[ale] Need a big external drive quick. Suggestions?

[Greg Freemyer]

Okay, I've decided to get a Maxtor 1 TB external from Fry's (8 in stock).

In the meatime I took a look at XFS and how effiecient it is at not
wasting disk blocks.

I'm amazed.

I've got a 300 GB drive I use for backups.  Mostly big xfs dump files.

Per /sys/block/sdc and df it has only a 0.045% loss due to filesystem
overhead.  ie. not 4.5%, but truly only 0.045%

Then I looked at df -i and it appears that inodes are not reserved.  I
assume they are claimed as needed.  Therefore if you are putting big
files on it, that also is a very low loss rate for inodes.

The next result is that for my use I should be able to get at least
99% usability out of a 750 GB drive.  ie. My typical file I will put
on there is 2GB, so I won't need very many inodes compared to regular
data blocks.

My only trouble is that I need to have Windows compatibility and XFS
definately does not offer that.

Greg

On 6/1/06, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not too concerned about the enclosure issue.  To go past 128 GiB
> you need LBA-48 support.  I don't think there is another boundary
> until you get to 1 TB, then 2 TB.  Anyway I've tried several USB-2
> enclosures and they have all had LBA-48 support.
>
> The bigger issue is that I just don't think a 750 GB drive will give
> me 700 GB of useable filesystem space.  I guess I need to look at one
> of my XFS partitions a little closer.
>
> As far as using a small server, I want to stay away from that for
> various reasons.
>
> Greg
>
> On 6/1/06, Benjie <benjie.godfrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Before you drop a 750 GB drive in an external enclosure, I would
> > verify that its chipset can support a drive that big. That being said,
> >  I have used a small ( in size) Linux server running software raid for
> > the same purpose.  Its not the best in size ( or economy,)  but it
> > should be a reliable solution given your constraints.
> >
> > Benjie
> >
> > On 6/1/06, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > All,
> > >
> > > I need to copy off about 700 GB of data from a server Saturday night
> > > (overnight, hope its done by Sunday morning).
> > >
> > > I thought about buying one of the new Seagate 750 GB drives and
> > > putting it in a USB 2 enclusere, but I'm afraid that with filesystem
> > > overhead etc. it won't be big enough.
> > >
> > > My next thought was a Lacie 1 TB external unit but some of the reviews
> > > at Amazon are not so good.
> > >
> > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B0001R041M/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/104-6988910-3467137?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=172282&s=electronics
> > >
> > > Anybody have any suggestions?  Perfect would be something I could pick
> > > up a Fry's etc.
> > >
> > > Alternatively I should be able to order something overnight out of
> > > California still tonight.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Greg
> > > --
> > > Greg Freemyer
> > > The Norcross Group
> > > Forensics for the 21st Century
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Ale mailing list
> > > Ale at ale.org
> > > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > >
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> >
>
>
> --
> Greg Freemyer
> The Norcross Group
> Forensics for the 21st Century
>


-- 
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century