The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ukyorulz on 2025-01-20 03:20:58.
Hello. I've been looking into improving my data storage solution because up to now I've just been chucking my data into external hdds (1TB, 2TB, 4TB) in a plastic bin and now I have around 12 TB of photos/videos and it's getting to be a pain to organize.
My specific use-case is that I don't actually access the drives a lot. They are off 90% of the time but around once a week I copy a bunch of data from them, and around once a month I write bunch of data to them.
I've come up with a list of features I want, but I've been searching for about a week and it's been surprisingly difficult to find something that meets all or most of my needs.
- I don't really want/need the features of a NAS. A DAS would be just fine for me and it would only be turned on a couple times a week, for a few hours at a time.
- Since they will not be on most of the time, I don't care about noise or sound levels
- I won't work directly on the drive I will copy data to my computer and work on it there.
- I want something that I can populate with 3.5 inch drives with 8-16TB size.
- In a perfect world I'd prefer one device with 4-5 bays but maybe two would work if necessary and if it was just one bay, I'd have to get at least two of them.
- I initially was interested in hardware raid but based on my research it seems that is unreliable.
- I want to be able to access the SMART data on the hdd(s).
- Ideally something that works with most OS (I use Linux and MacOS mostly but also Windows sometimes).
- I don't mind spending a bit of money on this, but I also don't want to overspend by getting something that is overengineered for my needs.
The closest thing I'd found is the QNAP TR-004 but it seems that thing doesn't allow me to see the SMART data. I might be able to tolerate such a limitation on a cheaper product but for the price I would have expected to be able to see the SMART data and run SMART tests.
If anyone has any tips or suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.