[conspire] external storage recommendation

Sat Sep 25 17:21:09 PDT 2021

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

>  So when I am getting the NAS box, I want at least 2 bays.
> It comes down to how much actual storage I need and how much it
> costs.  Raid 5 will require a more expensive box and several more disk
> drives.  So it is not obvious which will give the best total price per
> bit.

Exactly right.

As the number of spinning-rust drives goes up, so does heat emission, 
noise emission, PSU capacity requirement, and need for cooling fans 
(which themselves add to PSU capacity requirements, themselves generate
heat, and themselves generate noise).  Heat accumulation kills
electronics over time, so the more of that you have, the more
ventilation, and more heat/noise/power gets added to the problem.

Hard drives are really darned cheap.  At any given time, there's a sweet
spot of sizing that has high reliability and low cost per gigabyte.  If
you guesstimate your total live-storage needs over the next five years
and find that an HD of _that_ sweet-spot size, mirrored onto a RAID1
partner, is adequate to your needs, then you're in a happy situation.

So, I'll pick some representative NAS-grade (high duty-cycle) drives 
off NewEgg.  To avoid the rubbish like some of the Western Digital
stuff, we'll look at the Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS drives (which rotate
at 7200 RPM, hence reasonably fast but not super-heat-emitting, and
_designed for alway-on operation_):

Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST4000NE001 $116

Seagate IronWolf Pro 6TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST6000NE000 $200

Seagate IronWolf Pro 8TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST8000NE001 $282

Seagate IronWolf Pro 10TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST10000NE0008 $373

Seagate IronWolf Pro 14TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST14000NE0008 $450

Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST16000NE000 $454

Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB NAS Hard Drive 7200 RPM 256MB Cache CMR SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD ST18000NE000 $625

You might wonder why I didn't include the 12TB model.  They offer one,
and it was listed, but it was listed as "OEM", and I don't trust that.

Pricing per TB:

 4TB drive: $29.00/TB, 1yr(!) warranty
 6TB drive: $33.33/TB, 5yr warranty
 8TB drive: $35.25/TB, 5yr warranty
10TB drive: $37.30/TB, 5yr warranty
14TB drive: $32.14/TB, 5yr warranty
16TB drive: $28.38/TB, 1yr(!) warranty
18TB drive: $34.72/TB, 5yr warranty

You'll note that the price per terabyte is almost linear, which is
interesting.  The 1yr warranty models are a deal-breaker.  Fear that.
But the others are the sort of thing of which a pair (must be
same-sized) make for an excellent NAS system.  You'd have to decide
how much future-proofing you need.

So, there's that.  A DIY system might have a pair of those, a PC
Engines APU or APU2 mini-ITX motherboard, 

The offerings for mini-ITX tend to be perversely _not_ appropriate for
NAS, because the assumption is you're going to be doing super-tiny
embedded stuff with at-most 2.5" form factor (laptop-sized) storage
devices.  NAS drives like those above are desktop/server-sized 3.5" 
form factor.  Ergo, this $40 miniITX enclosure with room for two HDs
https://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure
...would be attractive for _some_ projects (like a wifi router), but not
a NAS, because its two drive bays are 2.5".

This guy faced that very problem, and asked for an answer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/6itcna/pc_engines_apu2_35_hdd/

  I want to replace the PC with something like PC Engines apu2c0: Small,
  low power, quiet, comes with standard ports, and most importantly
  inexpensive.

  The only concern is the enclosure. As mentioned above, I store quite a
  lot of files on the computer. I'm now using a 3.5" SATA HDD (500GB
  capacity) in the PC. I think the hard disk won't fit in the enclosure
  from PC Engines case1d2blku. Any suggestions where should I look for 3rd
  party enclosure? I made a random search but I can only find enclosure
  for 2.5" HDD. Purchasing an SSD isn't an option (price, storage
  capacity).

Answer, four years ago:

  I don't know if you found an alternative but there is a solution for a
  3.5" SATA HDD/SSD and PC Engines APU boards, a modular 1U enclosure like
  this one :
  https://www.rack-matrix.com/images/portfolio/nas/20170303_110333_1280x720.jpg
  https://rack-matrix.com

  This support up to two 3.5" HDD/SSD with a APU1 board with 2 x SATA
  ports board, this board (with 2 SATA ports) can be found here only :
  http://store.calexium.com/en/pcengines-alix-apu-router-board/350-apu-1-2or-4-gb-amd-g-t40e-dual-core-1-ghz.html

  It should provide plenty of storage space for a NAS at a low price if
  you use the standard 12V PC Engines power supply so that you only need
  the enclosure with associated front plate for your board model, the
  actual board and the mount kit.

Except, with four years of bitrot, that (the recommended stuff) is off
the Web.  

It's going to be a bit of a slog finding the right enclosure, etc. 
Maybe something like this, which is aimed at the HTPC (home theatre PC)
market?  https://www.newegg.com/p/287-0005-00030 ($185, PSU is extra)

I don't know, actually.  I've never tried to game-plan a DIY NAS system
before, so I'm probably not prepared to do it right.  If serious about
this, one might be well advised to do some reading _and_ eyeball the
stuff on the shelf at Central Computer's main store in Santa Clara --
not necessarily to buy there, but at least to get a real-world sense of
what things are and how they tick.

> And I probably want to steer clear of brands touting that they have
> all of the fancy software installed.  A reviewer of one model
> complained that after he bought NAS to have on his own network, the
> only way to access his personal data was through the website of WD.

Yeah, that's the bad bit.  Most people who buy home NAS systems buy 
prepackaged plug-in-solution ones, e.g., the dreadful Buffalo-brand ones
I mentioned.  I have no doubt WD has something equally dire and worthy
of running away from.

IMO, the right way to do it is _probably_ either (1) go old-school and 
get best-of-breed motherboard w/CPU and RAM, enclosure, PSU, and hard
disks, or (2) get a shop-assembled NAS system from a specialty local
server/storage shop that knows what it's doing.  Some of the latter are
linked from http://linuxmafia.com/bale/other.html (which, predictably, 
I see needs updating again).  E.g.:

http://www.ixsystems.com/
http://www.mazdacomputing.com/
http://www.asacomputers.com/
http://www.aslab.com/

However, at a glance, looks to me like all of those really want to sell
"storage servers" for & to the enterprise, not the home.  I.e., _way_ more
size, capacity, and also noise/heat/expense than you want.

Advice, free, and maybe worth that much or more:
https://lifehacker.com/should-i-use-a-diy-pc-for-my-nas-or-buy-an-enclosure-1678991505
https://www.technicallywizardry.com/how-to-set-up-a-simple-diy-nas-build/
https://blog.georgovassilis.com/2020/04/01/building-the-perfect-cheap-diy-nas/
https://www.storagereview.com/review/how-to-build-a-diy-nas-with-truenas-core
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1170126-synology-vs-build-your-own/
https://butterwhat.com/2019/06/16/brians-top-three-diy-nas-cases-as-of-2019.html

I like the style of the last link cited, and maybe if interested in
learning more, start there.