• Re: Pi lightweight server with USB SSD instead of powered HDD?

    From Pancho@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 10:14:52 2021
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.


    I don't know about the pi3, but my pi4 works fine as a NAS with a
    Samsung SSD (500 GB 860 maybe?) and USB3 to SATA cable.

    <https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-Adapter-Cable-Drives-en-GB-SATA-USB-3-0-converter/dp/B01N2JIQR7/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=sata+to+usb+cable&qid=1626253718&sr=8-3>

    I guess that is similar to the T5, T7.

    I also have a 2.5" hdd, but that does require an additional USB power
    supply.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andy Burns@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 10:16:16 2021
    Adam Funk wrote:

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's
    hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to All on Wed Jul 14 09:18:12 2021
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Chris Elvidge@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Wed Jul 14 10:51:18 2021
    On 14/07/2021 10:16 am, Andy Burns wrote:
    Adam Funk wrote:

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a
    problem.
    Having said that, I have a 4TB drive connected to a Pi4 without external
    power but a 5TB drive requires an extra 5V supply.
    Also (second-hand) 250GB M2 drive in M2-USB3 converter case.


    --
    Chris Elvidge
    England
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Theo@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Wed Jul 14 11:07:15 2021
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...

    Typically the flash will use a lot less when idling. Both will take more
    power when being accessed, but the HDD still needs to spin while the SSD can sleep. The HDD could spin down but then the access time when it needs to
    power up again is measured in seconds.

    Theo
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Wed Jul 14 12:04:21 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Andy Burns wrote:

    Adam Funk wrote:

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...

    Where did you find the specs for the USB SSDs? I googled various
    combinations of keywords, then focused on the Samsung website, without
    being able to find any numbers for current or power.


    --
    A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
    ---Mark Twain
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 12:36:13 2021
    On 14-07-2021 10:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Yes. Works perfectly for me, no trouble for years with a T5.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Chris Elvidge on Wed Jul 14 13:30:27 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Chris Elvidge wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 10:16 am, Andy Burns wrote:
    Adam Funk wrote:

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's
    hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a problem.
    Having said that, I have a 4TB drive connected to a Pi4 without external power but a 5TB drive requires an extra 5V supply.
    Also (second-hand) 250GB M2 drive in M2-USB3 converter case.

    I'd expect the difference between running and start-up currents to be
    a lot less for an SSD than a drive with a motor --- is that correct?


    --
    Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom about
    the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when FORTRAN
    abandoned the practice. ---Sun FORTRAN Reference Manual
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Theo on Wed Jul 14 13:31:14 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Theo wrote:

    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    Do they actually use less? The T5 spec says 4 Watts, I can see Tom's
    hardware measured a spinning 500GB Samsung USB at 2.7 Watts ... OK one
    of those is a spec, the other is as measured ...

    Typically the flash will use a lot less when idling. Both will take more power when being accessed, but the HDD still needs to spin while the SSD can sleep. The HDD could spin down but then the access time when it needs to power up again is measured in seconds.

    That makes sense, thanks.


    --
    Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom about
    the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when FORTRAN
    abandoned the practice. ---Sun FORTRAN Reference Manual
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Wed Jul 14 13:32:59 2021
    On 2021-07-14, A. Dumas wrote:

    On 14-07-2021 10:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Yes. Works perfectly for me, no trouble for years with a T5.

    Thanks. (I didn't know USB SSDs had been around for years.)
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andy Burns@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 13:35:58 2021
    Adam Funk wrote:

    Andy Burns wrote:

    The T5 spec says 4 Watts

    Where did you find the specs for the USB SSDs?

    <https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi.static/Samsung_Portable_SSD_T5_User_Manual_v0.0_Rev01_English.pdf>

    5V 0.8A
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Wed Jul 14 14:05:59 2021
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    Adam Funk wrote:
    Where did you find the specs for the USB SSDs?

    <https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi.static/Samsung_Portable_SSD_T5_User_Manual_v0.0_Rev01_English.pdf>

    5V 0.8A

    Yebbut.... no details whatsoever. Is that max on startup, max in use,
    typical while reading, writing? Etc. It seems quite high; mine doesn't get
    warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 13:58:43 2021
    Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
    On 2021-07-14, A. Dumas wrote:
    Yes. Works perfectly for me, no trouble for years with a T5.

    Thanks. (I didn't know USB SSDs had been around for years.)

    The T5 was introduced in Aug 2017 but the 500GB version was €199,-! I think
    I bought my first one when it had dropped to €100. Now the 1TB version is down to that..
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Theo@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Wed Jul 14 15:18:51 2021
    A. Dumas <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote:
    Yebbut.... no details whatsoever. Is that max on startup, max in use,
    typical while reading, writing? Etc. It seems quite high; mine doesn't get warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/11719/samsung-portable-ssd-t5-review-64layer-vnand-debuts-in-retail/4

    bearing in mind they might have altered the internals since 2017, but it
    gives a guide. I note the spikes up to 3.5W which would accord with a PSU rating of 4W.

    Theo
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 14:02:52 2021
    Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
    I'd expect the difference between running and start-up currents to be
    a lot less for an SSD than a drive with a motor --- is that correct?

    Definitely.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Theo on Wed Jul 14 14:22:14 2021
    Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/11719/samsung-portable-ssd-t5-review-64layer-vnand-debuts-in-retail/4

    bearing in mind they might have altered the internals since 2017, but it gives a guide. I note the spikes up to 3.5W which would accord with a PSU rating of 4W.

    Thanks!
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Wed Jul 14 21:03:40 2021
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    A. Dumas wrote:
    It seems quite high; mine doesn't get
    warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.

    My M.2 NVMe in a cast aluminium soap-on-a-rope gets pretty hot ...

    Yes! I recently swapped such a drive in an old Macbook (where this was
    still possible) and put the old one in an external enclosure; it gets quite
    hot just from being plugged in. But the T5s don't.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From druck@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Wed Jul 14 21:22:02 2021
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    ---druck
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andy Burns@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Wed Jul 14 21:50:18 2021
    A. Dumas wrote:

    Andy Burns wrote:

    <https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi.static/Samsung_Portable_SSD_T5_User_Manual_v0.0_Rev01_English.pdf>

    Yebbut.... no details whatsoever. Is that max on startup, max in use,
    typical while reading, writing? Etc. It seems quite high; mine doesn't get warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.

    My M.2 NVMe in a cast aluminium soap-on-a-rope gets pretty hot ...
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Paul Hardy@3:770/3 to Chris Elvidge on Wed Jul 14 23:03:37 2021
    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a problem.


    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk drive on
    a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took 240V three
    phase power and drew some 100 amps for the first second until the magnetic field and the back emf built up in the motor windings. We had to fit a slow-blow fuse to the circuit to prevent it failing on switch-on.

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a disk of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    --
    Paul at the paulhardy.net domain
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Paul Hardy on Thu Jul 15 08:43:21 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Paul Hardy wrote:

    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a
    problem.


    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk drive on
    a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took 240V three
    phase power and drew some 100 amps for the first second until the magnetic field and the back emf built up in the motor windings. We had to fit a slow-blow fuse to the circuit to prevent it failing on switch-on.

    We have come a long way since

    understatement of the week :-)

    to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a disk of
    10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.


    --
    I only regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.
    ---Abbie Hoffman
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Dumas on Thu Jul 15 08:46:38 2021
    On 2021-07-14, A Dumas wrote:

    Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
    I'd expect the difference between running and start-up currents to be
    a lot less for an SSD than a drive with a motor --- is that correct?

    Definitely.

    Thanks.


    --
    I never met a people who were better at not getting to the
    point than the Brits. ---Rich Hall
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to druck on Thu Jul 15 08:46:24 2021
    On 2021-07-14, druck wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    As it happens, I'm going to try it with a 2B because I have a spare
    one lying around. But the documentation shows the same 1.2A max total
    USB draw for 2B, 3B, 3B+, and 4B.

    My only concern now is using the keyboard and mouse for the initial
    set-up (it will be used headlessly after that) --- I'll probably use a
    powered USB hub for that.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Thu Jul 15 09:03:34 2021
    On 2021-07-15, Adam Funk wrote:

    On 2021-07-14, druck wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    As it happens, I'm going to try it with a 2B because I have a spare
    one lying around. But the documentation shows the same 1.2A max total
    USB draw for 2B, 3B, 3B+, and 4B.

    Oops, forgot the link: <https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md>



    My only concern now is using the keyboard and mouse for the initial
    set-up (it will be used headlessly after that) --- I'll probably use a powered USB hub for that.




    --
    There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in
    money either. ---Robert Graves
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to Paul Hardy on Thu Jul 15 09:21:27 2021
    On Wed, 14 Jul 2021 23:03:37 +0100
    Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com> wrote:

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk drive
    on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took 240V three

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a disk
    of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    Even further since the 1.5MB cartridges I used on an IBM 1130 in
    the mid 1970s - they were much less power hungry but took several minutes
    to spin up or spin down. The day I corrupted the system disk it took nearly forty minutes to shut the drives down, boot from a copy, restore the
    corrupted disk and put everything back the way it should be about three
    minutes before the operator returned.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Pancho@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Thu Jul 15 12:07:23 2021
    On 14/07/2021 22:03, A. Dumas wrote:
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    A. Dumas wrote:
    It seems quite high; mine doesn't get
    warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.

    My M.2 NVMe in a cast aluminium soap-on-a-rope gets pretty hot ...

    Yes! I recently swapped such a drive in an old Macbook (where this was
    still possible) and put the old one in an external enclosure; it gets quite hot just from being plugged in. But the T5s don't.


    A quick look at the M.2 specs seems to have them between 2 and 7 watts.
    Quite a bit higher than the SATA standard at about 2-3 watts. But 7
    watts would be something to look out for with a rPi being 1.4 amps on USB.

    I think if I were in the market for another drive I would go for a NVMe
    in a USB adapter rather than a T5. I tend to rotate old parts and a NVMe
    drive is more flexible.

    I can just about see the use of a T5 if it were something to put in a
    pocket and carry around, but for any thing more static I would just use
    a standard drive and an adapter.

    So what advantage did you see in the T5?
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Thu Jul 15 12:55:07 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Andy Burns wrote:

    Adam Funk wrote:

    Andy Burns wrote:

    The T5 spec says 4 Watts

    Where did you find the specs for the USB SSDs?

    <https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi.static/Samsung_Portable_SSD_T5_User_Manual_v0.0_Rev01_English.pdf>

    5V 0.8A

    Thanks!

    --
    they're OK, the last days of May
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Thu Jul 15 12:51:09 2021
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 08:46:24 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

    As it happens, I'm going to try it with a 2B because I have a spare one
    lying around. But the documentation shows the same 1.2A max total USB
    draw for 2B, 3B, 3B+, and 4B.

    I think that's a standard current draw limit as defined by the USB
    standard. In practise its a minimum: i.e. anything capable of supplying
    power over USB 2 or 3 connections will provide at least 1.5 amps (it was
    0.5A for USB 1).

