Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : usb hard drive

[berry05]

ok you know how they sell those usb hard drives that connect to the computer that can hold like 100 gb's.....

well if i hook up one of those external hard drives to my server can i use it as webspace for users?

[Sam Robertson]

You can, But you would be better buying an internal HDD.

[barry[CoffeeSprout]]

Originally Posted by Sam Robertson

You can, But you would be better buying an internal HDD.

Yes and internal drives tend to be cheaper since you're not paying for the USB enclosure.
I guess you can use USB drives in a datacenter to make backups of your servers contents though

[berry05]

thxs for the help guys!

[1boss1]

A USB would be much faster than a normal drive with moving parts wouldnt it? If so this idea is not as silly as it sounds.

[MikeDVB]

Originally Posted by 1boss1

A USB would be much faster than a normal drive with moving parts wouldnt it? If so this idea is not as silly as it sounds.

Most 100gb USB drives have moving parts just like any other drive, they are often just 100gb laptop drives (2.5" drives) in an external USB enclosure.

To get a *fast* 100gb external FLASH drive (no moving parts) would probably cost you around $400~800 or so, I believe the 64 or 128gb flash 2.5" drives are going for around $1200 last time I checked (memory could be bad, they could be much more or less now).

Generally I would advise *against* using a USB drive to store any user files unless it's only a backup and even then I would personally still not like the idea of it.

[vibrokatana]

USB drives use the CPU to do transfers, also the latency tends to be higher then using an interface designed for disks. You will be unable to RAID them without using software. And the drives tend to be subject to more wear and tear (heat and vibration/movement). All in all I would say it is a bad idea except for non critical applications.

[FiberLightning]

Originally Posted by berry05

ok you know how they sell those usb hard drives that connect to the computer that can hold like 100 gb's.....

well if i hook up one of those external hard drives to my server can i use it as webspace for users?

I wouldn't recommend using a USB based device for user webspace.

If your collocating and have the available room/power in your cabinet, the USB drive could be a good way to create highly portable, compartmentalized backups. But there really aren't any other uses for them.

We currently use flash based drives for SWAP storage on all of our servers, that's the only USB equipment we currently utilize.

[berry05]

ok...ill stick with the internal HDD then....thxs for your help guys again!

[1boss1]

Originally Posted by MikeDVB

Most 100gb USB drives have moving parts just like any other drive, they are often just 100gb laptop drives (2.5" drives) in an external USB enclosure.

To get a *fast* 100gb external FLASH drive (no moving parts) would probably cost you around $400~800 or so, I believe the 64 or 128gb flash 2.5" drives are going for around $1200 last time I checked (memory could be bad, they could be much more or less now).

Generally I would advise *against* using a USB drive to store any user files unless it's only a backup and even then I would personally still not like the idea of it.

Ahh ok i understand, at first i though he was talking about USB Flash drives rather then a regular drive connected by USB.

Out of curiosity, would Flash USB memory be faster then traditional 15k moving part disks?

[FiberLightning]

Originally Posted by 1boss1

Out of curiosity, would Flash USB memory be faster then traditional 15k moving part disks?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the quality of the SSD (assuming your referring to Solid State Disks) .

Some are 10 - 15x faster than any HDD solution available, others can have slower access speeds than a 5400RPM disk under heavy usage. You'll generally get a good SSD in the $800 > range, many SSDs are now available in the < $400 market with poor performance as a penalty for the price.

[Dan541]

Originally Posted by MikeDVB

Generally I would advise *against* using a USB drive to store any user files unless it's only a backup and even then I would personally still not like the idea of it.

I guessing a flash drive would reach it's end of life rather quickly.

A part from possible heating problems I don't see any major problems with using an external drive (so long as its not flash), half *** measures do work after all.

[ldcdc]

I guessing a flash drive would reach it's end of life rather quickly.

Indeed, though if wear leveling is being employed, it could take a while. Personally, I'm not convinced that flash technology is ready to replace classical hard drives yet though.

[Rageki-John]

Flash drives are only meant for storage so I'm not sure how they would react if they were constantly being active 24/7. It might have some heating problems and end up frying on you so it's not recommended to use one to host sites.

[Jacob Wall]

To the person who said the latencies we're higher than the internal ones... thats not true.


Using Apple iPods for example... all classics have a internet hard drive with moving parts,,, the iPod Touches/iPhone's all are using flash memory... and they have a much lower latency from when clicking a button, to playing the song... also transferring music seems faster to me.