RAID across multiple network drives

[zmunkz]

I am new to RAID and network storage. I am about to purchase two of LaCie's "Ethernet Big Disk"'s, and I am hoping to set them up as mirrored RAID drives. Does anyone know if you can setup RAID across two different network hard-drives?

Thanks!

 

[croc]

I am new to RAID and network storage. I am about to purchase two of LaCie's "Ethernet Big Disk"'s, and I am hoping to set them up as mirrored RAID drives. Does anyone know if you can setup RAID across two different network hard-drives?

Thanks!

Easiest way in this case would be to use some backup software and do a timely backup from to the other. (I take it that you are not using a SPARC HPUX or PowerPC based network.... Then you could just mount the drives as if they were local...)

Next way would be to get a raid card, with eSATA ports.... Nah. Too hard. Too many SPOF's. KISS....

OK, now that all of my thinking is over, the real question.... Why?

 

[zmunkz]

Thanks for the insight. Basically, I want a large network drive to share all of my files (music, photos, etc), but I also want a way to back that data up. LaCie also sells a USB drive with RAID built it, but it is much more expensive. I through (perhaps mistakenly) that it would be easier to setup raid myself, and just give it the two separate network drives to play with.

Like I said though, I am new to RAID in general. Perhaps there is a better way to get the network sharing and RAID? I am looking for a 1TB solution with redundant raid (so 2TB of hardware) on the order of ~$500. Any ideas are very welcome.

Thanks,

 

[Vorador2]

Is better to make a timely backup of the data like croc suggest.

RAID is to ensure redundancy in case of hardware failure, and only works in a stripe of hard disk on the same RAID controller.

You can't do RAID on separate network drives. There is something called DFS to ensure transparent redundancy of network shares, but requires to set up a Domain Controller and only works with server OSes (i think, i'm not completely sure).

 

[VTOLfreak]

It is possible with iSCSI. But the network drives have to support this feature. Also they will be tied to 1 system at a time.
For more info on iSCSI read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISCSI
And then this for iSCSI on Windows: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=da150335-2d76-4cc7-9e3b-a95ed688fd2a&DisplayLang=en
Then you might want to read this paper on performance of distributed RAID systems using iSCSI: http://www.ele.uri.edu/tcca/camera_ready/Ben_iRAID-SNAPI-cr.pdf

The software you need on your system's end is free:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825&DisplayLang=en
Also, even if the drives you are using support iSCSI (which I doubt), you'll need a Gigabit network (with Jumbo frames if possible) or performance will really suck.

 

[BrainDeadHead]

You can accomplish this by using Linux + DRBD.
DRBD= Distributed block device.
Basically, its network raid 1.
http://www.drbd.org/