RAID on empeg

I know people have talked about this before, but i would really love to have 2 hard drives in my empeg, with raid setup. I don't care about extra space, i have a 30gb and I have all the songs I could ever want, with 13gb free. The only thing is, i want to be 100% sure that when these hard drives die, i don't loose my music. I don't have enough free space to backup my music. The hard drive with all my music on it in my computer died the other day, now the empeg is my only copy of years and years of work. How hard would it be to implement a raid mirror to both drives? is this possible with hijack? or maybe straight from the empeg guys?

Just think if you’re on a long road trip. And your hard drive dies. No music, for most of us no radio, no nothing. This is when we will all wish there was raid on these awesome empegs.

Now I've seen it all, Next thing someone will try to develop EMpeg Clustering.
Gazz.

Software mirroring isn't hard to setup. It's more the cost of the two laptop drives needed to implement it. It would be much cheaper to just buy a new desktop HD and back it all up onto that again.

I don't see any particular problem to using mirroring though

- Trevor

Without taking a long gander at it, it should be possible. Almost all of the RAID function in Linux is within the kernel, if I understand it all correctly. And Hijack is just a replacement kernel, so we've got that going. There was RAID support, includeing RAID 1 (AKA mirroring) available in Linux 2.2 kernels, which is what the empeg runs.

The only problems I can see are getting the utility programs to run, which probably wouldn't be hard, and making sure that the correct devices get mounted. That is, I believe that the player binary mounts /dev/hda4 and /dev/hdc4 manually, so you'd have to change those devices to point to the metadevice instead of the real hard drive. The problem is that it might check the device numbers and screwup somehow if the devices don't point to the right things. Honestly, I doubt that would be a problem, either, as I feel confident in saying that it doesn't do that.

I'd work on this for you, as it would be pretty cool and not take too awfully long, but I only have one hard drive in my empeg right now. If you want to send me another, I'd be happy to work on it.

It would be much cheaper to just buy a new desktop HD and back it all up onto that again.

If you're on the road and your hard drive dies, you're SOL. That's the original poster's point.

I've got to admit when I first saw this I was thinking raid stripping for faster access times. Had me wondering until i read the post...

Honestly, I think you're much more likely to have your empeg stolen or drop it than have the hard drives just fail... Either way, raid just isn't going to be enough to gaurantee that you don't loose your music.

Go buy a hard drive, copy all your music to it, and stick it in a cool, dry place. Far more reliable than RAID.

Matthew

True, if it did die whilst out on the road then you're stuck. But it would be much safer and cheaper to store it all on a normal HD. Using rip off UK prices for hardware you can get a 120GB desktop HD for the same price as a 30GB laptop drive. Speaking of which, anybody know when the next size over 60GB is coming out? I want the prices to drop a bit more so I can upgrade my laptop

I suppose you can get around the problem of having to mount the RAID metadevice instead of hda? by fudging the kernel like what was done for ext3. For maximum reliability you'd also want ext3 to ensure the integrity of the FS.

- Trevor

I suppose you can get around the problem of having to mount the RAID metadevice instead of hda? by fudging the kernel

It'd be much more likely that one would simply change the /dev/hda? device to point at the device numbers for the metadevice rather than munging the kernel to do it. But it's remotely possible that that wouldn't work, in which case, the kernel intercept most likely would.

Good point. I think I need sleep, I'm ignoring the simple solution and going for the much more convoluted path

- Trevor

With a two drive model, is it possible to have both drives contain the player software and partitions? I've never looked into a seccond hard drive, so I don't know the details... If it is, if one drive dies on a looong trip, you could always pop out your mini tool set, unplug the other drive, and limp home on half of your music collection?

I've never even opened my empeg, so I'm not one to talk on these matters really...

Matthew

you can install the player software on both drives as recommended in the upgrade faq. I think then if one dies it will boot from the other without having to do anything but who knows what music you would have. you would still be able to use the radio I guess.

With a two drive model, is it possible to have both drives contain the player software and partitions?

Yes. In fact, it is recommended in the Drive Upgrade guide and is part of the normal upgrade procedure.

If it is, if one drive dies on a looong trip, you could always pop out your mini tool set, unplug the other drive, and limp home on half of your music collection?

Correct. I have done precisely this before. Hence the recommendation in the Drive Upgrade Guide.