    IOW, be guided by the power supply capability of your wall rat, powered
    hub, or whatever.

    For a totally off the wall example, the moving map navigation aid in my
    glider (a Medion S.3747 PNA running LK8000) is powered by a 12v DC to 5V
    DC converter brick, connected to a 12v SLA. The converter, which was made
    for folks who bling up their cars with LED festoons and bought on eBay, delivers up to 3A, so can easily run(and charge) the Medion. I've been
    using that for 7 years with no issues.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Pancho on Thu Jul 15 14:13:11 2021
    Pancho <Pancho.Dontmaileme@outlook.com> wrote:
    On 14/07/2021 22:03, A. Dumas wrote:
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    A. Dumas wrote:
    It seems quite high; mine doesn't get
    warm which I would expect at constant 4 W.

    My M.2 NVMe in a cast aluminium soap-on-a-rope gets pretty hot ...

    Yes! I recently swapped such a drive in an old Macbook (where this was
    still possible) and put the old one in an external enclosure; it gets quite >> hot just from being plugged in. But the T5s don't.


    A quick look at the M.2 specs seems to have them between 2 and 7 watts.
    Quite a bit higher than the SATA standard at about 2-3 watts. But 7
    watts would be something to look out for with a rPi being 1.4 amps on USB.

    I think if I were in the market for another drive I would go for a NVMe
    in a USB adapter rather than a T5. I tend to rotate old parts and a NVMe drive is more flexible.

    I can just about see the use of a T5 if it were something to put in a
    pocket and carry around, but for any thing more static I would just use
    a standard drive and an adapter.

    So what advantage did you see in the T5?

    Price foremost. Also, Apple did use user changeable nvme drives for a while
    but with a proprietary interface, so a standard nvme drive wouldn't be of special use to me. Although I think there are adapters. And lastly, I did
    not buy it (them) for my Pi originally so yes, portability was good too.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Thu Jul 15 17:32:06 2021
    On 15/07/2021 13:51, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    IOW, be guided by the power supply capability of your wall rat, powered
    hub, or whatever.

    Precisely. How much current the USB port can deliver is a function of
    what is powering the Pi until the circuit board traces from PSU to USB
    catch fire and fuse...



    --
    The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all
    private property.

    Karl Marx
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Dennis Lee Bieber@3:770/3 to All on Thu Jul 15 13:28:25 2021
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:51:09 -0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> declaimed the following:

    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 08:46:24 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

    As it happens, I'm going to try it with a 2B because I have a spare one
    lying around. But the documentation shows the same 1.2A max total USB
    draw for 2B, 3B, 3B+, and 4B.

    I think that's a standard current draw limit as defined by the USB
    standard. In practise its a minimum: i.e. anything capable of supplying
    power over USB 2 or 3 connections will provide at least 1.5 amps (it was
    0.5A for USB 1).


    For a data cable, USB 2 is spec'd to only provide a max of 0.5A (five 0.1A "units"). USB 3 was spec'd for 0.9A (six 0.15A "units"). USB 3.2 is
    spec'd for 1.5A.

    USB-C cables are spec'd for 1.5A or 3A loads.

    Power-only cables and charging-only ports are 1.5A (v1.1), and 5A (v1.2).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power


    --
    Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/ --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Dennis Lee Bieber on Thu Jul 15 18:44:27 2021
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 13:28:25 -0400, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

    For a data cable, USB 2 is spec'd to only provide a max of 0.5A
    (five
    0.1A "units"). USB 3 was spec'd for 0.9A (six 0.15A "units"). USB 3.2 is spec'd for 1.5A.

    USB-C cables are spec'd for 1.5A or 3A loads.

    Power-only cables and charging-only ports are 1.5A (v1.1), and 5A (v1.2).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power

    These limits are amazingly badly defined: I looked at several sites that claimed to describe the USB standards, none of them entirely clear and
    not all agreeing with each other. This is why I think its probably good
    enough to check that your power source has enough output to meet the requirements of what its meant to power and assume that the conductors in
    the cable used to connect one to t'other will be up to the job, i.e. meet
    the current carrying capacity implied by the lowest rated USB connector
    on the cable [1].

    [1] probably a dodgy assumption for el cheapo USB cables, so avoid those.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:770/3 to Paul Hardy on Thu Jul 15 19:55:31 2021
    On 2021-07-14, Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com> wrote:

    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a
    problem.

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk
    drive on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took
    240V three phase power and drew some 100 amps for the first second
    until the magnetic field and the back emf built up in the motor
    windings. We had to fit a slow-blow fuse to the circuit to prevent
    it failing on switch-on.

    The washing-machine drives I worked with in the 1970s (25MB) had
    interlocks built into the motor circuits so if you punched the
    ON button on more than one at a time it would sequence them so
    that one drive was up to speed before the next started.

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a
    disk of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    Amen, brother. 10,000 time the capacity, 1/100 the cost - factor
    inflation into it and you have a drop in cost per byte of seven
    orders of magnitude. Mind-boggling.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | They don't understand Microsoft
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | has stolen their car and parked
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | a taxi in their driveway.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Mayayana
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andy Burns@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Thu Jul 15 22:09:18 2021
    The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    How much current the USB port can deliver is a function of
    what is powering the Pi until the circuit board traces from PSU to USB
    catch fire and fuse...

    I thought there was actually a polyfuse in there somewhere?
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Andy Burns on Fri Jul 16 07:29:43 2021
    On 15/07/2021 22:09, Andy Burns wrote:
    The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    How much current the USB port can deliver is a function of what is
    powering the Pi until the circuit board traces from PSU to USB catch
    fire and fuse...

    I thought there was actually a polyfuse in there somewhere?

    There may well be. I have never looked


    --
    Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
    to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Fri Jul 16 07:29:01 2021
    On 15/07/2021 19:44, Martin Gregorie wrote:

    These limits are amazingly badly defined: I looked at several sites that claimed to describe the USB standards, none of them entirely clear and
    not all agreeing with each other. This is why I think its probably good enough to check that your power source has enough output to meet the requirements of what its meant to power and assume that the conductors in
    the cable

    ...And the PCB traces on the Pi itself...
    used to connect one to t'other will be up to the job, i.e. meet
    the current carrying capacity implied by the lowest rated USB connector
    on the cable [1].

    It isn't the current carrying capacity so much as the drop in volts


    I wired up my kitchen with some 12V LV lamps - each lamp takes around 4
    amps, so I used 16 A rated 'lighting cable' - BIG mistake.

    The lights were perceptibly dim...a couple of volts drop isn't much at
    240 volts but it sure is at 12 volts!


    [1] probably a dodgy assumption for el cheapo USB cables, so avoid those.




    --
    There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
    that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
    emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent renewable energy.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From David Taylor@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Fri Jul 16 09:36:38 2021
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.


    If it's mostly read access, and 256 GB suffices, you might consider a 256 GB USB stick, as there's not that expensive.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00YFI1A66

    I see 1 TB at a similar price, but I would buy a brand I trust!

    --
    Cheers,
    David
    Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Fri Jul 16 11:16:37 2021
    On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 07:29:01 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 15/07/2021 19:44, Martin Gregorie wrote:


    It isn't the current carrying capacity so much as the drop in volts

    Good point - yet another reason for avoiding cheap-looking USB cables,
    the really thin, stiff ones.

    As I previously said: avoid el cheapo USB cables and buy the thicker,
    more flexable ones - you won't regret it.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to druck on Fri Jul 16 14:30:06 2021
    "druck" <news@druck.org.uk> wrote in message
    news:scnh1f$gcp$1@dont-email.me...
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    Beware!

    A USB HDD needs power which it draws from the USB socket on the Pi. For an
    SSD you might be OK but if you use a spinning HDD there is insufficient
    power, so the +5V voltage may drop.

    The solution to this is to use a powered USB hub. I did this for my Pi3 and everything worked perfectly. But for the Pi4, the Pi would not boot if the power to the USB hub and to the Pi were applied at the same time - for
    example after a power cut. Ass soon as I unplugged the hub from the PI, it booted immediately, as if it had been hanging indefinitely. It's to do with
    the hub supplying power upstream to the Pi as well as downstream to the HDD, which for some reason the Pi3 is happy with but the Pi4 is not. I tried a different make of hub and also a special USB cable between Pi and hub in
    which I had cut the +5V wire, but to not avail.

    I had to adopt a different solution: a SATA HDD and a USB-SATA hub. That
    allows power to USB-SATA hub and Pi to be applied at the same time, and the
    Pi boots OK.


    In my case, I specifically want a spinning disc because the Pi is used as a PVR, recording TV programmes, so there is a lot of writing and rewriting of data (around 0.5-1.5 GB/hour of recording), and I didn't want to knacker an
    SSD with frequent writes - the same reason than defragmenters are not recommended for SSDs.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:770/3 to cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid on Fri Jul 16 15:16:46 2021
    In article <scq3rj01feo@news3.newsguy.com>,
    Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
    On 2021-07-14, Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com> wrote:

    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:

    That's when it is spinning - the startup current is (can be) more of a
    problem.

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk
    drive on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took
    240V three phase power and drew some 100 amps for the first second
    until the magnetic field and the back emf built up in the motor
    windings. We had to fit a slow-blow fuse to the circuit to prevent
    it failing on switch-on.

    The washing-machine drives I worked with in the 1970s (25MB) had
    interlocks built into the motor circuits so if you punched the
    ON button on more than one at a time it would sequence them so
    that one drive was up to speed before the next started.

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a
    disk of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    Amen, brother. 10,000 time the capacity, 1/100 the cost - factor
    inflation into it and you have a drop in cost per byte of seven
    orders of magnitude. Mind-boggling.

    ...not to mention the size reduction. The OP refers to a 100-MB drive the
    size of a washing machine. Several of the 3D-printer motherboards I've
    bought lately have had 128-MB MicroSD cards bundled with them. That's the capacity of the washer-sized drive and then some, shrunk down to something about the same size as a fingernail...and I think they're making them in at least half-TB sizes nowadays.

    (My direct experience with old hard drives is a bit more modest. My first
    was a Conner CP340, a 3.5" half-height SCSI 40MB drive that I used with an Apple IIe. Someone once gave me an IBM PC/XT with a Seagate ST225 in it
    (and it still worked!); that'd probably be the oldest and (physically)
    largest drive I've dealt with, with the only other 5.25" drives being the Quantum Bigfoot drives that were briefly a thing in the mid-'90s.)

    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

    largest
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Scott Alfter on Fri Jul 16 15:45:20 2021
    Scott Alfter <scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:
    ...not to mention the size reduction. The OP refers to a 100-MB drive the size of a washing machine. Several of the 3D-printer motherboards I've bought lately have had 128-MB MicroSD cards bundled with them. That's the capacity of the washer-sized drive and then some, shrunk down to something about the same size as a fingernail...and I think they're making them in at least half-TB sizes nowadays.

