EXPIRED 12TB Elements on Amazon @ $175

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josh

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DOTD. I ordered a bunch of them during the last sale and they were EMAZs that don't have PWDIS issues. The BestBuy EasyStores have always been EMFZs.
 
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Samir

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For anyone doing the math $176/12TB = $14.67/TB. :) Seem like $15/TB is still a sweet spot. :)
 

madbrain

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14TB from Best buy is $229 currently also. That's $16.42 /TB . No longer in stock, but they are taking orders.


I have some Citi Thankyou points I can redeem for Best Buy gift cards at 1 cent per point. Or use them at Amazon checkout at 0.08 cent per point.

Still waiting for the best sale at BB on the 10TB drives to match my 6x10 TB drives.
With ZFS, the mismatched size drives are not that useful. Right now, as SATA drives, I have 1 x 1.5 TB, 2 x 3 TB, 2 x 4 TB, 2 x 5 TB, 1 x 6 TB, 6 x 10TB.
Would rather not introduce yet another size - 12 or 14TB , unless I can get rid of all the smaller drives.
 
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Samir

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Nice!

What's the drive capacity of your storage? Sounds like you've got 14 sata drives--why not sas?
 

madbrain

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Nice!

What's the drive capacity of your storage? Sounds like you've got 14 sata drives--why not sas?
Long answer :

I do use SAS controllers, just not SAS drives. SATA drives are less expensible, and I can use any controller available, not only the SAS controller.

My NAS has two LSI SAS2308-based SAS-2 controllers in it. One is an 8i model, and the other 4i4e. There are also 6 x SATA-3 ports on the Z170-AR motherboard. So, in theory, I could have a total of 16 SAS or SATA drives on the LSI, without using expanders, plus 6 SATA drives on motherboard - total 22 drives. Since one card is 4i4e, that would be a total of 12 SAS/SATA drives internally from LSI, plus 6 SATA drives from the motherboard - for a max of 18 internal drives .

My Cooler Master HAF-XM case can not fit quite so many drives, though. Currently, I have 6 3.5 10TB drives internally, and 1 2.5 96BSSD on the back of the motherboard. Then, the case's front x-dock can fit 2 x 3.5 drives as SATA hotswap.
The 3 front 5.25 spaces are configured as such :
- one 4 x 2.5 SATA hotswap bay
- one 1 x 3.5 + 1 x 2.5 hotswap bay
- one USB 3.0 multi-card reader + USB hub - handy to directly restore images of my Raspberry Pi or Odroid SBCs
So, that's a total of 9 x 3.5 drives and 6 x 2.5 drives that can fit inside this case with the current configuration. Meaning I have 3 internal SATA ports still unused ;-)
There are 6 x 3.5 (10TB) and 2 x 2.5 (one 96GB inside for Win10, one 128GB SSD, in hotswap bay for Ubuntu 18.04). The 6 x 10TB is running as RAID-Z2, so the net capacity is 40TB, and currently I have only about 6TB free.

By changing the type of hotswap bays in the front 5.25 spaces, I might be able to fit a few more 3.5 drives, and lose a few of the 2.5 bays.
But the drive cages that are typically sold in general have small diameter loud fans immediately behind. The NAS is in my home office 6ft away from my chair, and I couldn't tolerate any small diameter fan for a single minute. The CM case has a bunch of very large diameter fans, and is super quiet.

I have thought about using an external SAS-2 enclosure, but mainly to backup the server itself, and possibly move it to another physical location, in case of fire or theft. I haven't seen any pre-built SAS-2 enclosure I would be happy with running permanently with the NAS on to expand the NAS capacity due to noise. My ideal would be a SAS-2 enclosure in a form factor something like the CM HAF series, with only large diameter fans. It ideally should be a just backplane and PSU, old-fashioned AT type with a mechnical power switch going directly to the PSU, not software-controlled ATX PSU. Powering a SAS expander without a motherboard/PCIe bus would be a problem, though. Not sure how I would solve that one.

Also, the NAS isn't powered 24/7 due to CA power costs . I use WOL with it also. Since shelter in place, I probably suspend and resume it at least a dozen times a day. When I sell the drives eventually, the SMART info will probably show some insane count. Wouldn't be surprised if it gets to the 5 figure counts.
 
