Michael_P

Each molex connector has a limit, and each connector at the PSU has a limit. Voltage is a finicky b*, and any sags and the drive can reset. Sata to molex isn't the most reliable, but should work in a pinch. Long term, my suggestion is to add proper connectors to additional lines. 3 planes (3 individual molex connectors) x 2 lines to the psu. Better yet, 2 planes x 3 lines would be optimal

Just to add, think max 4 drives per connector, and not all on the same line. The PSU is plenty, but you have to spread the load

This is what I did to add extra connectors to one of the unused sata lines. Easy enough to tone out with a basic multimeter (use a splitter to check all diy connectors tone out the same)

I have the 4224, too and absolutely it will be an issue if you're running all 6 backplanes off of 1 line back to the PSU (ask me how I know).

I had a few Toshiba drives do the same thing, it was power related (too many drives on one line). So it's possible. Only the Toshiba drives would start reallocating sectors, the WD drives would just fall out of the array. If you're using splitters, try eliminating/using as few as possible

That's precisly why I'm asking - If there's a chance for 10% supply degradation year over year, that's as big if not bigger story (which I'm sure GN would like to put to the test with his PSU tester). I don't buy PSUs every year, in fact it's on the order of 2 or 3 per decade - so I don't generally hear about this kind of thing, unless it's like the Gigabyte debacle, which is why I'm asking at all. If I need to replace sooner than 5 years (I try to get whatever is the "premium" at the time), I'd like to know

Not at all, but if there's stats showing 10% yearly degradation is possible for any "reasonably well manufactured" PSU, that would cause concern for me, and I'd for sure like to know which manufacturer it is, no?

Oh, I did as soon as I read their comment - saw a lot of FUD but nothing concrete. Capacitors aging, sure - but 10% a year - that would be a BFD, I'm genuinely curious if there's a study or legitimate source I can look at. My PSU upgrade schedule would need a serious overhaul lol.

Never heard this before, have a source handy?

The choice to sleep or don't sleep drives is often pretty binary - mechanical drives are most likely to encounter an issue on power on, or on spin up, so if you are doing it often it's adding additional "wear" to the drive increasing (by some amount) the likelihood of component failure. Conversely, while a drive is happier to keep spinning than not (easier to keep moving than to start moving), there is wear on the bearings - so it's not a panacea, either. You need to take your personal use case into consideration, and add whatever variables to weight the decision on one side or the other (lower power consumption = plus, longer wait times to access files = con). There really is no Right Way™️

I'm in the consolidate and let them sleep camp, in fact I keep most of my "always on" stuff on the cache to help. As long as they're not constantly spinning up and down all the time, It's the best way to go IMO - if you don't mind the delay when waking. Set a decent timeout, 60-120 mins is my suggestion.

If SMART says it's failing, it's failing. Looks like a problem with N300 drives in particular, you should replace - save the data first if irreplaceable

Yeah, it's a chonky boi

My Plex metadata and thumbnail directory is over 400GB by itself. So, as always, YMMV

i wouldn't use the NVME for plex alone, it'd be a waste - i have my metadata living on an unassigned SATA SSD (just for space consideration) and the rest of appdata on the NVME cache drive

When it happens, see what's going on with the CPU/RAM usage

Cool, then you can put everything on there if you like, you're not gonna touch the limit of the drive in any practical sense (mover or not). But if you're trying to watch a movie on the array while the mover is putting stuff on the array, the speed of the array is likely your limiting factor - less likely if you're reading from a disk not being used to store things from mover. Next on the list, is the device you're using to view the media - how it's connected to the network and whether or not transcoding is being done

Is the new drive an NVME or just a SATA m.2

First, you need to define what it would mean to "speed up PleX" - what is your current problem with performance that you're trying to solve?

The iGPU should be fine, the 960 is capped to 3 streams anyway so your use case would be right at its limit while the iGPU might be able to squeeze in another

If the drive passed and you're OK with it, click the thumb and acknowledge the error

Depends on your needs, I guess. I moved from towers and routers and drive cages on a shelves to consolidating everything into the rack cabinet to keep everything together and looking nice and neat

Splitting power to too many drives can cause power to sag, and cause the issues you describe when all drives are under load. The wattage of the PSU is plenty sufficient, but power handing per connector may not be (4 drives per connector is pushing it, for example). Eliminate the splitters and see if it solves your problem.

Any splitters?

Yes 😄 but are you using splitters, how many drives are connected per run back to the PS, etc