Shuffle Array

shuffle raid array

i saw this just moments after posting yestrday’s article, so i’ve been itching to get this one up before everyone has read it already (apologies to those that have).  here’s a quick howto that shows you how to make a raid 0 array out of 4 ipod shuffles.  is it just me, or does this one look an awful lot like that weird boomerang from krull?

the basic setup is applicable to normal usb flash drives as well.  it’s not super fast, but it does allow you to use several devices as a one single, larger drive.  there’s really nothing stopping you from making a software raid array out of anything.  take the floppy disk array as an extreme example.

19 thoughts on “Shuffle Array

  1. Great! Now you can store the location of Atlantis and all the other hidden treasure maps on four ipod shuffles and hide them all around the world. Whoever finds them and combines them will rule the world..

  2. dang! thanks for ruining this week’s howto. now i have to come up with some other clever way to rule the world… maybe next week.

    seriously though, anyone in the industry have a reasonable guesstimate as to how long it will be until we are all using flash-style disks as primary storage? i’m really looking forward to getting rid of these noisy, failure-prone, power-hungry things.

  3. so ipod shuffle $99 1 gig x4 $400
    40 gig ipod $400

    4 gigs or 40 i think if i woua doing this i would use
    4x 40 gig ipods or wait for the 80 gigs and create a serious raid array

    unless you like paying more for less
    just my two cents

  4. Damn, I wish I had a mac…. Great site by the way. Oh and I think it’s only eeproms that can only be written to a certain number of times. Most are like 10 million times. Which would take 167 days if you wrote to every sector on the eeprom once a second.

  5. “I’m not positive, but I think most flash media can only be written and rewritten a certain number of times, making them not fit for primary storage use.”

    In ideal conditions it will last an infinite number of writes and rewrites..

    “how long it will be until we are all using flash-style disks as primary storage? i’m really looking forward to getting rid of these noisy, failure-prone, power-hungry things.”

    Going to be a while.. btw hard drives have a very low failure rate, usually under 1%.

  6. Why, pray, do you want to use a ipod shuffle? it would be easy to do the same thing, just using a simple usb2 memory key.

    then you dont pay for
    a) the mp3 player
    b) the crazily overpriced apple logo

  7. about flash cards…
    my friend told me that he burnd out 2 sd cards on his zaris (i no sure how to spell it so crect me if i am wrong) his zaris runs linix and it was somthing about the file system sez him

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