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Samir

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Thank you for the complete answer with all the great technical details. :)

So one thing in my experience is that sas drives generally are made to fare much better than their sata counterparts. In addition, it seems possible to find used large capacity sas drives cheaper per tb than even these 'shuck' deals. Something to consider. :)
 

madbrain

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So one thing in my experience is that sas drives generally are made to fare much better than their sata counterparts. In addition, it seems possible to find used large capacity sas drives cheaper per tb than even these 'shuck' deals. Something to consider. :)
Thanks. Unfortunately, it appears SAS hard drives are generally higher RPM, and higher noise, which is exactly the opposite of what I want. Those lower RPM drives are quieter, generate less heat, and use less power. When sitting right next to the NAS, that's really important for me. So, I'll stick with SATA drives. I realize the green drives from enclosures aren't made for NAS, but they still seem to work just fine for my use case so far.
 

Samir

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Thanks. Unfortunately, it appears SAS hard drives are generally higher RPM, and higher noise, which is exactly the opposite of what I want. Those lower RPM drives are quieter, generate less heat, and use less power. When sitting right next to the NAS, that's really important for me. So, I'll stick with SATA drives. I realize the green drives from enclosures aren't made for NAS, but they still seem to work just fine for my use case so far.
Ah yes, good points. Yes, they definitely are higher rpm and more noise and power. But reliable drives are pretty much all built that way and always have been--it was only at the advent of the 'home computer' that diverged computer products into a consumer and professional lineup. And while there's been some crossovers, generally they are two different category of products with two different requirements. I think the move to put smr technology into consumer drives is a way to make this rift more evident. Although I'm not sure if sas drives are also getting smr technology.
 

madbrain

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Ah yes, good points. Yes, they definitely are higher rpm and more noise and power. But reliable drives are pretty much all built that way and always have been--it was only at the advent of the 'home computer' that diverged computer products into a consumer and professional lineup. And while there's been some crossovers, generally they are two different category of products with two different requirements. I think the move to put smr technology into consumer drives is a way to make this rift more evident. Although I'm not sure if sas drives are also getting smr technology.
I used to run a BBS from home under OS/2 in my teens. Had all SCSI drives. Even a second case full of SCSI drives. I ran every single drive into the ground, meaning, until they died a clicky death. To be fair, IDE/PATA drives weren't particularly reliable in those days either.

The funny thing it's that those Toshiba N300 / X300 SATA drives stamped "high reliability" on the label that are 7200rpm are the ones giving the most problems this decade. Every other HDD drive I still own passed the h2testw test with flying, except one, and that was a Seagate 1.5TB SATA-2 model. I tossed it. Clearly no warranty left on that one. There are Google references to that model in 2002 on a Russian site. I didn't recall drives getting quite that big in those days.
 

Samir

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I used to run a BBS from home under OS/2 in my teens. Had all SCSI drives. Even a second case full of SCSI drives. I ran every single drive into the ground, meaning, until they died a clicky death. To be fair, IDE/PATA drives weren't particularly reliable in those days either.

The funny thing it's that those Toshiba N300 / X300 SATA drives stamped "high reliability" on the label that are 7200rpm are the ones giving the most problems this decade. Every other HDD drive I still own passed the h2testw test with flying, except one, and that was a Seagate 1.5TB SATA-2 model. I tossed it. Clearly no warranty left on that one. There are Google references to that model in 2002 on a Russian site. I didn't recall drives getting quite that big in those days.
Yep, so you remember the good stuff. :D IDE was always a second fiddle in those days for sure. We built our two system in that era with full scsi. We went so far as to put a mylex dac960-sui scsi-scsi raid controller in one of them and ran 3x 9gb 2nd gen Cheetah drives in raid 5. With writeback on, it would transfer 10MB/sec in DOS. :eek: Still have that system but Supermicro can't repair the motherboard with a leaky varta battery so I'm going to have to get it done elsewhere.

Yeah, marketing at its best. The n300 series is only 1M mtbf and the x300 is only 600k mtbf--far below the 2/2.5M mtbf of true enterprise drives. And the warranty shows it too with only 3 years vs the usual enterprise 5yr.

Oh no, I wouldn't have tossed the 1.5TB. :( I would have donated it to a drive recovery company. It's like the digital version of organ doning--except with drives. They can use the head assemblies, circuit boards, and sometimes even the platters.
 

madbrain

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Yep, so you remember the good stuff. :D IDE was always a second fiddle in those days for sure. We built our two system in that era with full scsi. We went so far as to put a mylex dac960-sui scsi-scsi raid controller in one of them and ran 3x 9gb 2nd gen Cheetah drives in raid 5. With writeback on, it would transfer 10MB/sec in DOS. :eek: Still have that system but Supermicro can't repair the motherboard with a leaky varta battery so I'm going to have to get it done elsewhere.
I remember mostly having Adaptec cards. A 1542 that had a conflict with my Roland MPU-401 . I patched the BIOS, and my dad burned EEPROM at work for me a couple times, until I figured out the checksum. Then went VLB . I think PCI was just starting to appear on consumer mobos.

