Expanding my home storage

BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Current NAS: FreeNAS with 6x2tb drives. Constantly 80% full despite constant cleanup and relocations/archiving.
So I came to own some of (free) WD RE4 2.0Tb Enterprise SATA drives. Drives are used, but not too much as these meant to last a very long time.
I already have 8 at home and 8 more to comes likely this week.

Long story short, after posting a question on expert forums here:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/need-help-to-decide-on-budget-storage-expansion.23695/#post-221447

Xyratex brand was mentioned and that sent me on a quite interesting chase. If you never heard about Xyratex brand, you're not alone. Neither had I. Quick research this company, now owned by Seagate, used to do OEM for Dell and Netapp storage for storage shelves.
So, this is what I got:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Xyratex-JBOD-Expansion-Array-12-x-3-5-6Gb-s-SAS-Hard-Drive-Bay-HB-1235-Dell-HP/192823421241?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

$105 offer accepted and $34 shipping (which was very reasonable - this thing is quite heavy and 24" long)
Also from eBay, I've added a SAS external card LSI 9200-8e and pair of SAS external cables. Total about $170

Installed it today and gosh darn, the whole setup couldn't be easier. I'll build new volume after I get additional drives but already could see new ones in FreeNAS.





Fine print gotchas: Did I mentioned it's 24" long and 19" wide? It also makes about 60dba of fan noise and has dual power supplies.
 
Out-Of-Phase

Out-Of-Phase

Audioholic General
Very nice. Thanks for sharing this. Happy storage.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Current NAS: FreeNAS with 6x2tb drives. Constantly 80% full despite constant cleanup and relocations/archiving.
So I came to own some of (free) WD RE4 2.0Tb Enterprise SATA drives. Drives are used, but not too much as these meant to last a very long time.
I already have 8 at home and 8 more to comes likely this week.

Long story short, after posting a question on expert forums here:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/need-help-to-decide-on-budget-storage-expansion.23695/#post-221447

Xyratex brand was mentioned and that sent me on a quite interesting chase. If you never heard about Xyratex brand, you're not alone. Neither had I. Quick research this company, now owned by Seagate, used to do OEM for Dell and Netapp storage for storage shelves.
So, this is what I got:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Xyratex-JBOD-Expansion-Array-12-x-3-5-6Gb-s-SAS-Hard-Drive-Bay-HB-1235-Dell-HP/192823421241?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

$105 offer accepted and $34 shipping (which was very reasonable - this thing is quite heavy and 24" long)
Also from eBay, I've added a SAS external card LSI 9200-8e and pair of SAS external cables. Total about $170

Installed it today and gosh darn, the whole setup couldn't be easier. I'll build new volume after I get additional drives but already could see new ones in FreeNAS.





Fine print gotchas: Did I mentioned it's 24" long and 19" wide? It also makes about 60dba of fan noise and has dual power supplies.
Gonna have to look into those. My current 24 bay unit is full. I'm having to remove 2tb drives to replace with 4tb drives. Nice find.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Have you seen BestBuy deal external WD EasyStore 8 and 10tb deals? Inside are NAS grade drives which are easy to chuck. The lowest one I've seen so far is 159 for 10tb drive. 8tb goes usually for $130
Both include a free 32gb usb drive from sandisk.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Have you seen BestBuy deal external WD EasyStore 8 and 10tb deals? Inside are NAS grade drives which are easy to chuck. The lowest one I've seen so far is 159 for 10tb drive. 8tb goes usually for $130
Both include a free 32gb usb drive from sandisk.
I'm going to have to check those out. I'm thinking that fewer drives is the way to go. I need to make a backup Nas that mirrors what I have now just in case. Hardware is expensive though (granted that Nas you told me about is a damn good deal), but with all I do at home server grade stuff is what I'll need. Or maybe one of the newer AMD cpus that has tons of cores.

I need to just map it out and see. I still have tried Plex with hardware transcoding. That and my VMs are what eat up my cpus.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I'm going to have to check those out. I'm thinking that fewer drives is the way to go. I need to make a backup Nas that mirrors what I have now just in case. Hardware is expensive though (granted that Nas you told me about is a damn good deal), but with all I do at home server grade stuff is what I'll need. Or maybe one of the newer AMD cpus that has tons of cores.

I need to just map it out and see. I still have tried Plex with hardware transcoding. That and my VMs are what eat up my cpus.
just to be clear: I didn't buy a new NAS, just a SAS disk shelf which is used as DAS. No network ports or raid on this thing.
In other news, I've started to switch some of my media "VMs" to Docker containers managed by Portainer.
These containers are much faster to start and take much fewer resources.
The forums I've linked to above, STH is filled to the brim with very knowledgeable folk, next to them I barely know how to use a mouse.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
just to be clear: I didn't buy a new NAS, just a SAS disk shelf which is used as DAS. No network ports or raid on this thing.
In other news, I've started to switch some of my media "VMs" to Docker containers managed by Portainer.
These containers are much faster to start and take much fewer resources.
The forums I've linked to above, STH is filled to the brim with very knowledgeable folk, next to them I barely know how to use a mouse.
I was referring to another conversation we had on the NAS subject (the Plex certified one).

I also have quite a few Dockers, but my VMs are Win Server 2012 I use for work stuff. There are some other Linux VMs in there for other things as well.

I've gotten info from that forum before. Really good place for solid info. Thanks for reminding me it exists.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
The New addition to home lab/"Linux ISOs" storage system:
This is 1/10/40gig switch. I got x24 PoE 1gig ports, 8x plus optionally another 8x 10gig ports and 2x 40 gig ports (unlikely ever to be used)
I'd not normally touch a product from a company which was sold twice (Brocade sold to Ruckus, which was sold to Arris)
But firstly, is the price $135+40s/h, and the secondary is the kindness of certain STH forums expert who wrote amazing guides on how to update and basic configure these plus most importantly since these are EOL he's kind enough to provide STH forums regular with full licensing for these switches.
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/brocade-icx-series-cheap-powerful-10gbe-40gbe-switching.21107/
The command line (CLI) is very similar to Cisco IOS so if you know even a bit of IOS FastIron is not hard to use.
Web interface is also available, but it's quite basic.

Negatives: It used about 80-100w and it's noisy.
 

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