Hello,

 

I am trying to decide the next expansion of my setup...

Currently I am running 17 HDDs in the Array, 2 disk pools and a spare HHD if one should fail. 

The majority of the disks are 8tb. The current DAS that I am using only has 2 spare slots left.

 

My concerns are measuring cost and risk. Granted the more disks that you have, the more likely that one or more will fail.

 

Replacing 114tb with newer(even used) drives with the cheapest drives that I can find(14tb for $148) would run $450 just to expand the array for the first time(to increase parity and replacing the 8tb drives would only increase array size by 6tb)...

 

I have found another DAS that could be delivered for $250 and would allow me to continue to expand using 8tb drives($55 each) for a reasonable cost...

 

I favor buying the additional DAS due to my experience with 8tb SAS drives. Before moving to these drives, I had numerous drive failures(2,3,5tb) and since running the 8tb drives, I havent had a single failure.

 

What do you think? Do you have better ideas?

 

Thank you for your time

You don't mention. Do you have dual parity? You should with that many disks.

 

Do any of your disks have SMART warnings on the Dashboard page?

 

If you want us to take a look

 

Attach diagnostics to your NEXT post in this thread.

I have no disk warnings. Nothing to be concerned about on that end. The problem is that I can only add 2 HHD to the current setup before I am out of space. 

 

If I were to switch to 14tb drives, it would be easier now vs later, thus this post.

 

Yes I am running dual parity

tower-diagnostics-20221226-1725.zip

8 minutes ago, mathomas3 said:

I have no disk warnings.

I'll take your word for that. Don't want to check SMART report for that many.

 

I always recommend fewer larger disks instead of more smaller disks. Each additional disk is an additional point of failure as you mention. Also additional disks require more hardware, more power. And larger disks often perform better due to increased data density (more bits per rotation)

1 hour ago, trurl said:

I'll take your word for that. Don't want to check SMART report for that many.

 

I always recommend fewer larger disks instead of more smaller disks. Each additional disk is an additional point of failure as you mention. Also additional disks require more hardware, more power. And larger disks often perform better due to increased data density (more bits per rotation)

Do you think that jumping to 14tb drives now is worth the addl cost? Adding a disk shelf doesnt add much to the cost of the build... and having that added drive bays does make sense on a certain level... 

 

 

Going to larger parity will allow you to add larger disks or replace disks with larger disks. Of course, you can't go larger than 8TB unless both parity are replaced with larger disks.

 

If all your disks are good, and your system works well, then maybe not much added risk with adding disks. I mostly help people who don't have things working well, but I know many people are running with more disks than you have and never have any complaints.

 

Do you have backups of anything important and irreplaceable? Parity is not a substitute for backups.

 

Do you have Notifications setup to alert you by email or other agent as soon as a problem is detected?

26 minutes ago, trurl said:

Going to larger parity will allow you to add larger disks or replace disks with larger disks. Of course, you can't go larger than 8TB unless both parity are replaced with larger disks.

 

If all your disks are good, and your system works well, then maybe not much added risk with adding disks. I mostly help people who don't have things working well, but I know many people are running with more disks than you have and never have any complaints.

 

Do you have backups of anything important and irreplaceable? Parity is not a substitute for backups.

 

Do you have Notifications setup to alert you by email or other agent as soon as a problem is detected?

You and I worked on an issue a few months back... and let me thank you for your continued support and efforts for the community... you are quick and responsive... Thank You

 

My system is healthy... except for some lag when a docker prevents emby or the unraid interface to update/work... another issue for another time when im tired of it...

 

Backups? no... irreplaceable... no... A few photos or what not... but nothing critical... 

 

I watch this system daily... It's my baby... I hope to preserve the media that I have collected for the future... I have been building this system for 12 years now and modified it many times... I have a feeling that my unraid UI is unique ATM(lack of features) vs screenshots of fresh builds... 

 

overall... I think adding the extra DAS is a good idea... balancing Cost to Risk... but again... if someone know of a better deal/idea I am all ears