Yeah, marketing at its best. The n300 series is only 1M mtbf and the x300 is only 600k mtbf--far below the 2/2.5M mtbf of true enterprise drives. And the warranty shows it too with only 3 years vs the usual enterprise 5yr.
Yeah. I don't know if their true enterprise models are any better. But those definitely didn't hold up. And in terms of heat, they were too much. Not sure if that was because of the 7.2k rpm. I used to have 10k SCSI drives. Might even have had a 15k Quantum Ultra160 SCSI drive at some point. Still have an HP DDS-4 tape SCSI drive from the 1990s that I recently restored data from. OS/2 can run run on my FX-8120 with an Adaptec PCI SCSI controller (not PCIe). The data held up without issue 25 year later. Other than the OS/2 software not being Y2K compliant. All of the files were from the last century, though.

Oh no, I wouldn't have tossed the 1.5TB. :( I would have donated it to a drive recovery company. It's like the digital version of organ doning--except with drives. They can use the head assemblies, circuit boards, and sometimes even the platters.
Too late. I have so much spare electronic stuff in my house. I try to sell it. But it would be a full-time job to list every single of the 1000+ various types of cables in my drawers that fill one wall of my garage. I think I have one drawer full of SCSI cables still.
 

Samir

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I remember mostly having Adaptec cards. A 1542 that had a conflict with my Roland MPU-401 . I patched the BIOS, and my dad burned EEPROM at work for me a couple times, until I figured out the checksum. Then went VLB . I think PCI was just starting to appear on consumer mobos.



Yeah. I don't know if their true enterprise models are any better. But those definitely didn't hold up. And in terms of heat, they were too much. Not sure if that was because of the 7.2k rpm. I used to have 10k SCSI drives. Might even have had a 15k Quantum Ultra160 SCSI drive at some point. Still have an HP DDS-4 tape SCSI drive from the 1990s that I recently restored data from. OS/2 can run run on my FX-8120 with an Adaptec PCI SCSI controller (not PCIe). The data held up without issue 25 year later. Other than the OS/2 software not being Y2K compliant. All of the files were from the last century, though.



Too late. I have so much spare electronic stuff in my house. I try to sell it. But it would be a full-time job to list every single of the 1000+ various types of cables in my drawers that fill one wall of my garage. I think I have one drawer full of SCSI cables still.
Ah yes, the 15xx series. We had a 3940uw so we could put the raid on a dedicated channel and all the other devices on their own channel since some of them were only scsi2. Good times. And expensive times--I think that card alone was $350 at that time.

I think their truly enterprise drives are better as you do see them showing up in enclosures and other racks from time to time. Still not as much as Fujitsu, Seagate, and HGST, but they are still a player. Perhaps their reliability still leaves something to be desired and that's why they're a smaller player.

That's awesome that your tape drive still worked! I always wondered what a real-life test of a tape archive would look like and I think I've seen it now as you were able to restore the files--that's the way it should be. :) Very cool you have os/2 running on the fx-8120--it must scream too. And I bet basic office productivity can still be easily done with the platform. :) It always surprises me how little one needs to get real work done, and yet lots of hardware is trashed every day because it's 'old'. :(

I completely understand. I'd just give it away--there's always someone that will take it. I still have a 20GB WD drive that must have one platter that's bad--so I use it as a 10GB drive and it's still going, lol. That's pretty awesome you have a drawer full of scsi cables. I still remember when it cost hundreds of dollars to have a good custom one made.
 

msg7086

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So one thing in my experience is that sas drives generally are made to fare much better than their sata counterparts.
I think that really depends. Rather than saying SAS are well made, it's more like SAS only exists in enterprise market where it's supposed to be made better anyway. For example, Seagate has a few enterprise series that were made using the very similar drives. The same Exos SATA and Exos SAS would be made in similar quality and should have similar lifespan.
 