    128 GB, surely. And yes, even 1 TB.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:770/3 to alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid on Fri Jul 16 16:58:47 2021
    In article <scs9ig$lgo$1@dont-email.me>,
    A. Dumas <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote:
    Scott Alfter <scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:
    ...not to mention the size reduction. The OP refers to a 100-MB drive the >> size of a washing machine. Several of the 3D-printer motherboards I've
    bought lately have had 128-MB MicroSD cards bundled with them. That's the >> capacity of the washer-sized drive and then some, shrunk down to something >> about the same size as a fingernail...and I think they're making them in at >> least half-TB sizes nowadays.

    128 GB, surely. And yes, even 1 TB.

    Nope, MB. Big enough for a firmware image (probably its intended use) and a small handful of gcode files, and that's about it. I'm looking at one right now, and it says "128MB:"

    https://home.alfter.us/s/H4gwc5HSbCZzied

    At least there's no danger of it being counterfeit. Who'd bother? :)

    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet? --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Ahem A Rivet's Shot on Fri Jul 16 19:36:34 2021
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:21:27 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

    On Wed, 14 Jul 2021 23:03:37 +0100 Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com> wrote:

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk
    drive on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took
    240V three

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a
    disk of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    Even further since the 1.5MB cartridges I used on an IBM 1130 in
    the mid 1970s - they were much less power hungry but took several
    minutes to spin up or spin down. The day I corrupted the system disk it
    took nearly forty minutes to shut the drives down, boot from a copy,
    restore the corrupted disk and put everything back the way it should be
    about three minutes before the operator returned.

    My first computer was an Elliott 503 - Three (IIRC) wardrobe-sized and
    shaped grey boxes plus a control desk. It was big because it was built
    using discrete transistors. It used 39 bit words in an 8Kword ferrite-
    core memory. Each work could hold 2 19 bit instructions. If the 19th bit
    was zero the instructions were separate: if it was set, the first
    instruction modified the second and ran at 6,7 MHz clock speed. It was
    designed as a scientific and engineering machine and managed to be a few percent faster at floating point calculation than it was at integer
    arithmetic. It had another 16Kwords of ferrite core that was used
    essentially as a very fast disk: it could be used as workspace for array operations and the Algol compiler, assembler and other support programs
    were loaded from it. Apart from that, its only I/O was a fast lineprinter,
    two paper tape readers and two paper tape punches. I learnt to program in
    Algol 60 on it during my last year at university.

    The Elliott 803s at National Museum Of Computing were binary compatible
    with with the 503, but about 70 times slower. However, if you want to see something REALLY slow, visit the NMOC and see the Harwell Dekatron in
    action! It uses relay-based logic, Nixie tubes for memory and paper tape
    i/o.

    But I digress, what I came here to say was that after University, I
    joined ICL and learnt PLAN assembler on a 1901 (punched card reader, lineprinter and 4 x 1/2"mag tape drives plus the operator's control
    teletype). That was quite slow: if the file you wanted was on tape deck
    4, but that wasn't online and you realised that after typing GO and
    seeing tape 1 start to move, it was possible to get to the tape decks and
    put no 4 online while the machine was checking the headers of the tapes
    on decks 2 and 3. All ICL 1900s recognised tapes by reading the tape
    header rather than by being told which deck your tape was on. Our
    operations machine at the time was a 1902 with one of those washing
    machine sized disk drives plus lots of tape decks, card readers and a lineprinter. The disk packs were removable, made of a stack of 10 14" ferrite-coated alloy platters, separated by spacers and held together
    with a set of (6?) bolts and capable of holding a whole 8 million 6-bit characters.

    When off the drive, each disk lived in a clear plastic cover which
    included the handle used to lock it onto the drive and with a cover that screwed onto the bottom to keep dust out.

    Which brings me to the point of this rigmarole: one day we were doing
    some last minute testing, so there were 2 or 3 of us rushing round the
    machine room and operating the machine to complete testing , when Gary,
    the programming manager, realised that the wrong disk for what we were
    doing was on the drive, so he rushed over to the disk cabinet, put that
    drive into its drawer, grabbed the one we needed and set off at a gallop
    for the drive. He'd forgotten one thing: the thread holding the bottom
    case on that drive was stripped and fell off in mid-gallop, hitting the
    floor with a clatter. He immediately thought "Crap: I've dropped the
    bloody disk!" - and let go the handle. Then, realising what he'd done,
    managed to grab the drive by its handle before it hit the floor, and
    managed to put it on the drive before tottering off to recover:
    unsurprisingly, He wasn't a lot of use for the rest of the day. Just as
    well he made the save since we had neither a spare disk nor a backup for
    the one he almost smashed.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to Scott Alfter on Fri Jul 16 20:10:55 2021
    On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 16:58:47 GMT
    Scott Alfter <scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:

    128 GB, surely. And yes, even 1 TB.

    Nope, MB. Big enough for a firmware image (probably its intended use)
    and a small handful of gcode files, and that's about it. I'm looking at
    one right now, and it says "128MB:"

    https://home.alfter.us/s/H4gwc5HSbCZzied

    At least there's no danger of it being counterfeit. Who'd bother? :)

    Maybe a 1GB chip because they couldn't find anything smaller to
    fill the order for 128MB cards.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From gareth evans@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Fri Jul 16 20:40:55 2021
    On 16/07/2021 20:36, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:21:27 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

    On Wed, 14 Jul 2021 23:03:37 +0100 Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com>
    wrote:

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk
    drive on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took
    240V three

    We have come a long way since to reach a couple of amps on 5V for a
    disk of 10,000 x the capacity and a minute fraction of the cost.

    Even further since the 1.5MB cartridges I used on an IBM 1130 in
    the mid 1970s - they were much less power hungry but took several
    minutes to spin up or spin down. The day I corrupted the system disk it
    took nearly forty minutes to shut the drives down, boot from a copy,
    restore the corrupted disk and put everything back the way it should be
    about three minutes before the operator returned.

    My first computer was an Elliott 503 - Three (IIRC) wardrobe-sized and
    shaped grey boxes plus a control desk. It was big because it was built
    using discrete transistors. It used 39 bit words in an 8Kword ferrite-
    core memory. Each work could hold 2 19 bit instructions. If the 19th bit
    was zero the instructions were separate: if it was set, the first
    instruction modified the second and ran at 6,7 MHz clock speed. It was designed as a scientific and engineering machine and managed to be a few percent faster at floating point calculation than it was at integer arithmetic. It had another 16Kwords of ferrite core that was used
    essentially as a very fast disk: it could be used as workspace for array operations and the Algol compiler, assembler and other support programs
    were loaded from it. Apart from that, its only I/O was a fast lineprinter, two paper tape readers and two paper tape punches. I learnt to program in Algol 60 on it during my last year at university.

    The Elliott 803s at National Museum Of Computing were binary compatible
    with with the 503, but about 70 times slower. However, if you want to see something REALLY slow, visit the NMOC and see the Harwell Dekatron in
    action! It uses relay-based logic, Nixie tubes for memory and paper tape
    i/o.

    But I digress, what I came here to say was that after University, I
    joined ICL and learnt PLAN assembler on a 1901 (punched card reader, lineprinter and 4 x 1/2"mag tape drives plus the operator's control teletype). That was quite slow: if the file you wanted was on tape deck
    4, but that wasn't online and you realised that after typing GO and
    seeing tape 1 start to move, it was possible to get to the tape decks and
    put no 4 online while the machine was checking the headers of the tapes
    on decks 2 and 3. All ICL 1900s recognised tapes by reading the tape
    header rather than by being told which deck your tape was on. Our
    operations machine at the time was a 1902 with one of those washing
    machine sized disk drives plus lots of tape decks, card readers and a lineprinter. The disk packs were removable, made of a stack of 10 14" ferrite-coated alloy platters, separated by spacers and held together
    with a set of (6?) bolts and capable of holding a whole 8 million 6-bit characters.

    When off the drive, each disk lived in a clear plastic cover which
    included the handle used to lock it onto the drive and with a cover that screwed onto the bottom to keep dust out.

    Which brings me to the point of this rigmarole: one day we were doing
    some last minute testing, so there were 2 or 3 of us rushing round the machine room and operating the machine to complete testing , when Gary,
    the programming manager, realised that the wrong disk for what we were
    doing was on the drive, so he rushed over to the disk cabinet, put that
    drive into its drawer, grabbed the one we needed and set off at a gallop
    for the drive. He'd forgotten one thing: the thread holding the bottom
    case on that drive was stripped and fell off in mid-gallop, hitting the
    floor with a clatter. He immediately thought "Crap: I've dropped the
    bloody disk!" - and let go the handle. Then, realising what he'd done, managed to grab the drive by its handle before it hit the floor, and
    managed to put it on the drive before tottering off to recover: unsurprisingly, He wasn't a lot of use for the rest of the day. Just as
    well he made the save since we had neither a spare disk nor a backup for
    the one he almost smashed.



    Yeah; when you drop a hard disk you get bits all over the place :-)
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Fri Jul 16 21:46:59 2021
    "Martin Gregorie" <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote in message news:scsn42$bu0$1@dont-email.me...
    On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:21:27 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

    On Wed, 14 Jul 2021 23:03:37 +0100 Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy@btinternet.com>
    wrote:

    As an extreme case, I remember a washing machine sized 100MB disk
    drive on a VAX minicomputer I managed in the early 1980s, which took
    240V three

    My first computer, a Transam Wren, came with 2 5.25" floppy drives and 16 KB (yes, kilobytes) of RAM. I decided I could afford the upgrade to 128 ( or
    was it 256) KB RAM, but the cost of the upgrade to a 5 MB hard drive was
    beyond me. That was in 1981 - I remember driving to Gray's Inn Road in
    London to collect it, a few weeks after I'd passed my test.


    What capacity were the large removable multi-platter discs (in a transparent plastic case with a twist handle) that were used in mainframe computers of
    the 1970s? My first sight of a computer was in the machine hall at ICL's
    BRA01 (Bracknell) site, when I was on a BASIC course for schoolchildren in 1976. And I saw the operators scurrying around like ants, removing and replacing discs and tapes.

    Even when I started work in 1986, the computers still used open-reel tapes
    (as opposed to QIC cartridges). But I think all the discs were fixed, not
    with removable platters.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to All on Fri Jul 16 22:03:01 2021
    On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 21:46:59 +0100, NY wrote:

    What capacity were the large removable multi-platter discs (in a
    transparent plastic case with a twist handle) that were used in
    mainframe computers of the 1970s? My first sight of a computer was in
    the machine hall at ICL's BRA01 (Bracknell) site, when I was on a BASIC course for schoolchildren in 1976. And I saw the operators scurrying
    around like ants, removing and replacing discs and tapes.

    On the 1900 series the first drives, which I never saw, were 4MB (more strictly, 4 MCH, since, as you my remember 1900s used a 24 bit word which
    cound be subdivided into 4 6-bit characters.

