The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/duke3167 on 2024-09-23 20:08:22.
Hello Friends!
I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads about my next step in my home NAS. I was looking for some advice from y'all on some next logical steps.
First off, some context to help you understand my use case:
- My current setup is a:
- Ryzen 3700x
- 32GB of RAM
- NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti
- 512 GB Boot NVME
- 2x 4TB WD Red drives in a RAID 1
- NZXT H510 Case (can only fit 3 x 3.5" drives)
- Running Windows 11, RAID in Storage Spaces and Hyper-V VMs for Linuxy things
- I'm running Windows because of time. It's just been easier for me to hop in on RDC and open up the Hyper-V or Spaces manager. Running Windows 11 because I had a spare license. I've thought about moving to a *nix solution with zfs ... but I don't have as much time these days as I used to, so what is easy is almost always going to win as a solution.
- I backup locally to an external hard drive and also to BackBlaze.
- Until recently, the NAS was largely for my Plex music collection and photo backup.
- My tendency is to build for value today, but understand how I can scale it in the future ... but this first build started with an old gaming PC :)
What's changed:
- ..... I started ripping 4K Blu-rays
Where I'm looking for advice:
- I like the idea of eventually moving my home server to a Mini PC or a SFF case with storage connected via USB/Thunderbolt or whatever connection makes sense at that time. So, right now I'm looking at spending about $550 for:
- Terra Master D4-320 - 4 bay external enclosure
- 2x 18 TB Manufactured Refurb Ironwolf Pro drives
- I'd likely stick with Storage Spaces for now and configure them into a RAID 1 configuration.
- I could also get a Define R5 + the 2 x 18 TB disks for about $475. This would keep me with a traditional case, I'd max out the SATA ports on my current Motherboard without having to share bandwidth with my boot drive. I could add controller cards as I need to grow.
- Both paths have their pros and cons. What is keeping me from really pulling the trigger on moving towards a more modular solution is I've heard mixed reviews about multi-drive external enclosures. I've read about folks losing their File Systems or having other data corruptions. Is this still accurate in 2024? What are bands to look at? What are brands to avoid?
It feels like the safe play is to get the new case and go with a more traditional setup, talk me out of it :D