Samir

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I think that really depends. Rather than saying SAS are well made, it's more like SAS only exists in enterprise market where it's supposed to be made better anyway. For example, Seagate has a few enterprise series that were made using the very similar drives. The same Exos SATA and Exos SAS would be made in similar quality and should have similar lifespan.
That's pretty much what I was trying to get across if it didn't come across. :cool: And the highest end sata drives do seem to be analogs of their sas brethern. It's always a great sign to see a single spec sheet for both the sata and sas version of the drive. :)
 

madbrain

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Ah yes, the 15xx series. We had a 3940uw so we could put the raid on a dedicated channel and all the other devices on their own channel since some of them were only scsi2. Good times. And expensive times--I think that card alone was $350 at that time.
Yeah, SCSI controllers were always expensive. And the drives.

I think their truly enterprise drives are better as you do see them showing up in enclosures and other racks from time to time. Still not as much as Fujitsu, Seagate, and HGST, but they are still a player. Perhaps their reliability still leaves something to be desired and that's why they're a smaller player.
Assume you were referring to Toshiba. I think those N300/X300 are the only ones I ever owned from them, so 4 data points is not really enough. Overall, I think drives reliability has improved a lot from what it used to be in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Very cool you have os/2 running on the fx-8120--it must scream too.
Yeah, but not necessarily in the way you might think. OS/2 never got proper power management support. So CPU fan at runs full RPM all the time. No suspend/resume also. The FX-8120 I have is a 125W version, too. I used it for many years as a desktop when I first got it. Then moved it to one of my HTPCs. About 2 years ago, I upgraded that HTPC to a Ryzen 2700. I had enough old parts, was just missing a case . Got one for $25 at Fry's.
This one : NeweggBusiness - RAIDMAX Blade ATX-298WY Black / Yellow Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Last year, I moved to 10 Gbe Ethernet. Got a few Aquantia AQN-107. The old GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard wouldn't boot at all with the Aquantia NIC in it. Problem with the Aquantia BIOS. I got in touch with Aquantia as they are local. Dropped the entire machine off to them - minus disk, since the problem didn't require an OS to reproduce. There was a few front hotswap SATA drive bays for them to test an OS, though. They kept my machine for a month and made some BIOS updates. I got a few free NICs out of them, a tshirt and a mug. And now this old FX PCIe 2.0 box can still do about 7 Gbps over the network in iperf3 ... Right now the box is running with a 13 year old PCI (not PCIe) nVidia 8600GT GPU. Talk about recycling hardware. I'm using all 4 ports on my Iogear DVM. I need a triple-head KVM that supports DP 1.4 hotswap, but I don't think it exists. Lots of hardware I want just doesn't exist lol.

And I bet basic office productivity can still be easily done with the platform. :) It always surprises me how little one needs to get real work done, and yet lots of hardware is trashed every day because it's 'old'. :(
Unfortunately driver support has always been an issue with older OS. There was no Aquantia support for example, of course. There was some hack to use FreeBSD 32 bit NIC drivers binaries in OS/2. But as of last year, Aquantia hadn't released FreeBSD drivers. I think they have now. It may be time to reimage one of my SSDs with OS/2 and boot it just to try to see how fast I can push it. It's probably full of security bugs, though ...
I think it runs much better in a VM like Virtualbox . I can get 4K video on it. And I think bridged NIC works at higher speed than 1 Gbps if the host has a 10 Gbps NIC ... PostScript drivers still work for printing in OpenOffice in OS/2. It's just a very old version. Most of my Mozilla contributions for OS/2 support in NSPR / NSS have been backed out of the main source tree now ...

I completely understand. I'd just give it away--there's always someone that will take it. I still have a 20GB WD drive that must have one platter that's bad--so I use it as a 10GB drive and it's still going, lol. That's pretty awesome you have a drawer full of scsi cables. I still remember when it cost hundreds of dollars to have a good custom one made.
Don't think I have any drive that small left. Smallest is a 96GB SSD. In terms of HDD, probably a pair of 1TB USB 2.0 drives. Maybe 500GB 2.5in HDD in a very old laptop...
 

madbrain

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That's pretty much what I was trying to get across if it didn't come across. :cool: And the highest end sata drives do seem to be analogs of their sas brethern. It's always a great sign to see a single spec sheet for both the sata and sas version of the drive. :)
If the drive internals are actually the same, maybe they could have user-installable rear interface boards for SATA and SAS. Should work fine as long as they screw in and don't just loosely plug in like the old SCA 80pin to UW SCSI 68/50 pin adapters. It might cost more to manufacture as a separate component, though. Probably only home users care about this.
 
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