Discussion Long term storage solution for a server ?

[MCH170]

I want to add 4TB of storage to my home server and I am weighing my options. The drive(s) will be powered on 24/7, fully written, and mostly being read from. The stored data isn't critical but it would suck to lose it. Speed isn't an issue, but faster is better. The options are:

• 4TB m.2 ssd

Undoubtably the fastest but I read that they tend to run hot and that leads to lower than expected lifespans (for a solid state component). That said, I doubt that sporadic read bursts will have any effect on its lifespan, what do you think?

• 4TB sata ssd

Held back speed-wise by its SATA interface but it definitely runs cool.

• 4TB + 4TB RAID-1 hdd

The advantages here are price and the ability to lose a drive without losing any data. Downside is that it's a mechanical component that will fail faster than a solid-state one.

What are your opinions? Thanks for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

1. RAID 1 is only good for continued uptime. Not data security.
Any RAID 1 also requires a good backup routine. And if you have a good backup routine, you probably don't really need the RAID 1.

Home server....how is this accessed? Over a standard gigabit LAN? If so, HDDs are just fine.
In my QNAP NAS, the system drive and small shared space is a SATA III SSD. The other 11 drives are all HDD.
Accessing either type, can't really tell the difference.

 

[Lafong]

If you chose a non-RAID solution, would the data nonetheless be backed up somwhere??

 

[thestryker]

If when you say "fully written" you mean the drive is at or near capacity then SSDs aren't really going to net you much of anything. In fact that might cause them to be more problematic than using a HDD.

Looks like budget SATA and M.2 will be pretty close in price to one another for 4TB, but if your network interface is less than 5gb you wouldn't notice any difference between them unless interacting with smaller file sizes as NVMe controllers are better at this than any SATA controllers I've seen.

Realistically without full setup information and budget it's hard to say what would be the best choice for your situation. Personally speaking I would likely look at 8TB HDDs.

 

[MCH170]

I will reply to everyone in a single post:

how is this accessed?

Over gigabit lan or slower.

If you chose a non-RAID solution, would the data nonetheless be backed up somwhere??

Not really, they are mostly ripped movies, backups, and random stuff I will probably never need again so its not worth paying to have 4TB of cloud backups.

If when you say "fully written" you mean the drive is at or near capacity

That is what I mean.


Thanks for your recommendations. To clarify, you don't think that an HDD will be a problem lifespan-wise?

 

[thestryker]

Over gigabit lan or slower.

Unless you plan on upgrading to 5gb+ this means read/write speed isn't really going to matter much.

That is what I mean.

On SSDs the bare minimum you'd want to leave is ~10% capacity free, but closer to 20% is better.

Thanks for your recommendations. To clarify, you don't think that an HDD will be a problem lifespan-wise?

I've used 3 HDD setups since 2011 (always running 24/7 and no drive power down/standby when not in use):

• 8x 2TB Seagate consumer drives in RAID 6 one drive died over approximately 5.5 years
• 8x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf drives in RAID 6 no drives died, but I replaced one which was on its way out and when I retired the machine another was looking suspect also 5.5 years.
• 5x 18TB WD Red Pro drives in RAIDZ2 so far so good, but this has only been about 1.5 years.

If you're doing RAID 1 the chances of both drives failing at the same time are going to be pretty low. Due to the mechanical nature the chances of a HDD failure is higher than SSD, but price per gigabyte will be a lot lower. For your use case I'd view it largely as a tossup, but only if you're able to leave enough free space in the case of a SSD.