    The first 1900 I saw, with disks, had one 8 MB drive. After a couple of
    years we swapped that for a 1903S (32Kword memory, 2 EDS60 60MCH disks
    (20 14" platters), same physical cabinet and method of mounting removable disks. We ran George 3 on that.

    The 2903, a desk-size orange box that ran in a standard office
    environment, used a single platter 5 MCH disk, but could also use the
    EDS60 drives (in separate cabinets and rather on its limits at usual
    office temperatures. The 2903 was actually a 2900 DFC (Disk File
    Controller), in a different box and running George 1* on top of a 1900 emulator, so it could run standard 1900 software.

    Wen the 2900s were rolled out, they got EDS100, EDS200 and EDS640 disks, respectively 100, 200, 640 MB capacity, but same 14" platters, only a lot
    more of them.

    Even when I started work in 1986, the computers still used open-reel
    tapes (as opposed to QIC cartridges). But I think all the discs were
    fixed, not with removable platters.

    Same here. The only tape I've used at work was 1/2" (7 or 9 track, 10" or
    12" reels).

    At one point I was using 4 GB DAT cartridges for backups at home, but it
    was relatively slow, especially compared with any USB-connected HDD. So,
    now my backups are all done using USB-connected portable 2.5" drives and
    using rsync and rsnapshot as the backup software.

    I still have the tape drive, ISA interface and some tapes: must do
    something useful with them, such as giving them to NMOC.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:770/3 to gareth evans on Fri Jul 16 22:40:55 2021
    On 2021-07-16, gareth evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:

    Yeah; when you drop a hard disk you get bits all over the place :-)

    <snicker>

    If a non-programmer looked into the machine room while a CE had
    his head in a disk drive well, cleaning and aligning heads, I would
    explain (with as much of a straight face as possible) that it was
    important that the pack not spin too fast because it would make
    the bits fly off the disk - and that the CE was scraping those
    stray bits off the inside of the drive.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | They don't understand Microsoft
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | has stolen their car and parked
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | a taxi in their driveway.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Mayayana
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:770/3 to me@privacy.invalid on Fri Jul 16 22:40:57 2021
    On 2021-07-16, NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

    What capacity were the large removable multi-platter discs (in a transparent plastic case with a twist handle) that were used in mainframe computers of the 1970s?

    The most common example was the packs used on IBM 2314 drives or clones.
    They officially could hold 29.17 megabytes, but that was a theoretical
    maximum which was never achieved in practice. A more realistic figure
    was 20 to 25 megabytes.

    The 2314's predecessor, the 2311, had a shorter stack (10 tracks per
    cylinder), with an "official" capacity of 7.25 megabytes.

    The successor, the 3330, held 100 megabytes on a pack (200 megabytes
    on later models).

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | They don't understand Microsoft
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | has stolen their car and parked
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | a taxi in their driveway.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Mayayana
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ralph Spitzner@3:770/3 to All on Sat Jul 17 00:44:32 2021
    NY wrote on 7/16/21 3:30 PM:
    [...]
    I had to adopt a different solution: a SATA HDD and a USB-SATA hub. That allows power to USB-SATA hub and Pi to be applied at the same time, and the Pi boots OK.


    In my case, I specifically want a spinning disc because the Pi is used as a PVR, recording TV programmes, so there is a lot of writing and rewriting of data (around 0.5-1.5 GB/hour of recording), and I didn't want to knacker an SSD with frequent writes
    - the same reason than defragmenters are not recommended for SSDs.

    on my pi4 I have 1 240GB ssd and a 4TB disc
    the disc is powered by it's supply adapter,
    the ssd is not,still drew too muchpower, so Ihad to find a powered usb hub which is powered but doesn't
    "backpower" the the pi......
    the second one I've bought worked....

    -rasp
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Dennis Lee Bieber@3:770/3 to All on Fri Jul 16 21:51:27 2021
    On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 21:46:59 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> declaimed the following:



    My first computer, a Transam Wren, came with 2 5.25" floppy drives and 16 KB

    Presume we speak of personally owned vs those we'd had access to (like my college Xerox Sigma-6).

    (yes, kilobytes) of RAM. I decided I could afford the upgrade to 128 ( or
    was it 256) KB RAM, but the cost of the upgrade to a 5 MB hard drive was

    1981... 256kB... ???

    Mine was a TRS-80 Model III; initially 32kB RAM using a cassette deck. It took a year before I could justify the cost of having the floppy disk controller and 1 drive installed -- nice thing was Radio Shack dropped the price of that package, and of RAM, while it was still in their shop, so I
    was able to argue for the lower price with the price difference going to
    "fully populate" the RAM (48kB -- ROM BASIC filled the first 16kB).

    It wasn't for a few more years, after upgrading the system to a Model 4 mother board (which meant I still had the original power supply -- which
    was bigger than factory Mod-4s) that I could upgrade to 128kB of RAM (still
    had the 16kB ROM as I recall, but booting from a floppy did a bank swap of
    the first 16kB). The extra 64kB was only accessible as bank swapped 32kB
    with the upper RAM region, or via some I/O scheme (used by Multiplan as I recall).

    The 5MB hard drive was $5000 when introduced... Which was more than the computer even with all the upgrades I'd done. Think the floppies and RAM
    added only around $1000 on top of the $1500 or so for the Mod-III, and the Mod-4 upgrade was another $1200 or so.

    beyond me. That was in 1981 - I remember driving to Gray's Inn Road in
    London to collect it, a few weeks after I'd passed my test.


    What capacity were the large removable multi-platter discs (in a transparent >plastic case with a twist handle) that were used in mainframe computers of

    For some reason my mind recalls the college machine as having 100MB drives -- something like six of them. It was a big deal the year we got two 300MB (fixed) drives, which were assigned to the OS files and swap space as
    I recall. I also recall we somehow manage to double the CPU RAM to 1MB
    (256k words -- Sigma used byte, half-word, word, double-word) -- twice what
    the manual said it could address. Four refrigerator cabinets for the RAM (4-bank interleave with 4-ports; the I/O processors and CPU could chase
    each other through RAM with no contention). Originally those cabinets held
    core memory, but by the late 70s, the core had been removed and a few cards with static RAM chips replaced them.

    Even a 100MB drive was huge for the era (11 platter, the top and bottom sides were not used, so equivalent to 10 surfaces per track). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series#Mass_storage
    3277 -- 95MB was likely the model in use... Suspect the 300MB were not
    Xerox manufacture.



    --
    Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/ --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to All on Sat Jul 17 06:08:42 2021
    On 16/07/2021 14:30, NY wrote:
    "druck" <news@druck.org.uk> wrote in message news:scnh1f$gcp$1@dont-email.me...
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this?  I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    Beware!

    A USB HDD needs power which it draws from the USB socket on the Pi. For
    an SSD you might be OK but if you use a spinning HDD there is
    insufficient power, so the +5V voltage may drop.


    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power.


    <Snip irrelevant bollocks about powered hubs.>

    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.


    --
    “Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
    a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

    Dennis Miller
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sat Jul 17 13:27:07 2021
    On 17-07-2021 07:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power. [...]
    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.

    Apparently this is only true for the A+ and Zero (I didn't know this).
    On other RPi's from B+ onwards, the current is limited to 1.2 A for all
    USB ports together, no matter how beefy the power supply: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Chris Elvidge@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sat Jul 17 13:54:52 2021
    On 17/07/2021 12:27 pm, A. Dumas wrote:
    On 17-07-2021 07:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power.
    [...]
    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.

    Apparently this is only true for the A+ and Zero (I didn't know this).
    On other RPi's from B+ onwards, the current is limited to 1.2 A for all
    USB ports together, no matter how beefy the power supply: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md


    Yes, but if your power supply can't provide enough juice to run both the
    Pi AND the USB ports, a "bigger" PSU will help.

    --
    Chris Elvidge
    England
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Chris Elvidge on Sat Jul 17 13:02:32 2021
    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:
    On 17/07/2021 12:27 pm, A. Dumas wrote:
    Apparently this is only true for the A+ and Zero (I didn't know this).
    On other RPi's from B+ onwards, the current is limited to 1.2 A for all
    USB ports together, no matter how beefy the power supply:
    https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md

    Yes, but if your power supply can't provide enough juice to run both the
    Pi AND the USB ports, a "bigger" PSU will help.

    Oh, right, yes. I had assumed that was a step already taken. At least it is
    for the "official power supply" which I always used from the Pi 3 onwards
    after the slightly cheaper ones I used for the Pi 2 gave me trouble on the
    Pi 3.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sat Jul 17 19:15:44 2021
    "Martin Gregorie" <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote in message news:scsvml$2ci$1@dont-email.me...
    Even when I started work in 1986, the computers still used open-reel
    tapes (as opposed to QIC cartridges). But I think all the discs were
    fixed, not with removable platters.

    Same here. The only tape I've used at work was 1/2" (7 or 9 track, 10" or
    12" reels).

    At one point I was using 4 GB DAT cartridges for backups at home, but it
    was relatively slow, especially compared with any USB-connected HDD. So,
    now my backups are all done using USB-connected portable 2.5" drives and using rsync and rsnapshot as the backup software.

    At work we used open reel (first job), QIC and later Exabyte or DAT (I
    forget which).

    At home I started off doing backups to Zip disks (100 MB), then to CD-RW
    (650 MB) and now to USB-connected HDDs. I try to keep the HDDs in a firesafe
    in the garage when not in use, but it's a nuisance to have to go out to the garage whenever I want to update a backup, so I tend to keep the common
    stuff (documents, emails, TV recordings) on drives that live at the other
    end of the house from my study - so maybe they will survive if a fire or
    theft causes me to lose the PC drives.

    There isn't much stored on the Pi discs (TV programmes get recorded there
    but then moved to the Windows PC for watching and/or permanent storage). The only stuff is weather station data, and I back that up over the network by sharing the directory using SAMBA and then copying from there to the backup drive via the Windows PC, along with document/email backups.

    I understand it, though it takes longer to describe than to do ;-)


    As an aside, I spent a lot of time in a team at ICL which ported what was effectively SAMBA onto ICL servers and network protocols. We sold it to
    various customers. Now that functionality (minus the domain-control stuff *)
    is available for free as a downloadable package on any Linux.


    (*) Domain and permission stuff bored me: I'm more turned on by making
    things possible, rather than by making things impossible for unauthorised people. Security is essential - but boring ;-)
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sat Jul 17 19:34:12 2021
    "A. Dumas" <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote in message news:scukd8$7us$1@dont-email.me...
    Chris Elvidge <chris@mshome.net> wrote:
    On 17/07/2021 12:27 pm, A. Dumas wrote:
    Apparently this is only true for the A+ and Zero (I didn't know this).
    On other RPi's from B+ onwards, the current is limited to 1.2 A for all
    USB ports together, no matter how beefy the power supply:
    https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md

    Yes, but if your power supply can't provide enough juice to run both the
    Pi AND the USB ports, a "bigger" PSU will help.

