Random Storage Idea...
So, I was reading some random mumblings on the interwebs, and the pigeon with USB stick being a quicker method of data transfer in SA than their intertubes... then there was a thread on a mailing list discussing this, and someone mentioned using stacks of microSD cards... so then my brain decided to launch itself orthogonally, as it often does. What we end up with is wondering just how much storage you could fit in to the space a 3.5" drive would normally take - not taking in to account any method of attaching it at this point. So, a 3.5" drive is approx 102mmx147mmx26mm, a microSD card is 11mmx15mmx1mm, so, assuming that we're just lying them side by side, and not optimising the way they're stored at all, you can fit (with space round the sides) 9*9*26 = 2106 microSD cards in the area of a 3.5" drive. Assuming that each of those is 16G that's just shy of 33.7TB of storage!
So, that set me thinking a bit further... I reckon that in that space you could do a 6*6 grid of cards with room for connectors, and just about get it to 10 high...so, that's 360 microSD cards, and probably enough room for some control gear (haven't worked out quite what we'd use for that), I then went in to wondering if we could then create a small embedded system to talk to those 360 microSD cards, if we did that then you could potentially do RAID0 across the "platters" with RAID6 on each platter. Now, to my poor head that meant that there should be 340*16G of available storage, which is 5.44TB... of course, that involves somehow interfacing the 360 microSD cards... I'm thinking that it might be possible with some form of embedded system...
Unfortunately, it appears that to actually build this with consumer components... and without including the interface gear which I haven't even begun to work out yet... we're talking around about £26 per microSD card, so, erm, £9360... but I still think it'd be a really neat project... now, if someone can arrange for me to win the lottery, have lots of spare time, and some more brain power... :)
Oh dear... my brain appears to have ticked further through, and I've realised that with spacing between each microSD card, you could, in theory, easily fit 400 of them upended in the space available. Erm. Of course, this still doesn't answer the "how the hell do you then get them all to talk in any sane manner" question... but I'm sure that will work out in my head sometime...
Posted: 2009-09-13 20:01 in Random, and Tech | permalink | Comments: 15
ssam - 2009-09-13 20:32
would it be easier to use compactflash. they interface by ide, so raid chipsets exist already. they are not as small, but might make up for that by being avalible in bigger capacities. they are also much faster.harry666t - 2009-09-13 20:46
How about cooling this stuff? Do microSD cards get hot?Erik Johansson - 2009-09-13 21:53
You need a MicroSD Robot, it would increase the size a lot, but would probably be cheaper in time investment.Robert - 2009-09-14 00:19
If you're going to go to the bother of making your own embedded system, you may as well just solder on raw NAND flash chips. And then you're just making a big homebrew SSD. Performance would be your major problem.Francois Marier - 2009-09-14 00:21
I hope you can come present the results of your crazy idea to the LCA2010 Data Storage and Retrieval Miniconf ;-) http://miniconf.osda.asn.au/Jan Hudec - 2009-09-14 06:57
The MicroSD cards have a rather complex controller inside them already. The communication is serial and all the wear-leveling is done inside the card, so the controller is really complex. Using the raw flash chips with a common controller would be both simpler and cheaper (and is what the SSD disks do). Note, that the wear-leveling still sucks big time for some workloads (like temp dir or swap) in most known flash devices (both cards and SSD).mkv - 2009-09-14 14:24
Using them in spi mode and controlling the chip selects with gpio would allow you to have only a single extra wire per card. And if you don't want to waste gpios, you could use demultiplexers to get 2^n cards for n gpios or if you add shift registers and the demultiplexers, just two gpios could suffice for an unlimited number of cards. Of course performance will be probably be abysmal.Archonproognofs - 2010-07-26 22:24
I made a Starcraft 2 website found here: <a href=http://www.thedarkshrine.com>Starcraft 2</a> http://www.thedarkshrine.com I am going to be adding a lot of things to the site, such as replays, vods, fpvods, maps, live streams, tools, esports info and much more. There's a wiki there and really could use helpers to assist. I hope you fellas can register as my goal is for this site to be one of the most powerful Starcraft 2 sites on the Internet. Please register soon as there will be a tourney. If you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know! Thanks! Great board by the way!goodloanweb - 2010-07-27 06:10
Auto Loan, Bad Credit Loans,Bank Loan,Business Loan, Home Loan,Payday Loanbetonfootballonline - 2010-07-27 15:04
They prepare the statistics for that. You can check of NFL Handicapping Stats while making your selection. Moreover the constant trading of players has also made this NFL football betting more interesting then ever. NFL football is the most suitable sport for betting as it is very popular and has a good fan base. One thing you should always remember while betting is bet smart using brain and not with your heart, and if you do so, NFL football betting can be profitable and fun. <a href="http://www.pulsebet.com">online betting</a> Perhaps, the method is not as easy as it has appears to be, it requires great sense of understanding the game. This time if you are also making up your mind to bet then you can certainly go through the tips which tells, How to place bets on the Football World Cup: • If you believe that winning the bet depends on great knowledge of the game, then this may be partially true because along with this you have to know about each team and then bet with the odds of the match. <a href=http://www.pulsebet.com>online football betting</a> 1. These pre-season games are not played to win. These contests are merely practice scrimmages and try-out sessions for rookies and the team's supporting cast. Think of pre-season games as nothing more than tune-ups for the upcoming regular season. Coaches often do not care very much about the outcomes and do not necessarily call their plays to maximize getting points. Therefore, since the final score is often irrelevant to the teams involved, you should not risk your money on this outcome either. <a href=http://www.pulsebet.com>bet online<img>http://www.sportsbook.com/images/header-sportsbook-logo.gif</img></a> There are 3 different Secondary conditions (i.e., tighteners) that round out this system. Secondary conditions normally exclude only a small percentage of games from the system pool. One example would be to 'Exclude all Monday Night Games', or, in the case of this particular system--games in Week 17 are not included when many of the high-level teams involved are resting players.emboraunamb - 2010-07-27 20:51
Hiya every body, superb board I have found It vastly helpful and it's helped me out a lot I hope to give something back & help other people like this board has helped me _________________ <a href=http://iphoneusers.com/>jailbreak iphone 4.0</a>amongnews - 2010-07-28 09:51
Online world and international news, british online service.radissoncruiseorg - 2010-07-28 21:19
Radisson Diamond Cruise Reviews Hundreds of discounts crystal Cruise.Busaswenuesed - 2010-07-30 04:18
Hi. I have a camcorder which record video to a SD Card in MP4 H264 format. These videos are shot interlaced however in the file properties the interlace flag/tag has not been set to interlaced and it says it is progressive. I checked the file using Mediainfo. What I want to know is if there is any software out there which will allow me to change the MP4 file's tag/flag from progressive to interlaced without having to re-encode it. Thank You.MuzikManOz - 2010-07-30 11:56
So I went ahead and splurged -- bought myself a <a href=http://www.ordio.com.au/products/Fatman-iTube-ValveDock-with-Speakers.html>Fatman iTube Dock</a> and I am very happy to say that I am an extremely happy customer. I actually listened to one at a friend's house several months back and just couldn't get that music out of my head because it blew me away. I searched online everywhere for a great deal and finally found it at <a href=http://www.ordio.com.au>Ordio</a> in Westfield Bondi Junction. I telephoned them first and asked every question I could think of and everything was answered to my satisfaction so I went ahead and bought it. Shipping was fast. Everything was perfect. I'm pretty darn happy and I'm playing it right now. Not sure if they ship outside of Australia but you won't be sorry if they do. Really happy... James