USB hub.
Comment on Software vs Hardware RAID
poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
Normally I would say software, or rather a raid-like filesystem like btrfs or ZFS. But in your specific case of funneleing it all through a single usb-c connection it is probably better to keep using an external box that handles it all internally.
That said, the CPU load of software raid it very small, so that isn’t really something to be concerned with, but usb connections are quite unstable and not good for directly connecting drives in a raid.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
BentiGorlich@gehirneimer.de 7 months ago
I mean I've been running the setup this way for >4 years and never had any problem with the USB connection, so I cannot attest to "usb connections are quite unstable"...
poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
I supposed that is because the JBOD box was handling the raid internally so short connection issues are not that problematic and can be recovered from automatically. But that wouldn’t be the case if you connected everything together with a usb hub and usb to sata adapters and run a software raid on that.
Auli@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I do t know usb c in thunderbolt has direct access to pcie lanes.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I’ve been running a 4-disk RAIDz1 on USB for 4 years now with zero failures on one machine and one failure on another where it turned out the USB controller in one WD Elements was overheating. Adhering a small heatsink on it resolved the problem and it’s been stable under load for 2 years now.