    Oh, right, yes. I had assumed that was a step already taken. At least it
    is
    for the "official power supply" which I always used from the Pi 3 onwards after the slightly cheaper ones I used for the Pi 2 gave me trouble on the
    Pi 3.

    Yes, I'm using the official Pi PSU for the appropriate Pi.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to Dennis Lee Bieber on Sat Jul 17 19:27:19 2021
    "Dennis Lee Bieber" <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:h5c4fg9qg850jhvr7c7a01128tr2gvl1ju@4ax.com...
    On Fri, 16 Jul 2021 21:46:59 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> declaimed
    the
    following:
    (yes, kilobytes) of RAM. I decided I could afford the upgrade to 128 ( or >>was it 256) KB RAM, but the cost of the upgrade to a 5 MB hard drive was

    1981... 256kB... ???

    You've got me wondering now whether 256 KB was a realistic figure. I *think*
    it was either 128 or 256, upgraded from the base RAM of 16 KB.

    I was half right:
    https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=257 says "RAM 64
    kb (up to 256 kb)" so I was out by a factor of 8 - if that information is correct and they really do mean bits rather that bytes.

    http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/51455/Wren-Executive-System/ says "It
    is a Z80 based machine with 64K expandable to 256K" - and convention is for
    "K" to mean "KB" rather than "Kb".

    The manufacturing date is given as 1984. I *think* I had it right from the beginning of my time at university (1982), having bought it a year earlier. Again, my memory may be playing tricks.

    It was a Z80-based motherboard, running CP/M3. It also had BBC Basic (ported from 6502 on BBC Micro, presumably). I made a few little add-ons like an ADC board and a DAC board (for converting analogue to digital and back again)
    which interfaced with the Winchester port (effectively a Centronic parallel interface), and an RGB to PAL board (using a 4.43 MHz crystal and a PAL
    encoder IC) so I could drive a TV to see the screen output in colour rather than shades of amber - with all the smearing and colour fringes that you get with PAL!
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sat Jul 17 19:31:45 2021
    "The Natural Philosopher" <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in message news:sctokq$md2$6@dont-email.me...
    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power.

    <Snip irrelevant bollocks about powered hubs.>

    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.

    My understanding was that the Pi does some voltage conversion or
    stabilisation, and that simply adding a 5V PSU that is capable of supplying more current/power to the Pi doesn't allow more power-hungry devices to be connected to the Pi's USB ports.

    Certainly I saw the CPU temperature (as reported by the taskbar widget) rise when I plugged in an HDD, which suggests that the input power rail from the
    PSU is not electrically connected to the output power rail of the USB port,
    but that circuitry on the Pi motherboard is place "in between".
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ralph Spitzner@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sat Jul 17 21:23:22 2021
    The Natural Philosopher wrote on 7/17/21 7:08 AM:

    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.



    only it might not work, because: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/raspberry-pi-4-uses-incorrect-usb-c-design-wont-work-with-some-chargers/

    of course you could stick 5V up the POE jumper,or use a "stupid" usb C cable,,,,



    -rasp
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to All on Sat Jul 17 20:07:57 2021
    On Sat, 17 Jul 2021 19:15:44 +0100, NY wrote:

    As an aside, I spent a lot of time in a team at ICL which ported what
    was effectively SAMBA onto ICL servers and network protocols. We sold it
    to various customers. Now that functionality (minus the domain-control
    stuff *) is available for free as a downloadable package on any Linux.

    On which ICL hardware and OS?

    Not, presumably a 1900 capable of running George 3, since that had one of
    the best backup systems I've ever seen. George automatically extended its
    file system onto tape, by making backups at predefined intervals onto 1
    to 3 tapes in parallel. If the on-disk part of the filing system got over
    full, the largest, oldest backed up files were erased from the disk store
    until the free space quota was reached. When a logged-on user or batch
    job needed any of these files, George 3 asked the operator to load a tape containing the most recent copy(s) of the file(s) and put them back on
    disk. It also had the ability to free old backup tapes by moving any
    files that hadn't been deleted and had no more recent backups back to
    disk and then removing that tape (and its parallel copies) from the
    active backup tapes list.

    VME/B, the 2900 OS did something recognisably similar, though with tweaks
    to deal with large databases - IIRC these could be duplicated onto
    removable disks rather than tape.

    (*) Domain and permission stuff bored me: I'm more turned on by making
    things possible, rather than by making things impossible for
    unauthorised people. Security is essential - but boring ;-)

    True enough, but a well-designed security system should not interfere
    with normal activity by an authorised user. UNIX/Linux is less annoying
    than other OSen I've used, but it limited by being a two-level system
    ('root' + other users).

    I think George 3 was better here, since it had a user hierarchy. Under
    it :manager was the equivalent of 'root' and also owned the whole filing system. It could create other users and give them storage and CPU
    budgets. These in turn could create subordinate users and give parts of
    their budgets to them.

    FWIW, Multics (1967) was the first OS with a hierarchic filing system.

    George 3 (1969) seems to be the first widely used OS to support a
    hierarchical filing system (I think there must have been more 1900s
    running George 3 than the 80 Multics installations: I've used or been
    sysadmin on 6, but I have no idea how many G3 installations there were
    overall.

    UNIX doesn't seem to have left Bell Labs until it was rewritten in C
    (1973), but wasn't really portable before 1978.

    Microware OS9 was released 1980, so precedes MS-DOS (1981) by a year.

    Linux was first released in 1991.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sun Jul 18 08:21:57 2021
    On 17/07/2021 12:27, A. Dumas wrote:
    On 17-07-2021 07:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power.
    [...]
    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.

    Apparently this is only true for the A+ and Zero (I didn't know this).
    On other RPi's from B+ onwards, the current is limited to 1.2 A for all
    USB ports together, no matter how beefy the power supply: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/power/README.md

    Well I did the research and it seems that what makes the difference is
    the use of a LAN9514 chip which contains all the Ethernet and 4 x USB circuitry, and carries power limiting circuitry too.

    A definite example of creeping featurism...


    --
    "First, find out who are the people you can not criticise. They are your oppressors."
    - George Orwell
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to All on Sun Jul 18 08:28:38 2021
    On 17/07/2021 19:31, NY wrote:
    "The Natural Philosopher" <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in message news:sctokq$md2$6@dont-email.me...
    Insufficient power from *where*?

    The Pi does not *supply* the power - the power supply supplies the power.

    <Snip irrelevant bollocks about powered hubs.>

    Just use a beefier power supply to the Pi in the first place.

    My understanding was that the Pi does some voltage conversion or stabilisation, and that simply adding a 5V PSU that is capable of
    supplying more current/power to the Pi doesn't allow more power-hungry devices to be connected to the Pi's USB ports.

    Certainly I saw the CPU temperature (as reported by the taskbar widget)
    rise when I plugged in an HDD, which suggests that the input power rail
    from the PSU is not electrically connected to the output power rail of
    the USB port, but that circuitry on the Pi motherboard is place "in
    between".

    On some models - those with ethernet - it appears that they use a chip (LAN2514) which takes it upon itself to monitor and limit power.
    Obviously its intended for kit that has limited internal power supplies,
    but it becomes pointless if you have an external one.

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    I am frankly flabbergasted that such a crap piece of design was incorporated

    As an electronic designer I simply didn't believe they could be that stupid.

    Apologies to all I offended by doubting them.

    --
    "Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."

    ― Confucius
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sun Jul 18 10:03:37 2021
    "Martin Gregorie" <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote in message news:scvdat$i3t$1@dont-email.me...
    On Sat, 17 Jul 2021 19:15:44 +0100, NY wrote:

    As an aside, I spent a lot of time in a team at ICL which ported what
    was effectively SAMBA onto ICL servers and network protocols. We sold it
    to various customers. Now that functionality (minus the domain-control
    stuff *) is available for free as a downloadable package on any Linux.

    On which ICL hardware and OS?

    DRS3000 (Intel) and DRS6000 (SPARC) running Unix. This was in the 1990s. The source code that we bought was written for Intel, and we had to do a *lot*
    of #ifdefs for SPARC to reverse the byte ordering of multi-byte integers between the format in the packets received and the native format of the CPU. --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to All on Sun Jul 18 11:26:00 2021
    On 17-07-2021 20:27, NY wrote:
    I was half right: https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=257 says "RAM      64 kb (up to 256 kb)" so I was out by a factor of 8 - if that information is correct and they really do mean bits rather that bytes.

    Would be unusual to mean bit in that context. I can believe a 1984 Z80
    based computer to have 64 KiB! They also write "12 Kg" so I don't trust
    their capitalisation skills.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sun Jul 18 11:06:33 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply wasn't
    enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making the PCB bigger?


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to All on Sun Jul 18 11:01:19 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 10:03:37 +0100, NY wrote:

    "Martin Gregorie" <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote in message news:scvdat$i3t$1@dont-email.me...
    On Sat, 17 Jul 2021 19:15:44 +0100, NY wrote:

    As an aside, I spent a lot of time in a team at ICL which ported what
    was effectively SAMBA onto ICL servers and network protocols. We sold
    it to various customers. Now that functionality (minus the
    domain-control stuff *) is available for free as a downloadable
    package on any Linux.

    On which ICL hardware and OS?

    DRS3000 (Intel) and DRS6000 (SPARC) running Unix. This was in the 1990s.
    The source code that we bought was written for Intel, and we had to do a *lot* of #ifdefs for SPARC to reverse the byte ordering of multi-byte integers between the format in the packets received and the native
    format of the CPU.

    Interesting: that was after my time on ICL kit. The really odd one for me
    was 18 months in NYC (1976/77) building an sales and accounting system
    for a toy manufacturer on a 2903. At that time, although the 2903 was
    always capable of handling multiple 24x80 green screen terminals, there
    was no system or skeleton for managing a set of screens accessing a
    common set of indexed access files, so I designed and built one. Somewhat
    to my surprise it ran successfully the first time we tried it. FWIW this skeleton was written in PLAN, with the file handler and application code
    in COBOL. Officially, there was no PLAN assembler on the 2903, so we took
    a disk to the only 1900 installation in NYC and copied the PLAN3 software
    and libraries. It was sometimes useful to be hired by ICL!

    The last major project I did on ICL kit was at the BBC, building ORPHEUS,
    the original Radio Three music planning system. That was on a dual 2966 installation, so much bigger than the ex-Tarmac 2966 at NMOC. The project started in 1980, went live in 1982. It was written in COBOL using an IDMSX database.

    My last contact with anything connected with ICL was around 1986. By that
    time I was at Logica - easily the best place I ever worked.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From druck@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sun Jul 18 14:10:02 2021
    On 17/07/2021 21:07, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    True enough, but a well-designed security system should not interfere
    with normal activity by an authorised user. UNIX/Linux is less annoying
    than other OSen I've used, but it limited by being a two-level system
    ('root' + other users).

    That might be the case for your Pi, but UNIX/Linux filing system
    permissions are a lot more flexible than that.

    ---druck
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sun Jul 18 14:12:14 2021
    On 18/07/2021 12:06, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply wasn't enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making the PCB bigger?


