PetaByte over USB?

[GrockleTD]

@LinusTech i would like to see if you could do a PetaByte of external hard drives over USB.

[Levent]

I dont see that happening lol.

[Murasaki]

what

[GrockleTD]

but is this actually possible i wonder...?

[Levent]

Just now, Grockle88 said:

but is this actually possible i wonder...?

1 petabyte is still more than 50 harddrives, so no.

[ScratchCat]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

1 petabyte is still more than 50 harddrives, so no.

I mean you could chain powered USB hubs I guess....

Maybe something like the ones used to use the bitcoin USB miners.

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

I mean you could chain powered USB hubs I guess....

Maybe something like the ones used to use the bitcoin USB miners.

that is what i was meaning.

[mariushm]

You can if you really want to.

 

For example, just get a powerful microcontroller with ethernet interface and usb controller built in ... configure the usb side as mass storage device and then use the ethernet side to connect to some network storage.

You plug the microcontroller and it fakes a 1 PB drive and when you request to view a folder, the micro simply connects and retrieves the file list from a random hard drive through the ethernet cable.

 

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

You can if you really want to.

 

For example, just get a powerful microcontroller with ethernet interface and usb controller built in ... configure the usb side as mass storage device and then use the ethernet side to connect to some network storage.

You plug the microcontroller and it fakes a 1 PB drive and when you request to view a folder, the micro simply connects and retrieves the file list from a random hard drive through the ethernet cable.

 

that is not what i mean't. i meant quite literally connect a petabyte of hard drive's via USB cable.

[ScratchCat]

5 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

that is what i was meaning.

Quote

Also, a compound USB device can't be attached to the 5th hub in the chain. The USB spec defines a maximum number of "tiers" - each hub or function on the bus occupies a given tier, and there can be a maximum of 7 tiers to the bus. The root hub in the host computer is tier 1, and the tiers step from there, with each hub in a chain being 1 tier down from whatever it's connected to, and each simple USB device also being 1 tier down.

This is where the number of 5 hubs comes from - the root hub is tier 1, the chain of 5 hubs are tiers 2-6, and a simple device on the end is on tier 7. However, since a compound device is viewed as being 2 tiers deep, it can only be attached no further out on a chain of hubs than the 4th hub.
 

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=776986

[ScratchCat]

2 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

that is not what i mean't. i meant quite literally connect a petabyte of hard drive's via USB cable.

Yes it is possible. You have a 127 device limit, 10TB*127 is 1.27PB.

Ridiculous but possible.

https://superuser.com/questions/330556/how-many-devices-can-be-plugged-into-a-usb-hub-and-how-is-power-distributed-amo

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=776986

that article is as old as i am. i would be surprised if they hadn't increased the maximum usb device limit.

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

Yes it is possible. You have a 127 device limit, 10TB*127 is 1.27PB.

Ridiculous but possible.

https://superuser.com/questions/330556/how-many-devices-can-be-plugged-into-a-usb-hub-and-how-is-power-distributed-amo

wait a second. if thunderbolt is 30 Gb... wouldn't this technically be an upgrade from their current 10 Gb connection?

[mariushm]

Well the biggest drives are 14 TB I think, so you need 72 x 14 TB drives to get 1 PB.

 

There are probably usb to sata bridge chips, and some of those chips probably may support 1 to 5 sata port multipliers so you can plug 5 sata drives into one sata port ... and maybe you can plug a 1 to 5 multiplier in each of those 5 ports created by the original multiplier ... and so on...

[GDRRiley]

3 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

Yes it is possible. You have a 127 device limit, 10TB*127 is 1.27PB.

Ridiculous but possible.

https://superuser.com/questions/330556/how-many-devices-can-be-plugged-into-a-usb-hub-and-how-is-power-distributed-amo

what are these tiny drives. 12TB drives are out giving you 1.5BP

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Well the biggest drives are 14 TB I think, so you need 72 x 14 TB drives to get 1 PB.

there are 14TB but you can't buy them

[ScratchCat]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

what are these tiny drives. 12TB drives are out giving you 1.5BP

12TB? Microscopic!

14TB HDD -http://www.storagereview.com/wd_releases_world_s_first_14tb_enterprise_hdd

100TB SSD - https://www.anandtech.com/show/12541/unlimited-5-year-endurance-100-tb-ssd

 

@Grockle88 Now down to 10 100TB SSDs.

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

what are these tiny drives. 12TB drives are out giving you 1.5BP

why stop there? why not use all 6 or whatever usb ports on your motherboard? 77 maximum non hub devices x 6... i could see a maximum of 4.6 PB being possible over a single motherboard!

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

12TB? Microscopic!

14TB HDD -http://www.storagereview.com/wd_releases_world_s_first_14tb_enterprise_hdd

100TB SSD - https://www.anandtech.com/show/12541/unlimited-5-year-endurance-100-tb-ssd

 

@Grockle88 Now down to 10 100TB SSDs.

i was trying to stick with semi-possible figures... im pretty sure those ssd's don't even exist yet.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, Grockle88 said:

wait a second. if thunderbolt is 30 Gb... wouldn't this technically be an upgrade from their current 10 Gb connection?

Bandwidth wise? Yes

 

Practicality? No. Thunderbolt is designed as a peripheral interface, not a network interface.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Grockle88 said:

i was trying to stick with semi-possible figures... im pretty sure those ssd's don't even exist yet.

yep.

1 minute ago, ScratchCat said:

12TB? Microscopic!

14TB HDD -http://www.storagereview.com/wd_releases_world_s_first_14tb_enterprise_hdd

100TB SSD - https://www.anandtech.com/show/12541/unlimited-5-year-endurance-100-tb-ssd

 

@Grockle88 Now down to 10 100TB SSDs.

the HDD you can only get as 1 of a few OEMs the SSDs don't exist in the wild as far as I can tell

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Bandwidth wise? Yes

 

Practicality? No. Thunderbolt is designed as a peripheral interface, not a network interface.

design shemisgn we are referring to LTT here!

 

[Adorable Cat]

it'd cost around 600,000 USD, if you used these 2tb USB drives, which are the largest capacity I can find and are 1,399 each. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

design shemisgn we are referring to LTT here!

If you're asking them to replace something that they need to run reliably well, especially after a few incidents where Linus probably lost a few years of his life due to stress, I think mucking with their backup is the last thing they want to try something radical with.

 

A smaller scale thing on the side sure, but not as a serious upgrade to their existing solution.

[GrockleTD]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If you're asking them to replace something that they need to run reliably well, especially after a few incidents where Linus probably lost a few years of his life due to stress, I think mucking with their backup is the last thing they want to try something radical with.

 

A smaller scale thing on the side sure, but not as a serious upgrade to their existing solution.

i wasn't referring to replacing the real PB project (in itself, a massively impractical solution) i was just wanting to see if it was even feasible to try.