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VXIPC-882 secondary hard drive solutions?

When it comes to a secondary drive solution for the VXIPC-882 controller, what would be the possibilities available to us?

 

Switching to a rack mount or desktop PC is the obvious one.  But are their capabilities in the VXI family of products that I am not aware of?

 

Thanks in advance,

Mike B.

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Hi Mike,

 

The VXIPCs vary as far as additional hard-drive capabilities. For example, the VXIPC-850 does support two hard drives according to this KnowledgeBase Article.

 

The article recommends using an external SCSI HD for a secondary HD however the 882 does not have a SCSI port. So in this case you could potentially connect via USB and use it as a mass storage device if that is the intended purpose.

 

It is not documented as to whether or not you could install a second hard drive as referred to in the article on the 850 so I cannot recommend it however it is something you can try if you would like.

Brian H. -- Electronics & Measurements Product Marketing Manager
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I saw something the documentation about using the Express/34 interface for an external drive solution or a raid configuration.  But when I look at the Express/34 information, the details are not so obvious what sort of solutions there are for the VXI configuration.

 

Lack of a secondary drive makes backups of an isolated controller rather messy.  This is why I am hunting a bit for options that could be integrated if they existed.

 

Mike B.

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There are some express card hard drives that may work in the 882 but, again, I cannot be certain of that since this is not something that we have documented.

 

You may also want to post this in the VXI forum instead of the PXI forum. Someone may have encountered a similar problem over there.

Brian H. -- Electronics & Measurements Product Marketing Manager
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Hi Mike_B,

ExpressCard is an open standard, and for the purposes of your situation it will not matter whether or not the system you are attaching an ExpressCard to is a VXIpc, a PXI controller, a laptop, etc.  If a system has an ExpressCard slot, generally any such card of the proper form factor (ExpressCard/34 in this case) would work fine. In practice, much as with USB devices, compatibility is 99.9%, and so you need to test with your specific hardware combination to ensure that you are not in that 0.01%. If you find information on line about ExpressCard RAID, for example, I would expect that to also be generally applicable to a VXIpc.

 

As for the main focus of your question, for the VXIpc-882, I think you have hit upon the two most logical solutions - an external USB hard drive or an ExpressCard based solution which could take a number of forms: ExpressCard eSATA with or without RAID or ExpressCard SSDs (much like a very large USB key drive). I'm not recommending any particular approach - it will really depend on the specifics of your situation, but this should give you an idea of the typical options and also some confidence that you can choose a solution without worrying to much about it being "VXI-specific".

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