    These are all multilayer boards


    --
    Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
    to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sun Jul 18 14:15:08 2021
    On 18/07/2021 10:26, A. Dumas wrote:
    On 17-07-2021 20:27, NY wrote:
    I was half right:
    https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=257 says
    "RAM      64 kb (up to 256 kb)" so I was out by a factor of 8 - if
    that information is correct and they really do mean bits rather that
    bytes.

    Would be unusual to mean bit in that context. I can believe a 1984 Z80
    based computer to have 64 KiB! They also write "12 Kg" so I don't trust
    their capitalisation skills.

    It was not unusual in some 8 bit micros to have paged RAM and ROM.
    It made stuff pretty tricky to program tho


    --
    Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
    to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From druck@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sun Jul 18 14:22:03 2021
    On 18/07/2021 08:28, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    I am frankly flabbergasted that such a crap piece of design was
    incorporated

    It's not a crap design, it's deliberate to prevent to prevent damage to
    both the Pi, who's circuit board is not designed to take high current,
    and the power supply, which may be some cheap one which may overheat
    when trying to supply too much current.

    If you want large currents use a powered hub, rather than trying to turn
    the Pi in to a toaster.

    ---druck
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Sun Jul 18 14:51:30 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:12:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 18/07/2021 12:06, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply wasn't
    enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making the PCB
    bigger?


    These are all multilayer boards

    Understood, but are the ground and positive rails duplicated on more than
    one layer? Or are they significantly wider than signal lines? Its
    difficult to tell from visual inspection.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sun Jul 18 15:13:05 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 11:26:00 +0200
    "A. Dumas" <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote:

    On 17-07-2021 20:27, NY wrote:
    I was half right: https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=257 says "RAM      64 kb (up to 256 kb)" so I was out by a factor of 8 - if that
    information is correct and they really do mean bits rather that bytes.

    Would be unusual to mean bit in that context. I can believe a 1984 Z80
    based computer to have 64 KiB! They also write "12 Kg" so I don't trust
    their capitalisation skills.

    By 1984 paged memory was common on Z80 systems 256K DRAM chips
    were getting cheap so 256KiB was an easy option, with a little care you
    could build the board to take either size chip.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Dennis Lee Bieber@3:770/3 to All on Sun Jul 18 12:09:08 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> declaimed the following:


    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.


    Partly because the USB spec itself says devices must start in the 100mA mode and negotiate with the host if they want the 500mA load.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Power
    """
    The limit to device power draw is stated in terms of a unit load which is
    100 mA, or 150 mA for SuperSpeed devices. Low-power devices may draw at
    most 1 unit load, and all devices must act as low-power devices before they
    are configured. A high-powered device must be configured, after which it
    may draw up to 5 unit loads (500 mA), or 6 unit loads (900 mA) for
    SuperSpeed devices, as specified in its configuration (i.e. because the
    maximum power may not be available).[42][43][44][45]
    """


    --
    Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/ --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Joe@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sun Jul 18 21:23:41 2021
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:51:30 -0000 (UTC)
    Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote:

    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:12:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 18/07/2021 12:06, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to
    the USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply
    wasn't enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making
    the PCB bigger?


    These are all multilayer boards

    Understood, but are the ground and positive rails duplicated on more
    than one layer? Or are they significantly wider than signal lines?
    Its difficult to tell from visual inspection.



    Typically a digital board will have entire layers dedicated to + and
    ground, but there may not be high-current access to them, only small
    vias. It's a matter of minimising coupling through the rails rather
    than supplying lots of current.

    I think this issue has been settled by quoting the USB spec. In any
    case, a Pi isn't a power supply, and any significant current required
    by a peripheral should be fed directly to it. Using a Pi as a power
    supply will make it run hotter, an important consideration for a Pi4.

    --
    Joe
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Mon Jul 19 14:03:24 2021
    On 18/07/2021 15:51, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:12:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 18/07/2021 12:06, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the
    USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply wasn't
    enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making the PCB
    bigger?


    These are all multilayer boards

    Understood, but are the ground and positive rails duplicated on more than
    one layer? Or are they significantly wider than signal lines? Its
    difficult to tell from visual inspection.


    The tendency used to be to have ground on top solid as a shield, and
    another layer was the power supply lines.

    But I never designed a surface mount board :-)

    signal wiring could then go north south in one layer and east west on
    another!



    --
    In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act.

    - George Orwell
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Mon Jul 19 14:14:38 2021
    On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 14:03:24 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 18/07/2021 15:51, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:12:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    On 18/07/2021 12:06, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 08:28:38 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    Why they don't bypass its power stuff and feed power straight to the >>>>> USBs, only some pointy headed Pi designer knows.

    Wouldn't that require much wider power rails? Maybe there simply
    wasn't enough space on the PCB to accommodate that without making the
    PCB bigger?


    These are all multilayer boards

    Understood, but are the ground and positive rails duplicated on more
    than one layer? Or are they significantly wider than signal lines? Its
    difficult to tell from visual inspection.


    The tendency used to be to have ground on top solid as a shield, and
    another layer was the power supply lines.

    But I never designed a surface mount board :-)

    signal wiring could then go north south in one layer and east west on another!

    Nice!




    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From John Aldridge@3:770/3 to All on Mon Jul 19 16:34:12 2021
    Maybe I've been lucky, YMMV, etc, but I've had an RPi 3B+ with a WD
    Elements portable hard drive (no separate power supply) working for
    several years without any problems that I've noticed.

    John

    In article <47j2shx4kg.ln2@news.ducksburg.com>, a24061@ducksburg.com
    says...

    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to John Aldridge on Mon Jul 19 17:20:09 2021
    John Aldridge <jpsa@cantab.net> wrote:
    Maybe I've been lucky, YMMV, etc, but I've had an RPi 3B+ with a WD
    Elements portable hard drive (no separate power supply) working for
    several years without any problems that I've noticed.

    Yes, me too with a Seagate Expansion Portable (2.5" usb powered hdd) before
    I replaced it with a Pi 4 with ssd. Was my home web server etc. for years, never crashed.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Joe@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Mon Jul 19 20:26:55 2021
    On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 14:03:24 +0100
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:


    The tendency used to be to have ground on top solid as a shield, and
    another layer was the power supply lines.

    But I never designed a surface mount board :-)

    signal wiring could then go north south in one layer and east west on another!

    I've only ever done two layers, where that strategy was good for
    minimising vias.

    --
    Joe
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to David Taylor on Tue Jul 20 11:09:42 2021
    On 2021-07-16, David Taylor wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.


    If it's mostly read access, and 256 GB suffices, you might consider a 256 GB USB stick, as there's not that expensive.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00YFI1A66

    I see 1 TB at a similar price, but I would buy a brand I trust!

    I thought about that but the main purpose is off-site backups by scp
    so there will be a lot of writing.


    --
    They do (play, that is), and nobody gets killed, but Metallic K.O. is
    the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer
    bottles breaking against guitar strings. ---Lester Bangs
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to All on Tue Jul 20 11:10:46 2021
    On 2021-07-16, NY wrote:

    "druck" <news@druck.org.uk> wrote in message news:scnh1f$gcp$1@dont-email.me...
    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    I've used an SSD with Pi 3Bs, 3B+s and 4Bs. As long as you use a good
    power supply, the Pi can drive these with no issues.

    Beware!

    A USB HDD needs power which it draws from the USB socket on the Pi. For an SSD you might be OK but if you use a spinning HDD there is insufficient power, so the +5V voltage may drop.

    The solution to this is to use a powered USB hub.

    Or a HDD with its own power supply.


    I did this for my Pi3 and
    everything worked perfectly. But for the Pi4, the Pi would not boot if the power to the USB hub and to the Pi were applied at the same time - for example after a power cut. Ass soon as I unplugged the hub from the PI, it booted immediately, as if it had been hanging indefinitely. It's to do with the hub supplying power upstream to the Pi as well as downstream to the HDD, which for some reason the Pi3 is happy with but the Pi4 is not. I tried a different make of hub and also a special USB cable between Pi and hub in which I had cut the +5V wire, but to not avail.

    Interesting and weird.


    I had to adopt a different solution: a SATA HDD and a USB-SATA hub. That allows power to USB-SATA hub and Pi to be applied at the same time, and the Pi boots OK.


    In my case, I specifically want a spinning disc because the Pi is used as a PVR, recording TV programmes, so there is a lot of writing and rewriting of data (around 0.5-1.5 GB/hour of recording), and I didn't want to knacker an SSD with frequent writes - the same reason than defragmenters are not recommended for SSDs.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From David Taylor@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Tue Jul 20 19:08:56 2021
    On 20/07/2021 11:09, Adam Funk wrote:
    I thought about that but the main purpose is off-site backups by scp
    so there will be a lot of writing.

    Agreed. So an interesting decision between HDD and SSD! Some SSDs do have a write-limit specified, although my first reaction would be if it's off-site and over the network perhaps SSD might be the better choice. Are you allowing incremental backups, or full backup each time?
    --
    Cheers,
    David
    Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Adam Funk on Tue Jul 20 18:59:58 2021
    On Tue, 20 Jul 2021 11:09:42 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

    On 2021-07-16, David Taylor wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like
    a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.


    If it's mostly read access, and 256 GB suffices, you might consider a
    256 GB USB stick, as there's not that expensive.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00YFI1A66

    I see 1 TB at a similar price, but I would buy a brand I trust!

    I thought about that but the main purpose is off-site backups by scp so
    there will be a lot of writing.

    Have you thought about doing anything to minimise backup write/delete
    volumes, i.e. using rsync or rsnapshot to do the backups?

    Both back up only new or changed files and remove erased files from the
    backup media. The difference is that rsync maintains a backup copy of the
    files on the disk as it stands while rsnapshot keeps track of the disk as
    it was over a period of days and weeks, using symlinks so that unchanging
    files only have a single copy on the backup disk.

    The speed is nice: when I made compressed backups using tar the nightly
    backup took 3-4 hours: switching to rsnapshot has brought this down to 9 minutes a night and I can now look back across 4 weeks worth of backups compared with 13 days for zipped tar files - on the same computer and
    backup volume.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to David Taylor on Wed Jul 21 09:47:29 2021
    On 20-07-2021 20:08, David Taylor wrote:
    On 20/07/2021 11:09, Adam Funk wrote:
    I thought about that but the main purpose is off-site backups by scp
    so there will be a lot of writing.

    Agreed.  So an interesting decision between HDD and SSD!  Some SSDs do
    have a write-limit specified, although my first reaction would be if
    it's off-site and over the network perhaps SSD might be the better
    choice.

    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and throughput
    are almost certainly limited by the network, not the drive, and a HDD is
    still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD. Or maybe you could go for an
    enterprise grade storage HDD for the same money (I think the consumer
    versions of HDD and SSD are about equally reliable).

    Are you allowing incremental backups, or full backup each time?

