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?

  • conrad82English
    2•1 month ago

    I am using a terramaster d6-320 connected with usb-c.

    It has been running zfs disks for proxmox via a geekom a5 mini pc since February. It has lost contact with the drives twice so far, more than a month between each time so I don’t know the cause. I am mostly happy with the setup, but of course it is annoying when it fails