I even keep a 2.5mm hex wrench in the empeg carrying case.

I think then if one dies it will boot from the other without having to do anything

Depends on how it dies. It's more likely that you'd have to unplug it and remove the slave jumper from the second drive.

Do you need RAID then with only 17gigs of music how about the following.

Buy two drives for empeg about 20 gig then download all music from empeg to desktop even CDRs then excisting drives from empeg.

Then add first 20 gig to empeg install software etc and fill with music.

Remove first 20gig add second drive and install software and all music again.

Now have both drives in empeg but only one plugged in not perfect when you add music but still a plan.


Or this could also work install the first 20 gig drive upload all music then add the second drive without removeing the first drive but this time add a character to one selected field of the id3 tags eg artist. Then upload the songs a second time. Emplode would see them as new songs due to the new id3 tag and seeing an empty 20gig drive and stick everything onto the empty drive.

If either drive dies then you still have one copy of the music on empeg. Just one would be by eg Rush and the other would be by Rush2

I agree with this suggestion. If you're concerned about losing a drive on a long trip or something - I would keep the 2nd drive somewhere safe, maybe keep it in one of those little pouches with a tool kit - kind of like a disaster recovery kit. If the primary drive pops, then bust out the disaster recovery kit and simply swap the drives. Keeping the 2nd drive installed in the player is probably an even better idea.

I've never really thought about this until you mentioned the RAID question. But - in my line of work I am exposed to just about any computer hardware and parts you might imagine. Its been my experience that laptop drives are FAR more reliable than their desktop counterparts. The number one reason we get broken laptops returned from users are bad batteries, bad displays, spills, droppage, the laptops themselves are actually quite reliable, more reliable than their clumbsy users. In these cases, we simply exchange the laptop hard drive into a good, spare, and send the user on their way. However, the number one reason user desktop machines is hard drive failure. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Any other users here ever have their empeg drive crash?

My original (18gb) disk went tits up on Tuesday - it sounded like a washing machine hitting the spin cycle - the whole office stopped what they were doing and stared in the general direction of my empeg!

I've seen your washing machine i hope it never makes that much noise ( the washing machine that is)

Yeah, the empeg disks are a bit cheaper to replace too!

My main point was not if the drive does die on a trip, but it would be nice to know that there isn't a single point of failure with the hard drives in the empeg. Yes it would be cheaper to buy an standard ide hard drive, and download all my music. But it would be much cooler to just have a simple raid setup on the empeg so other people and i wouldn't have to worry about a hard drive killing thier music collection. A backup harddrive is a good idea, but this would require about 10mins of work after your first hard drive dies. Plus this drive wouldn't be an exact copy of your files, just a very outdated version.

wfaulk: I do have a 4gb drive from my mark1, i'm not sure if this would help you, but i could let you borrow it to help you add these features to our decks. Let me know

Okay read my second suggestion all you need is to get a little program that will change one tag with an extra bit like the artist tag.

I am sure there is something could be done on that theme using external software to the empeg

I do have a 4gb drive from my mark1, i'm not sure if this would help you, but i could let you borrow it to help you add these features to our decks. Let me know

I've been thinking about it, and I can't do it with a 4GB drive. I've only got one empeg, and doing all this with only 4GB worth of space would mean tossing out a huge portion of my mp3s while I work on it, and I just can't do that. <snif> It makes me sad just to think about it. Sorry.

If you can find someone with a 12GB or larger drive to lend me, I'll get right on it.

First of all, going through all my mp3's and retaggin all of them with a 2 or anything is a huge waste of time, i don't see how this is even a suggestion. I'm sorry if this sounds really harsh, but i'm pretty drunk! Have mulitpe copys of each of my songs is not even doable. RAID is the way to go, 2 hard drives, os thinks you only have 1 copy of each song, zero failure.

Hi Bitt,
Ok, i can't part with my 30gb, but in my mark1 i have a 10gb. i can format this and send it out to you, but i have no ther laptop dirves. Just a 4gb, 10gb, and a 30gb. If this will help, please let me know. I can't give the drive to you, but i can let you borrow it. This is my drive in my backup unit, which i will probally need in the future. Please let me know.

Please ingore spelling errors, its 5am, and i pretty drunk

Greetings!