    That's another thing, and like Martin said, I would strongly suggest
    switching from scp to rsync at least, maybe rsnapshot. Much more
    reliable transfer and potentially MUCH less volume.

    Basic example without versioning, just one backup of existing files:
    "rsync -auv /my/dir server:" which requires pre-configured (and tested,
    so the client doesn't stall with "Add unknown key?") SSH access. This
    copies "dir" and all its contents to the SSH root of server, preserving
    all attributes, only transferring updated files.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Wed Jul 21 09:52:26 2021
    On 21-07-2021 09:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    "rsync -auv /my/dir server:"

    Oh, that was muscle memory, but obviously don't use the -v option for unattended transfers. Instead, there's a -q option and you could
    redirect any output: [command] &>/dev/null (or the error output to a
    file, etc)
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to All on Wed Jul 21 22:31:07 2021
    Op 21-07-2021 om 22:21 schreef druck:
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and
    throughput are almost certainly limited by the network, not the drive,
    and a HDD is still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4, it
    just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc. Plus you don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first access.

    That may be true but I guess you're thinking LAN. He said off-site, so I
    was thinking over the internet and who knows how many hops.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From druck@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Wed Jul 21 21:21:47 2021
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and throughput
    are almost certainly limited by the network, not the drive, and a HDD is still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4, it
    just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc. Plus you
    don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first access.

    Or maybe you could go for an
    enterprise grade storage HDD for the same money

    I don't think you'd gain anything on a Pi from that.

    ---druck
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Adam Funk@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Thu Jul 22 09:47:34 2021
    On 2021-07-20, Martin Gregorie wrote:

    On Tue, 20 Jul 2021 11:09:42 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

    On 2021-07-16, David Taylor wrote:

    On 14/07/2021 09:18, Adam Funk wrote:
    Hi,

    For a lightweight server based on a Pi 3 or 4, the recommendation was
    to use an externally powered USB hard drive (rather than powering it
    from the Pi's USB port) for better reliability.

    Now that you can get external USB SSD units (which draw less power
    than HDDs) is it OK to use one for this? I had in mind something like >>>> a Samsung T5 or T7 500 GB USB SSD.

    Thanks.


    If it's mostly read access, and 256 GB suffices, you might consider a
    256 GB USB stick, as there's not that expensive.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00YFI1A66

    I see 1 TB at a similar price, but I would buy a brand I trust!

    I thought about that but the main purpose is off-site backups by scp so
    there will be a lot of writing.

    Have you thought about doing anything to minimise backup write/delete volumes, i.e. using rsync or rsnapshot to do the backups?

    I should have written "over ssh" rather than "by scp" --- I use `rsync
    -e ssh ...` for some things (directories of stuff) and `scp ...` for
    others (small number of .tar.gz files).


    Both back up only new or changed files and remove erased files from the backup media. The difference is that rsync maintains a backup copy of the files on the disk as it stands while rsnapshot keeps track of the disk as
    it was over a period of days and weeks, using symlinks so that unchanging files only have a single copy on the backup disk.

    The speed is nice: when I made compressed backups using tar the nightly backup took 3-4 hours: switching to rsnapshot has brought this down to 9 minutes a night and I can now look back across 4 weeks worth of backups compared with 13 days for zipped tar files - on the same computer and
    backup volume.

    I haven't used rsnapshot before but it looks useful; thanks for the
    pointer.


    --
    I have a great programming joke but it's only
    funny on my machine.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Pancho@3:770/3 to druck on Thu Jul 22 17:12:26 2021
    On 21/07/2021 21:21, druck wrote:
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and
    throughput are almost certainly limited by the network, not the drive,
    and a HDD is still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4, it
    just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc. Plus you don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first access.


    A quick look at my rpi4 USB SSD says network speeds are barely just over
    half local speeds, Network read speed is 118MB/s, local buffered is 224
    MB/s (from sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb)

    I suspect an SSD is more durable than a HDD too (time will tell). HDDs
    are cheaper and may be less susceptible to total catastrophic data loss.

    An RPI4 USB SSD combination is a workable NAS solution.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From NY@3:770/3 to Pancho on Thu Jul 22 18:00:16 2021
    "Pancho" <Pancho.Dontmaileme@outlook.com> wrote in message news:sdc5da$3he$1@dont-email.me...
    On 21/07/2021 21:21, druck wrote:
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and throughput >>> are almost certainly limited by the network, not the drive, and a HDD is >>> still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4, it
    just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc. Plus you
    don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first access.


    A quick look at my rpi4 USB SSD says network speeds are barely just over
    half local speeds, Network read speed is 118MB/s, local buffered is 224
    MB/s (from sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb)

    I suspect an SSD is more durable than a HDD too (time will tell). HDDs are cheaper and may be less susceptible to total catastrophic data loss.

    An RPI4 USB SSD combination is a workable NAS solution.


    Is it the case that "an SSD is more durable than a HDD", given the finite lifetime of the NAND gates to repeated changes of state? AFAIK the magnetism
    of an HDD does not have a finite number of changes after which the error
    rate starts to increase, although it *does* have moving parts (head arm and spinning platters). I suppose wear-levelling firmware in the SSD tends to mitigate the finite-write limit a bit.

    Would you recommend a USB SSD for something like a PVR where very large
    files are frequently being written, erased and new files written. Is the finite-write thing less of an issue than it used to be?


    I've just tried a copy of a large file between Windows and Pi over SMB share and gigabit Ethernet.

    hdparm gives:

    cached reads 750.02 MB/sec
    buffered reads 75.54 MB/sec


    copying Windows to Pi (writing to Pi) 1,389,566,656 in 52.9 seconds = 26.3 MB/sec

    copying Pi to Windows (reading from Pi) 1,389,566,656 in 13.1 seconds =
    106.1 MB/sec

    Both transfers initiated from the Windows computer. I'm not sure how to make
    a Pi connect to a Windows SMB share - I always get permission problems to establish the initial SMB session, before actual file read/write begins.

    The writing is roughly 1/4 of the theoretical LAN rate; the reading is
    pretty much 100% gigabit speed, as shown by the Windows Task Manager | Networking graph.


    Hold on a mo... my "copying Pi to Windows (reading from Pi)" is faster than hdparm's buffered read figure which is the one which tests real disk reads
    as opposed to cached ones of CPU, RAM and HDD cache but not physical read.
    Can anyone explain this?
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Folderol@3:770/3 to Pancho on Thu Jul 22 19:03:37 2021
    On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 18:40:44 +0100
    Pancho <Pancho.Dontmaileme@outlook.com> wrote:

    Not sure buffered reads are actual real, as opposed to only using a
    small buffer and hence almost real disk reads.

    Is the file in the cache, i.e pick a file you know isn't. My Pi is using >about 3GB of its RAM as a file cache.

    Make sure you're doing a sync before reading the time. It's quite possible to get a return before a single file has *actually* been transferred

    --
    W J G
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Pancho@3:770/3 to All on Thu Jul 22 18:40:44 2021
    On 22/07/2021 18:00, NY wrote:
    "Pancho" <Pancho.Dontmaileme@outlook.com> wrote in message news:sdc5da$3he$1@dont-email.me...
    On 21/07/2021 21:21, druck wrote:
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and
    throughput are almost certainly limited by the network, not the
    drive, and a HDD is still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4,
    it just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc.
    Plus you don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first
    access.


    A quick look at my rpi4 USB SSD says network speeds are barely just
    over half local speeds, Network read speed is 118MB/s, local buffered
    is 224 MB/s (from sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb)

    I suspect an SSD is more durable than a HDD too (time will tell). HDDs
    are cheaper and may be less susceptible to total catastrophic data loss.

    An RPI4 USB SSD combination is a workable NAS solution.


    Is it the case that "an SSD is more durable than a HDD", given the
    finite lifetime of the NAND gates to repeated changes of state? AFAIK
    the magnetism of an HDD does not have a finite number of changes after
    which the error rate starts to increase, although it *does* have moving
    parts (head arm and spinning platters). I suppose wear-levelling
    firmware in the SSD tends to mitigate the finite-write limit a bit.

    Would you recommend a USB SSD for something like a PVR where very large
    files are frequently being written, erased and new files written. Is the finite-write thing less of an issue than it used to be?


    I'm just a guy on the internet, but My 500GB Samsung EVO 850 has an
    endurance 150 TBW. Assuming 10 year life span that is about 40 GB write
    a day.

    After 5+ years I'm at GB Written: 41,704.488. So not even a third used up.

    A comparable drive today is £43 Kingston A400 480GB. If I had a high
    write app I'd be temped to use this disk as disposable. But most PVRs
    don't use that much. My security camera is only 20GB a day.



    I've just tried a copy of a large file between Windows and Pi over SMB
    share and gigabit Ethernet.

    hdparm gives:

    cached reads 750.02 MB/sec
    buffered reads 75.54 MB/sec


    copying Windows to Pi (writing to Pi) 1,389,566,656 in 52.9 seconds =
    26.3 MB/sec

    copying Pi to Windows (reading from Pi) 1,389,566,656 in 13.1 seconds =
    106.1 MB/sec

    Both transfers initiated from the Windows computer. I'm not sure how to
    make a Pi connect to a Windows SMB share - I always get permission
    problems to establish the initial SMB session, before actual file
    read/write begins.

    The writing is roughly 1/4 of the theoretical LAN rate; the reading is
    pretty much 100% gigabit speed, as shown by the Windows Task Manager | Networking graph.


    Hold on a mo... my "copying Pi to Windows (reading from Pi)" is faster
    than hdparm's buffered read figure which is the one which tests real
    disk reads as opposed to cached ones of CPU, RAM and HDD cache but not physical read. Can anyone explain this?

    Not sure buffered reads are actual real, as opposed to only using a
    small buffer and hence almost real disk reads.

    Is the file in the cache, i.e pick a file you know isn't. My Pi is using
    about 3GB of its RAM as a file cache.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to Pancho on Thu Jul 22 19:31:20 2021
    On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 18:40:44 +0100
    Pancho <Pancho.Dontmaileme@outlook.com> wrote:

    I'm just a guy on the internet, but My 500GB Samsung EVO 850 has an

    Aren't we all.

    endurance 150 TBW. Assuming 10 year life span that is about 40 GB write
    a day.

    After 5+ years I'm at GB Written: 41,704.488. So not even a third used up.

    A comparable drive today is £43 Kingston A400 480GB. If I had a high

    Hmm I think not, Samsung make their own chips while Kingston buy
    them in from whoever gives the best deal.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to All on Thu Jul 22 20:29:43 2021
    On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 18:00:16 +0100, NY wrote:

    Is it the case that "an SSD is more durable than a HDD", given the
    finite lifetime of the NAND gates to repeated changes of state? AFAIK
    the magnetism of an HDD does not have a finite number of changes after
    which the error rate starts to increase, although it *does* have moving
    parts (head arm and spinning platters). I suppose wear-levelling
    firmware in the SSD tends to mitigate the finite-write limit a bit.

    The SSD may bounce better if dropped.

