Inexpensive harvesting rig

How many USB units can this little one take?

I am running into problem that on board USB has limited connection. Had to add a USB3.0 card.

My 2-core, 4 GB RAM, Celeron based Win 10 Pro mini PC box is handling its duties quite well.

It runs Remote Desktop server, and has an 8-bay Syba enclosure connected to one of its USB 3.0 ports.
I have 6 of the 8 bays in use.

I had to move one plot (long story) between two drives in the Syba box. I expected poor performance, based on the crummy Celeron CPU and the two drives having to share the single USB cable. But it managed 175 MB/s.

Interestingly, the command line tool “robocopy.exe” was utilizing 10% of the Celeron’s CPU cycles. So not a lot of horsepower there for anything other than lightweight work.

If you are referring to my Mini PC, please scroll up and view my 3 photos (of the 3 photos, 1 shows the front and 1 shows the back).

Two USB 3.0
Two USB 2.0
One USB type C

What is the maximum number of drives supported by each USB controller?
I am not sure, but I think it is 128 or somewhere in that range.

I have no idea if any of my ports are sharing a common controller.

Also note that you can use USB hubs to expand the number of physical drives you can plug in.
Each hub will count towards towards the maximum number of drives. Also, all drives on a hub will have the same USB controller’s choke-point. For harvesting, that involves little volume of data, and should not be an issue.

Also, I do not know if different model USB controllers are designed with different limits. I do not know if they are all built to the same maximum connection capacity standards.

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Here’s an example of my newest inexpensive farm. Currently 300TB of USB connected goodness, with plenty of available expansion (should allow upto 700TB and still be spouse friendly) :upside_down_face:

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This little USB hub is great:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1496562-REG/xcellon_usb_4311_2_slim_4_port_usb_3_1.html

I tried a 16 port Sabrent hub. It was over-designed (in my opinion), and sputtered out when multiple plot files were being sent through it to multiple drives.

The Xcellon hub is simple to a fault (so to speak). It just works.

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The cooling base for the WD’s is smart.

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But mine is my-wallet friendly. 10TB SAS $80 used one.

I just noticed that.

@Fuzeguy what is that black w/yellow ends, tube-shaped piece atop your USB drives, and around the back of your drives?

Unfortunately, that is not the case, for many reasons. PCs generally have one or a couple USB controllers sharing available ports. Hubs expand USB cable connections, not actual drives that can connect to a controller. That varies depending on controller implementation and other things that consume connections and limit USB useability.

That certainly is the major USB downfall. It looks super simple, however it does not always accomplish what you want or hope for as far as getting a lot of drives connected. My uPC has a hard limit of 38 USB drives that are able to connect before the dreaded, “USB Device not recognised” rears it ugly head.

The only solution in that case is to replace low TB drives with higher TB drives…or build up a separate harvester.

HaHa!! To save desk space, placed 6 external USB drives on top of Syba 8 drive enclosure.

Scary!!! So to make sure they don’t (easily) fall off, put those “GripsTwists” around the little fellows to stabilize them.


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That is how I arrived at purchasing my Mini PC.

The price dropped from what I paid (4 days ago), from $119.00 to $94.99.

I called Amazon. They said that they do not price match.
I explained that I could return mine for a full refund, and order it again at the lower price. That would be a waste of everyone’s time.

They issued me a gift card for the price difference.

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I have a similar setup with 5 WD Elements, I simply used a couple of long cable ties around them to ensure they were stable

Thought of that, but did not want to bind them tightly and allow vibration to transmit between them. GripTwists are soft, flexible, and I bent them so as to not bind, but just gentle hold the drives. Probably being overly cautious, but anyway …

You guys are too overly cautious.
My JBOD works with no fussing:

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There are some 3D printed trays for these external hard drives on ebay.

I have to keep my garage door closed again…

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I print my own :grinning:

20 chr’s

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Stack those 8-bays

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Bro, are you the ebay guy I bought from?

That Syba 8 bays is on sale on Amazon now.