Would a ten work? I have a spare from my upgrades lying around - I threw it into my test machine just to connect it to something. PM me if you are interested.

Maybe if Oliver and Paul could both send me their 10GB drives I could get it working with those, since I could just swap my real music drive out.

In fact, if I could get a pair of drives, it really wouldn't matter what size they were.

RAID? Zero failure? You *are* drunk.

Yes, that night I was pretty drunk but I’m not now, or as of yet

Well, I know that raid is absolute zero failure, but it’s a lot closer to it then what we have right now.

I know for a fact that my empeg will never get stolen, I never let it out of my sight. Plus not having my car on the road at the moment, it never leaves my desk. It’s on pretty much all day. Sometimes I really worry about my ide drive dieing, even more when a drive dies in a server. Have 2 drives with all our songs mirrored to both would make me sleep a lot easier every night. Plus this would be a feature that you wouldn't be forced to use, something optional.

I've sent out my drive, and I’m pretty sure pauls will be sent out soon. So hopefully in the next few weeks/months we will a new feature to add to the userland list. I personally can't wait for this, I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time now. Once again thanks bitt (wfaulk)!

Greetings!

The drive was put in the mail this morning, so it is on its way.

I know for a fact that my empeg will never get stolen, I never let it out of my sight ... it never leaves my desk.

I commend you for your unbridled optimism. But at least one empeg has been stolen right off of the owner's desk.

I think that putting all your eggs in one RAID basket is inherently very risky. I would feel much more secure having my backup separate from my primary installation. After all, this is why security-savvy people always keep at least one backup located "off premises."

That said... will there ever be an empeg backup utility that will create a restorable image file located on a PC? I don't care if it's fast or slow, runs ehternet or USB or even serial -- just let me click an icon on my PC and let it run overnight or however long it takes; and then click another icon on my PC to restore my empeg to the exact state it was in when the original backup was made, including playlists, EQ settings, database information, etc.

I will be happy to pay for such a utility.

tanstaafl.

I did read about the guy that got his empeg stolen from work, and that would absolute kill me. but at my company, we only have 2 employees. My business partner and myself. The office is very secure, no one but the 2 of us has keys. Plus an alarm system just in case someone climbs up 7 floors and through the window. The empeg is never in my car, unless i'm also in the car. Pelican case to thank for this. I would never think of leaving it under my seat, or in the dash because i would be heartbroken if anyone stole my priceless empeg! (maybe i should by a pair of handcuffs and lock the handle to my arm )

I'm most interested in the raid support for a quicker easier repair if i haven't backed up my empeg lately, or if i'm on the road and one hard drive dies.

A working backup utility would be another very nice addition to the empeg. The clone tool is pretty basic, and i've never been able to get it to work correctly. I would think this will probably get added in the future by some very kind soul.

I still think the raid support would be much easier for alot of people, or at least for me. I do plan on getting a regular ide drive to store most of my music on, but I would really just like to have 2 in my deck and have everything sync’ed to both drives so I don’t even have to worry about a problem there.

I realize that you have lesss than 30 GB of music but,
is the MTBF on these disks that high that you need to pay double for storage space ?

To me, twice the storage space and double the MTBF is a way better deal than half the storage space and half the MTBF...
...I mean what's a drive good for these days, a couple years?

So over the course of a couple years, it fails once.
Not such an anconvenience to me, and it's a perfect time for an upgrade.
A couple years after you bough you last drive, the prices will have come way down.

all this is moot though, you have all the space you need, I'm sorry, just my ramblings...

In your setup, you could also put a toggle switch on the back of the empeg that would toggle power to each of your drives, then if one fails, you just flip the toggle, it turns off power supply to one drive and supplies it to the other...

Greetings!

Granted, the failure of a drive is not very likely, and that backing up to a hard drive (preferably a desktop) is the ideal solution. But with larger drives getting much cheaper, you have to wonder "why not?". I can think of a few possible uses for this technology, including creating a clone or a hard backup of your empeg (sync, generate mirror drives, break the mirror, physically remove a disk for transplant or storage).

I honestly don't see where a mirror would be used much in day-to-day use, except for the extremely rare instance of a physical drive failure and quick recovery from that situation. But then, I never expected to be playing PacMan or having clear illuminated buttons on the empeg either...