Planning Stages, Have Some Unique Ideas, Need Advice

[House Of Cards]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, JonathanM said:

16TB SATA Exos are available as refurbs for $170 or so if that fits your needs.

I was wondering about that, BTW...

 

I see a lot of those "renewed" or "refurbished" drives on Amazon.  Never gave them a second thought because I assumed they were problematic.  Reviews show people getting them with bad sectors, etc...  Anybody have any thoughts on those?  Do you use them without issues, because they are much cheaper...?

[JonathanM]

2 minutes ago, House Of Cards said:

I see a lot of those "renewed" or "refurbished" drives on Amazon.  Never gave them a second thought because I assumed they were problematic.

They are problematic, but I've never been charged to return a bad drive for credit or replacement. I run a preclear cycle on drives new or refurbished as soon as I get it, if it passes a preclear check, it's probably going to survive for a while. So far with the refurb 16TB I've only had to return one out of four. Yes, that's 25% failure out of the box for me, so definitely problematic, but a sample size of 4 is worth nothing statistically speaking.

 

I'm willing to take that risk for the amount of savings available, I just test before use, and as i always do keep a close eye on drive stats, if anything looks hinky, it gets replaced and tested. I also keep 1 precleared drive the same size as parity on hand as a cold spare in the box, so I don't have to wait for a drive to ship and get tested. If the cold spare is put in use, another gets ordered and tested.

[mathomas3]

I have around x16 8tb drives in my setup... also have a stack of x8 more should I have to expand... found a good deal on them for $45 each... I have not had a singe one of them fail...

 

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by mathomas3

[Lolight]

13 hours ago, House Of Cards said:

I see a lot of those "renewed" or "refurbished" drives on Amazon.  Never gave them a second thought because I assumed they were problematic.

Potentially problematic since you won't know their prior history - each drive or batch will differ from another in their prior history of handling, usage, storage conditions etc, etc.

The savings might be worth the risks as long as you understand what you're dealing with.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lolight

[House Of Cards]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, JonathanM said:

Just need to be careful when you transition connector styles, the cables are one way only, and they produce SATA->SAS and SAS>SATA cables that look identical but function only in the designed direction, forward or reverse breakout.

 

 

So, about ready to make some purchases...  I'm going to go with the SAS solution.  Do any of you see any issues going with these two components?

 

SAS Controller...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JZ6FYVC/?coliid=I5M8VGAKRI62P&colid=2D3CNHHDTB8MO&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

Cables...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/?coliid=ICBW56YMIQN5T&colid=2D3CNHHDTB8MO&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

Thanks for all the advice...

 

[JonathanM]

4 minutes ago, House Of Cards said:

SAS Controller...

Probably a chinese knockoff counterfeit, whether that bothers you or not, whatever. You won't get support directly from LSI.

6 minutes ago, House Of Cards said:

Cables...

Says they are for connecting a SAS controller to SATA drives, which I think is probably what you wanted.

[House Of Cards]

6 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Probably a chinese knockoff counterfeit, whether that bothers you or not, whatever. You won't get support directly from LSI.

Says they are for connecting a SAS controller to SATA drives, which I think is probably what you wanted.

I don’t care as long as it works.  🤣

 

But yes, the case has SATA connectors for the swapable trays, so I would think I just put the drives into this card and I’m off…