Comment

Comment on Thoughts about my (potential) first server?

Used/refurb SAS drives aren’t that expensive. Can someone with better memory than I please link to that site for second hand server components?

The reason why SAS drives are usually more expensive isn’t because the tech itself is more expensive (It’s largelt just a different kind of interface), but rather that “enterprise grade” hardware have a few additional Q&A steps, such as running a break-in cycle at the factory to weed out defective units.

While a server such as the one you described is slightly power hungry, it’s not that bad. Plus, if you wanna get into servers long term, it could serve as a useful way to get used to the hardware involved.
Server hardware is at its core not that different from consumer hardware, but it does often come with some nice and useful additions, such as:

Botswana drive bays (I tried to write “hotswap”, but autocorrect is probably correct.
IPMI/iDRAC or equivalent for headless management
Dual PSUs
Rack mount capability
Easy maintenance access to most hardware
A ridiculous amount of sensors with automated warnings.

source

Sort:hotnew top

orsetto@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You’re the only one giving me a positive answer!

I do not mind RAID, so i won’t lose data when a drive fails (the most valuable thing will be backups, which i mean, are backups, so not that critical if i can make a new one, but even losing other data would be a bit boring). I think I’d do software RAID tho, so if the controller breaks i wouldn’t have to find the same model, which could be hard for old hardware i guess.

the other comments scared me about power consumption, so i’ll have to investigate more of it.

source
- neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If you’re going for software RAID, I recommend taking it a step further and go for ZFS: If set up correctly you get all the advantages of raid6, while remaining very flexible.
  
  source
UnpledgedCatnapTipper@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I got 3 Seagate Exos X16 14 TB drives for only $140 each (refurbished) at the end of 2022. I’ve got them in TrueNAS as a zfs array and they work great.

Mine were the SATA version, which isn’t currently in stock. The SAS version of my drives go for $299 now. The SATA X14 version is $350.

So prices for the same refurbished drives are more than double what they were like 3.5 years ago, so they really are expensive! I paid like $10 per TB, but they’re all $15-25 per TB now! I was looking for drives for a friend who wants to get started self hosting, and I was shocked by how much refurb drives had gone up.

This is all from https://serverpartdeals.com/ by the way, I’m assuming that’s the site you mean too.

source