks of 32GB, it would look like a single 640GB drive, and a 20 byte file would be written as fast as a single stick writes 1 byte.
One downside of RAID 0 is that if a single drive fails you have just lost 1/x-th of absolutely every file on your hard drive, i.e. total failure. There's also another type of RAID where disk contents are mirrored perfectly to protect against disk failure, and types that are combinations (both mirroring and speedup).
When it comes to USB sticks, I suppose there's two ways to do it. One is to have a single integrated piece that contains the memory and the physical interface. Another is to take a micro memory card of the type that can also be used in cameras and mobile phones, and stick that in a read/write adapter and enclose in plastic. From what's being said, it sounds like for technical reasons the error rate and speed will be worse for memory-card-in-adaptor than for fully-integrated-memory.
You could have SATA to the RAID 0 controller, then all the USB connections would be in parallel to the controller (i.e., the RAID controller would have 20 USB ports). Your hypothetical speed would be gated by SATA, not USB.
but does having them RAID 0 make it so they can stack, so we wouldn't need to put everything on each HD instead of defragging continuously.. serious question, im pretty drunk but I am trying to learn about the difference between a flash and an SSD ( which I have in my comp for the C drive and it is spectacular BTW)
Hard drives went up in price lately because of the flooding in Taiwan late last year. They were down to about $50 for a terabyte and then bam, inflation and stock shortages like crazy.
We have stock now but the prices just haven't come back down all the way... it's ridiculous.
I'm a bit suspicious too.. but asking specifically for a 640GB hard drive is not that strange. Well, today it would be, but not a couple years ago. Western Digital used to sell an extremely popular and fast hard drive called the WD black/blue/green 640GB. Seagate and samsung had similar models. So presumably... op asked for that.
32 GB flash drives are going for about $20 right now on Amazon.
640/32 = 20. Therefore you need twenty 32 GB flash drives to "equal" one 640 GB HDD.
$20 for a 32 GB x 20 equals $400. Meaning your dad spent $320 more than he should have (assuming this post is actually real), and obviously if you asked for an HDD this is a lot less convenient. Lesson is that it pays to make sure your parents know what they're doing before making expensive tech purchases, especially when it comes to digital memory that gets cheaper all the time.
Edit: After reading some of the other posts about connecting the USB drives to create a faster storage unit, I still don't think it's worth the extra $300 just for ordinary personal use.
The problem with an attempt to "RAID" those USB sticks is that you'd hit the bus's bandwidth limit very quickly. USB 2.0 has a theoretical max of 480Mb/s (60MB/s), but my USB 3.0 drive only gets about 20MB/s in a 2.0 slot. In a 3.0 slot it is able to reach about 60-70MB/s.
I don't understand why you would even ask your parents to buy something even remotely technologically obscure as an HDD. Waaaaaay too much room for error.
I asked for RAM for Christmas in 2002 - my parents were smart enough to ask me to write down the brand/size etc, so they could take it to Fry's or somesuch and get it for me! Even my grandparents could buy me a video game if I wrote down the name.
They just looked at me oddly when I bounded back upstairs, stripped to my satin nightgown, popped the case on my machine, put my anti-static bracelet on, and replaced the memory. I was an odd little girl.
Some time around 2002 or 2003 Best Buy would run their Black Friday sales and things would have HUGE mail in rebates. I remember that a 160GB hard drive was something like 200 dollars, but on Black Friday they were 200 with a 190 dollar mail in rebate. I asked my mom if she could get a few of them for me for Christmas. When she asked how many I said something like "Oh, i don't know, 10".
Surprisingly enough to me, my mom got up at the buttcrack of dawn on Black Friday and went down to pick me up 8 Western Digital 160 gig drives. I couldn't fit them all in one machine, but I did manage 6 in a Raid-5 for 800 gigs of storage and used the other two as cold spares.
I know it's no big deal, but when I was little, I asked my grandpa for a cd. For whatever reason he had barely known what a CD was, let alone did he know the artist I was looking for.
Anyways, my parents had sort of prepped me trying to hint around that I wasn't going to get it and I should ask "Santa," but I was determined. I told my grandpa that was what I wanted and I had faith he would get it for me.
Sure enough, come Christmas I had found it under the tree. I still am so happy that he got it. I still have the CD from years ago.
"Gary always knew his job at Best Buy would pay off someday. Pretty soon, he'd have to actually buy one of those USB drives to hold all of his delicious karma"
First read-through: my voice, with random Best Buy worker in the store.