    What you're using the device for is also important: for longish term
    'cold' storage the HDD (and maybe an SD card) is preferable to an SSD,
    simply because an unpowered SSD can lose data: a bog standard SSD may
    start up loose data after 10 months or so unplugged while an enterprize
    device may start to loose date after 1-2 months. This detail is in the
    Industry Standards specs, so you can go and look them upts in the specs,
    so you can look it up...

    Would you recommend a USB SSD for something like a PVR where very large
    files are frequently being written, erased and new files written. Is the finite-write thing less of an issue than it used to be?

    I suspect this depends. You certainly wouldn't use a shingled HDD that
    way: it would be deathly slow, while it may be a good idea to use a good quality drive (think WD black) because although that class of drive will
    be slower than an SSD it will also be cheaper as well as quite possible
    lasting longer.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From druck@3:770/3 to All on Thu Jul 22 21:40:36 2021
    On 22/07/2021 18:00, NY wrote:
    Would you recommend a USB SSD for something like a PVR where very large
    files are frequently being written, erased and new files written. Is the finite-write thing less of an issue than it used to be?

    Yes, this is ideal for flash storage, it's all large sequential writes,
    and very infrequently in computer terms.

    The flash killer is almost constant small random access writes, as
    occurs when an SSD is used as the main storage medium for a computer,
    such as the Pi 4, but worse still Windows.

    ---druck
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@3:770/3 to me@privacy.invalid on Fri Jul 23 09:15:46 2021
    "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> writes:
    Is it the case that "an SSD is more durable than a HDD", given the
    finite lifetime of the NAND gates to repeated changes of state? AFAIK
    the magnetism of an HDD does not have a finite number of changes after
    which the error rate starts to increase, although it *does* have
    moving parts (head arm and spinning platters). I suppose
    wear-levelling firmware in the SSD tends to mitigate the finite-write
    limit a bit.

    I’ve had one SSD fail in the last 10 years (and that was an OCZ), I’ve
    lost count of how many HDDs I’ve had fail in the same interval.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Pancho on Fri Jul 23 10:10:21 2021
    On 22/07/2021 17:12, Pancho wrote:
    On 21/07/2021 21:21, druck wrote:
    On 21/07/2021 08:47, A. Dumas wrote:
    In this case my choice would be a HDD because the latency and
    throughput are almost certainly limited by the network, not the
    drive, and a HDD is still quite a bit cheaper than an SSD.
    The latency of a network filing system is still orders of magnitude
    better than a hard disc, and with true gigabit Ethernet on the Pi 4,
    it just about matches the throughput of a USB3 attached hard disc.
    Plus you don't have to wait for the disc to spin up on your first access.


    A quick look at my rpi4 USB SSD says network speeds are barely just over
    half local speeds, Network read speed is 118MB/s, local buffered is 224
    MB/s (from sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb)

    I suspect an SSD is more durable than a HDD too (time will tell). HDDs
    are cheaper and may be less susceptible to total catastrophic data loss.


    I am not so sure.

    Hard failure of the outboard electronics will cripple both, the only
    advantage of an HDD is that you can, in extremis, fit a new drive board
    from an identical unit to recover data.

    As far as the memory storage medium goes both will remap bad sections
    out and both will report pending failure via SMART

    interrogating my units with smartctl reveals that their projected life
    exceeds my average hard drive life: In short SSDs are now better than
    HDDs in every respect except price

    An RPI4 USB SSD combination is a workable NAS solution.

    Very much so.



    --
    "In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is
    true: it is true because it is powerful."

    Lucas Bergkamp
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to The Natural Philosopher on Fri Jul 23 11:06:34 2021
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 10:10:21 +0100
    The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    interrogating my units with smartctl reveals that their projected life exceeds my average hard drive life: In short SSDs are now better than
    HDDs in every respect except price

    Yep, so when HDDs are good enough (including lifespan) use them otherwise pay the price for the better product.

    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for three
    years before being replaced because of age so for all practical purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    For anything else SSDs rule the roost, NVMe for best performance
    and emptiest wallet (only on the work supplied Macbook for me).

    For peace of mind about failures use mirrored SSDs, preferably from different manufacturers (say Samsung and Sandisk). After all even good SATA SSDs are cheap, much cheaper than time wasted recovering data or rebuilding systems.

    [1] Cleaned of data and dirt AFAICT.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Pancho@3:770/3 to Richard Kettlewell on Fri Jul 23 12:58:00 2021
    On 23/07/2021 09:15, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> writes:
    Is it the case that "an SSD is more durable than a HDD", given the
    finite lifetime of the NAND gates to repeated changes of state? AFAIK
    the magnetism of an HDD does not have a finite number of changes after
    which the error rate starts to increase, although it *does* have
    moving parts (head arm and spinning platters). I suppose
    wear-levelling firmware in the SSD tends to mitigate the finite-write
    limit a bit.

    I’ve had one SSD fail in the last 10 years (and that was an OCZ), I’ve lost count of how many HDDs I’ve had fail in the same interval.


    In the past 12 years I have had 4 SSD failures: OCZ Vertex 60, OCZ
    Vertex 120, OCZ Agility 120, OCZ Vertex 240.

    Fortunately, I only bought 4 OCZ drives. All my other SSDs are still in
    use, in some capacity or another.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:770/3 to steveo@eircom.net on Fri Jul 23 19:55:10 2021
    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for three >years before being replaced because of age so for all practical purposes >they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network goes to 10gig, >not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters (which would be the only option to connect one to a Raspberry Pi). Are you adding SAS controllers to the
    systems in question, and if so, how much is that adding to the cost?

    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Scott Alfter on Fri Jul 23 20:42:51 2021
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical >>purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network
    goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a
    SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer sells
    them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ralph Spitzner@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sat Jul 24 09:41:22 2021
    Martin Gregorie wrote on 7/23/21 10:42 PM:
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical
    purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network
    goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a
    SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer sells them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500 euros.....



    -rasp

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Ralph Spitzner on Sat Jul 24 13:16:07 2021
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:41:22 +0200, Ralph Spitzner wrote:

    Martin Gregorie wrote on 7/23/21 10:42 PM:
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical
    purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network
    goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a
    SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer
    sells them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500 euros.....

    The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to GBP
    25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These are
    all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.

    For a bit more (though still not nearly 500 euros) you can get a cable
    that connects 2-3 disks or a unit thats a USB3-connected plastic disk
    enclosure - think of a single disk 'dock' but with the disk mounted flat
    rather than on end.


    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sat Jul 24 13:38:45 2021
    Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote:
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:41:22 +0200, Ralph Spitzner wrote:

    Martin Gregorie wrote on 7/23/21 10:42 PM:
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical >>>>> purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network >>>>> goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a >>>> SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer
    sells them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500
    euros.....

    The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to GBP
    25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These are
    all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.

    No, *SAS* = serial attached scsi, which can be made pin compatible to SATA
    but they are completely different protocols. Not sure what use sas->sata
    pin adapters are if they don't translate the protocol. Sata->usb is dirt
    cheap, but look at this typical sas->usb solution: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32982096906.html for $599.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From A. Dumas@3:770/3 to Ahem A Rivet's Shot on Sat Jul 24 15:09:52 2021
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 13:38:45 -0000 (UTC)
    A. Dumas <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote:
    Not quite, you can connect SATA drives to SAS controllers but not
    the other way round.

    Not sure what use sas->sata
    pin adapters are if they don't translate the protocol.

    Attaching SATA drives to SAS controllers.

    Ah, right. Thanks.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to A. Dumas on Sat Jul 24 15:39:03 2021
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 13:38:45 -0000 (UTC)
    A. Dumas <alexandre@dumas.fr.invalid> wrote:

    Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote:
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:41:22 +0200, Ralph Spitzner wrote:

    The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to
    GBP 25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These
    are all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.

    No, *SAS* = serial attached scsi, which can be made pin compatible to SATA but they are completely different protocols.

    Not quite, you can connect SATA drives to SAS controllers but not
    the other way round.

    Not sure what use sas->sata
    pin adapters are if they don't translate the protocol.

    Attaching SATA drives to SAS controllers.

    Sata->usb is dirt
    cheap, but look at this typical sas->usb solution: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32982096906.html for $599.

    Indeed SAS is only really available if you have a PCIe bus
    available.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Sat Jul 24 18:07:35 2021
    On 24/07/2021 14:16, Martin Gregorie wrote:
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:41:22 +0200, Ralph Spitzner wrote:

    Martin Gregorie wrote on 7/23/21 10:42 PM:
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical >>>>> purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network >>>>> goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a >>>> SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer
    sells them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500
    euros.....

    The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to GBP
    25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These are
    all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.

    For a bit more (though still not nearly 500 euros) you can get a cable
    that connects 2-3 disks or a unit thats a USB3-connected plastic disk enclosure - think of a single disk 'dock' but with the disk mounted flat rather than on end.


    A few minutes research revels that you cannot connect a SAS drive to a
    SATA port - although the reverse is possible. To utilise SAS drives you
    need a driver card in your PC.

    I found no USB solutions at all


    --
    "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
    that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

    Jonathan Swift.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:770/3 to martin@mydomain.invalid on Sat Jul 24 21:25:20 2021
    In article <sdh3qn$t3j$1@dont-email.me>,
    Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote:
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:41:22 +0200, Ralph Spitzner wrote:

    Martin Gregorie wrote on 7/23/21 10:42 PM:
    On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 19:55:10 +0000, Scott Alfter wrote:

    In article <20210723110634.aeeb1ec482baef80bdcd65f9@eircom.net>,
    Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
    Personally I go for 'refurbished'[1] ex data centre 3.5" SAS
    drives
    for bulk data. They're dirt cheap and tend to have nearly idled for
    three years before being replaced because of age so for all practical >>>>> purposes they're nearly new and plenty fast enough until the network >>>>> goes to 10gig,
    not soon at today's prices!

    How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a >>>> SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters

    Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer
    sells them too.


    --
    Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org

    you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500
    euros.....

    The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to GBP
    25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These are
    all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.

    SAS != SATA. The OP mentioned using ex-datacenter SAS drives for bulk data storage. Unless you're buying cheap used servers to house them, you're
    going to have a hard time making use of them. If you know of a cheap way to connect an SAS disk to something other than a server, I'd be interested in hearing about it as it'd be useful at work for testing drives and (in some circumstances) recovering data from them. USB-SATA adapters won't cut it,
    as while you can plug a SATA drive into an SAS controller, you can't plug an SAS drive into a SATA controller.

    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet? --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Ahem A Rivet's Shot@3:770/3 to Scott Alfter on Sun Jul 25 07:16:20 2021
    On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 21:25:20 GMT
    Scott Alfter <scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:

    SAS != SATA. The OP mentioned using ex-datacenter SAS drives for bulk
    data storage. Unless you're buying cheap used servers to house them,
    you're going to have a hard time making use of them.

    You can also buy cheap used interface cards, but yes I use cheap
    used servers.

    --
    Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
    The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
    You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)