I have an 11th gen Framework mainboard which I would like to repurpose as a server. Unfortunately, (unless I do some super janky stuff) I can only connect 1 drive to it over M.2 and any additional ones must be over USB.
I am thinking of just using some portable hard drives and plugging them in over USB. I plan to RAID1 them and use them as boot drives and data storage, and use the M.2 slot for something unrelated.
In your experiences, is USB reliable enough nowadays to run a RAID array for a server like this? If it is, does it depend on the specific drive used?
The big factor is the chip make in the USB enclosure/adapter. Realtek is most reliable, followed by Asmedia. JMicron is garbage (will get hot and drop connection).
What’s your goal by using RAID1? Do you really need redundancy — keep the system alive if the main drive good down?
If you only need backup then you don’t need RAID, and that should fare much better — just take an incremental snapshot to the USB drive periodically and let it sleep the rest of the time.
Well, nothing is reliable over USB type A. If you don’t want to DIY you can get a USB JBOD with type-c like this one or that one or this cheaper one. They’ll get the job done for a price. :)
However, there are easy ways to get reliable SATA ports from m2 slots that your framework has. NVME to 6 SATA ports: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004263885851.html
To power the disks you can use ANY standard ATX power supply (get something brand-gold second hand for 20$). To make sure the PSU stays ON, just plug a wire between the green and any black wire.
Another option for power is to get a cheap 12V power supply and a step down DC/DC to provide 5V. If you don’t have it a SATA cable like this is helpful. Simply cut the white plug and attach the red cable (5v) to the output of the DC/DC and the yellow one (12V) directly to the power supply.
There’s also these dual output power supplies that you can regulate to 12v+5v but frankly I would just go for the option above as it will be safer.
Make sure you check every voltage and polarity before plugging anything into your power supply!!
You are quite likely to regret going down this route. Should do what you have to to get the drives properly connected.