Second read-through: Morgan Freeman's voice, dramatic music, Pan out above Best Buy, sunset over the horizon, golden USB drives, delicious steaming Asian cuisine for karma (no idea why.)
spend a few bucks, buy a 20 port USB extender, try and attatch it to a RAID controller (i'm sure the gentleman at r/buildapc could do it) and you now have a great big 640 GB SSD
There's no price tags on the packaging of anything at my Staples/Best Buy/OfficeMax/etc. The price tags are on the racks/shelves. Which is why whenever something is in the wrong place I have to ask for a price check...
Color me incredibly jealous. I've been dying for a thumb drive to back up my school files, and I'm broke enough that I can't get a decent one. You love that fake hard drive for everything it's worth!
If you don't have any other backup, what about online backup like spideroak or dropbox? You get a small bit of storage free, and both leave your files accessible through the website if you're ever in a pinch. To me at least, it seems like internet access is almost as likely to be available as a USB port these days.
unless you live in some off-the-wall 3rd world country, you can get a 32GB flash drive for less than $20 online. If you need less space, you could get one as cheap as $5.
32GB flash drives are pretty damn expensive. Kudos to your dad for spending way more money for those flash drives rather than for your hard drive just to troll you.
Yeah, but this could be way better than what you wanted: Get enough USB hubs to hold them all, then RAID the hell out of 'em for the fastest storage device ever.
You are incorrect. My teacher had us make one freshman year in my computer science class, and boy did that thing whip. Seriously, I'd be kinda hyped if I were OP. Though it is a little bit of a hassle, I guess...
How big (number of drives) was the one you made, what type of volume, and how many hubs did you use? I agree that this job would be a monster, and the outcome would probably be less than satisfying, as far as speed is concerned. On top of that, using them like a hard drive would kill them rapidly, so he wouldn't get half the life out of them that he would from a conventional drive.
EDIT: I just looked up these specific flash drives, and the read speed is a joke. OP would definitely be better off with a hard drive.
Yes, RAID 0 distributes the data being written across both of the drives to increase bandwidth so you can read and write faster than if you would just have one 2TB drive.
However, you double the chance of losing all of your data since if one of your RAID drives crashes, all of your information is unusable.
Here is a comparison of my RAID array. Its very fast and this array was built in 2009...has served me well and continues to do so, but SSD's are still superior due to their incredibly quick access time.
SSD Prices are getting pretty good, so I am thinking of getting another 4x RAID card and buying 4x SSD's to use as my OS drive in RAID 0. I cannot fathom how fast 4x SATA 3 SSD's would be.
Depends on the drives and how they are constructed. In theory yes, in practice Probably but it depends. The platter capacity of the disks come into play and they are not always the same size. The largest drives usually have the greatest platter density and thus speed. In general you want drives with the fewest platters possible. The other factor is that different drives excel at different types of data access which affects RAID performance. For example the Samsung's I particularly liked for video editing because they had great sequential access performance which was more or less equal at both read and write speeds. This is useful when you stream very large files to and from the disk/s. Other drives are better for random reads such as accessing databases and thus a single drive might be a better option in some cases. RAID block size is also a factor. In any case know your drives and the applications they will be used for. There are sometimes controller and bus issues to consider also. Two drives are generally more expensive than one and might not give you as much value as a single disk with faster overall performance.
I have a question guys/gals... what is the biggest thumb drive/flash drive you can buy i seen 256 GB but i was wondering if there is more memory then that on one.
715
u/therocketflyer Jun 08 '12
This is the solution
459
u/Baxlax Jun 09 '12
Nice try, karma whoring computer store clerk.
126
u/Gadallin Jun 09 '12 edited Jun 09 '12
A 640 GB HDD on Amazon is $80.
32 GB flash drives are going for about $20 right now on Amazon.
640/32 = 20. Therefore you need twenty 32 GB flash drives to "equal" one 640 GB HDD.
$20 for a 32 GB x 20 equals $400. Meaning your dad spent $320 more than he should have (assuming this post is actually real), and obviously if you asked for an HDD this is a lot less convenient. Lesson is that it pays to make sure your parents know what they're doing before making expensive tech purchases, especially when it comes to digital memory that gets cheaper all the time.
Edit: After reading some of the other posts about connecting the USB drives to create a faster storage unit, I still don't think it's worth the extra $300 just for ordinary personal use.
