The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/CaptainxShittles on 2024-07-25 22:54:45.
So I made a mistake. I bought Seagate Exos X20 20TB drives. Two to be exact, they work great but cost quite a bit more than the 18TB X20's. Currently I have my main NAS setup with two of these and two backup NAS' that only backup my important data. I currently do not backup my media. I currently run TrueNAS with the two in a mirror.
The plan is to expand my main NAS storage as well as expand my backup NAS' to be able to store my media as well. The issue I run into is because I bought the 20TB drives, when I expand the storage with another mirror pair, no matter what I do my spare will always need to be another 20TB. I realize if I expand with two 18TB drives, those technically could be replaced with a 18TB drive if one failed. But I don't know which drive would be the first to have issues. Let alone it could be a long time before it even happens.
So while this sounds like a dumb idea on paper, it could lead to money savings, but my thought was to rebuild the main NAS after I get the two backups fully set up. Instead of having the 20TB in a mirror pair, I would get two X20 18TB drives and pair one 18TB per one 20TB. I would lose the extra little bit from the 20TB but be able to reduce the cost of future drive purchases. At least they could still be X20's and be fairly identical aside from the size.
Thoughts? I know in the long run it isn't super pricey but I hate knowing, (at least currently) that my spare always has to be a $300 drive. I could get two refurbished 18TB drives for the price of one 20TB. While I am planning on spending a chunk of change on expansion, I do still have limitations.
My failure was buying the 20TB drives on a super deal brand new for $220, not realizing they normally were a lot more.