External 4 Bay HDD RAID Enclosure connected to PI

[DLD]

Hi All,

I hope this is the right place, please let me know if not. I've had a look in both FAQs but couldn't see anything that stood out about this issue.

Software
No overclock, unsure of exact Xbain/XBMC version, but if they are not the latest I will update soon. I usually install Transmission and Flexget onto my Pi.

Hardware
I have a 512MB PI, use a D-Link Wireless N Wifi Adapter, an Apple USB charger with cheap cable, and a cheap HDMI cable to my TV and currently a 4TB External HDD with two partitions one 2TB NTFS and one 2B FAT.

Question:
I've been looking at getting an external enclosure for some HDDs. I don't think I want a NAS right now, and it does not need to be a RAID either but preferably if it looked like one HDD to the PI that would be great (on a separate note the two partitions on my 4TB USB HDD often randomly swap mounting positions from usb0 and usb1 after powering off, which isn't ideal).

My question is, will a 4 Bay External HDD Enclosure just work? Often the ones I find say they need Windows/MAC but I'm not sure how important that is? The last one I looked at was this: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=21639 with the hope of putting in 4 of these http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=22816.

Does this look possible? What should I be looking out for?

I'm worried the enclosure might need special software that can't run on the Linux/PI/Xbian. Also that the HDD size might be too big for the Pi.

Cheers for any and all help/resources.

Dave

[mk01]

(29th Sep, 2013 01:10 PM)DLD Wrote:  I've been looking at getting an external enclosure for some HDDs. I don't think I want a NAS right now, and it does not need to be a RAID either but preferably if it looked like one HDD to the PI that would be great (on a separate note the two partitions on my 4TB USB HDD often randomly swap mounting positions from usb0 and usb1 after powering off, which isn't ideal).

xbian version would be nice there, but in general - you can always put the two partitions into /etc/fstab as

Code:

UUID=xxx-yyy-zzz       /media/usb0   ………….
UUID=yyy-zzz-xxx       /media/usb1   …………

what will cause even usb auto mounting to respect you fixed mount points. UUID is unique for partition and fixed over lifetime. you can get those if you run "blkid" on command prompt.

the enclosure should work the same way on RPI as on any other PC/Server with 32-bit linux kernel installed. there is one problem on stock Beta1.0/1.1, kernel is not compiled with SCSI multi LUN option but can be replaced with never kernel available. If you check https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian/issues/447 or search this forum, there are at least two such posts with success solution as well. From Beta2 this will work automatically.

And to the dilemma of NAS/RPI local storage … there is also few threads about - I can only repeat mine recommendation or opinion which is that if you has any chance of more devices (any kind) potentially accessing the disks, don't stick with RPI + locally attached (specially with such big / fast).

If you are sure, RPI will be your one and only device accessing the data ever, then doesn't matter. with this enclosure + 4xhdd the total price will not be big difference (between this, NAS, even microATX box with some kind of integrated CPU).

Or if you just plan to power it off completely and start only when needed, then yes, stay with RPI and such box.

Just think about how you really want to use it, then you will find answer.