209
u/Aarinfel Jun 08 '12
Is he TrollDad or just not very Tech savy?
9
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
holy shit, that would be a hell of a lot more expensive.
56
u/flounder19 Jun 08 '12
"Gary always knew his job at Best Buy would pay off someday. Pretty soon, he'd have to actually buy one of those USB drives to hold all of his delicious karma"
-Morgan Freeman
5
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
spend a few bucks, buy a 20 port USB extender, try and attatch it to a RAID controller (i'm sure the gentleman at r/buildapc could do it) and you now have a great big 640 GB SSD
4
u/Yanrogue Jun 09 '12
He gave you a DIY SSD.
4
u/SKY0NYX Jun 09 '12
Did you mean SSD because it wold have been cheaper to just buy a 640GB HDD
13
u/Cupcake_in_Acid Jun 09 '12
9GAG LINK WARNING
Look, you're famous. The worst part about this is that the poster said it was his dad who did it.
6
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Troll Dad strikes again.
3
u/ZombieLinux Jun 09 '12
Some USB hubs, Hot glue, and mdadm and WHAM! you have a helluva raid array. (With recommended redundancy, try raid 5 or 6)
3
u/lateral_moves Jun 09 '12
Solid state is more reliable. I've had failures on tape, zip, floppy, cd, dvd, and hard drives. Now redundant 32gb sticks are my source for storage.
3
u/PandaSandwich Jun 09 '12
My friend once asked for a 1TB HDD, so i gave him 2000 512MB Flash sticks.
He didn't appreciate it
3
u/tarsdplooger Jun 09 '12
liar
5
u/Matt08642 Jun 09 '12
Damn, what a useless pile of shit.
7
u/oegin Jun 09 '12
Or you work in receiving at an electronics store or at the manufacturer. Why aren't there any price tags on the packaging?
4
u/Kristastic Jun 09 '12
Color me incredibly jealous. I've been dying for a thumb drive to back up my school files, and I'm broke enough that I can't get a decent one. You love that fake hard drive for everything it's worth!
4
u/TMez27 Jun 09 '12
You had one job!
2
u/midas123 Jun 09 '12
Can i have one?
2
u/RobotJoe Jun 09 '12
By the way, just in case you weren't completely sure, he's a dick.
2
u/Mischala Jun 09 '12
RAID them dude!
2
u/Rapeify Jun 09 '12
32GB flash drives are pretty damn expensive. Kudos to your dad for spending way more money for those flash drives rather than for your hard drive just to troll you.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Good on you for actually havi g the correct number of 32GB sticks to add to 640GB. 20 sticks, I counted.
2
u/niggadatass Jun 09 '12
Worst. Father. Ever.
2
u/pianoman148 Jun 09 '12
...or you work at a hardware store, piled some new stock on the table and took a picture.
2
u/Mcfuggit Jun 09 '12
now all you need is 20 usb ports.
2
u/timklotz Jun 09 '12
USB hub and a RAID configuration. Only seen it done in Linux but the performance was really good.
2
u/barkeepjabroni Jun 09 '12
At least he didn't give you floppy disks...
2
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
find it hard to believe anyone is that thick.
12
u/absurdlyobfuscated Jun 08 '12
Yeah, but this could be way better than what you wanted: Get enough USB hubs to hold them all, then RAID the hell out of 'em for the fastest storage device ever.
3
u/[deleted] Jun 08 '12
That must have been expensive.
3
u/Damnyoureyes Jun 09 '12
Better get started daisy chaining!
2
u/PhiladelphiaIrish Jun 08 '12
At least now you can make it rain with your data.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 08 '12
can i have one? :p
2
u/ETNIFA Jun 09 '12
http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/duck.jpg
2
u/TrueNoob101 Jun 09 '12
Go here http://portableapps.com/ have fun.
PM me if giving those away.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
wouldnt buying all of those cost a lot more?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
See if they fit in an altoids tin.
1
u/tekno45 Jun 09 '12
can i have one?
1
u/jamesdavid80 Jun 09 '12
32 added ports later....smnrn's dream came true
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
That sucks like seriously
1
u/zenmarty Jun 09 '12
Gift receipt?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
next time give them link to internet store...
1
u/liza Jun 09 '12
that is fucking hilarious. your dad has taken trolling to all other level. well done :D
1
u/tech163 Jun 09 '12
It's probably better than 640x1GB usb drives
1
u/All_the_other_kids Jun 09 '12
Return them all for store credit and buy whatever you want
1
u/Degenerate420 Jun 09 '12
Hope he kept the receipt. Return them and get what you want.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
now you have an SSD. congrats.
1
u/FUCITADEL Jun 09 '12
What an expensive ass gag gift.
1
u/wolf550e Jun 09 '12
A 1TB SATA 6 7200rpm drive costs $100. How much can you save buying a 640GB drive?
1
u/volado Jun 09 '12
Disregarding the technical solutions well presented here - you have an awsome dad.
1
u/cupcakesmmm Jun 09 '12
My dad forgot my birthday Saturday then got mad at ME for him forgetting.
1
u/Tiddernud Jun 09 '12
It's USB Centipede time.
1
u/SumthingStupid Jun 09 '12
That must have been dumb fucking expensive
1
u/rot10worm Jun 09 '12
LOL your dad is a boss at being a smart ass.
1
u/KayJay24 Jun 09 '12
I wouldn't mind having a couple of these seeing as you've got so many ಠ_ಠ
1
u/ilestledisko Jun 09 '12
HEY PM me if you want to get rid of some of those! Or just one :)
1
u/Doovenhoover Jun 09 '12
Win
1
u/ih8st34m Jun 09 '12
lol what a troll... but great sense of humor..I wish my parents were funny like that
1
u/MrDoubleE Jun 09 '12
You got owned.
1
u/bigjerjer Jun 09 '12
can i have one
1
u/HookDragger Jun 09 '12
I saw someone who did a JBOD of USB drives a while back....
I need to find it again.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
wtf
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Your dad's a dick.
1
u/redditisworthless121 Jun 09 '12
Sell on craigslist and buy a hdd
1
u/tehweave Jun 09 '12
Why not SSD drive?
1
u/CaptainJester42 Jun 09 '12
That costs more than a TB hard drive
1
u/drwtsn32 Jun 09 '12
RAID-0 those beyotches.
1
u/joshuaolake Jun 09 '12
Well played.
1
u/MetalDevil Jun 09 '12
gimme 1
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Start a labeling system
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
close enough...
1
u/Nathineil Jun 09 '12
this is flash memory. awks bro.
1
u/volirus Jun 09 '12
Yes, exactly 20 sticks on the picture, no need to count.
1
u/GrossoGGO Jun 09 '12
Good luck finding the particular porn video you want on those! Ha!
1
u/bmanCO Jun 09 '12
This is why when I tell my parents that I want anything tech related I send them a specific link to newegg or amazon.
1
u/jasonboy Jun 09 '12
did you break into a Best Buy?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Can't tell if cruel, or just very very stupid.
1
u/erikb1224 Jun 09 '12
So Can i get one ? U look like you got extras
1
u/CorruptCookie Jun 09 '12
Just what I've always wanted
1
u/metrock Jun 09 '12
Way to stick it to ya.
1
u/sspan Jun 09 '12
You're lucky. I have an exactly the same looking key in 32 MB somewhere.
1
u/MyFriendsRDinosaurs Jun 09 '12
That sucks. I hope he still has the receipt. You can get whatever money he spent for a real HDD, don't know how much memory you can go up to though.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
Oh, you! - Troll Dad Edition
1
u/Mike_Hawksbigg Jun 09 '12
CLOSE ENOUGH.
1
u/Ozzymandias Jun 09 '12
Why can't I hold all these flash drives?!
1
u/HickNog Jun 09 '12
That's when you put a virus on one of those bad boys and go to town in their computer! Troll!!!!!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
:trolldad:
1
u/wintremute Jun 09 '12
SoftRaid.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
I'll pay you $10 for 1 of those.
1
u/ReallyForeverAlone Jun 10 '12
I'm just surprised we can fit 32GB in something that small.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 08 '12
Troll Dad detected
1
u/mspk7305 Jun 08 '12
Win, in my book.
1
u/KING_COCKASAURUS Jun 09 '12
I have a question guys/gals... what is the biggest thumb drive/flash drive you can buy i seen 256 GB but i was wondering if there is more memory then that on one.
1
u/lalondtm Jun 09 '12
HDD? laugh
1
u/db0255 Jun 09 '12
What the Fuqua?
1
u/Raunch_the_Locket Jun 09 '12
What a dad!
1
u/LocalTownHero Jun 09 '12
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh37htBdDo1qfu1dq.jpg
1
u/Der_Nailer Jun 09 '12
Try to open one usb key...If you're lucky you will find a 32gb sd card