I need to reach a certain amount of space but have a limited budget. I saw these refurb drives on bargainhardware a while back and waited through BF to see if anything close to the £/TB came up. Unfortunately the UK doesn’t seem to have seen any such deals.

My budget is limited, I also already have some older smaller drives that would form part of the array. I would likely be using unRAID with 2 of the purchased drives being Parity drives, or the same with SnapRAID. I feel that 2x Parity is neccessary to ensure that I can protect against inevitable failure, my current 4TB drives approach 5 years in use, and the refurb drives are between 3 and 5 years old according to the seller (datacentre use). If you feel you can suggest better alternatives or new drives that fit the bill please let me know. I feel that I would be unlikely to return a storage drive under warranty.

  • 4x 10TB HGST HUH721010ALN600 £86.40 - £345.60. 20TB pool, approx 5 years usage.
  • 3x 12TB WD HC520 HUH721212ALE601 £132 - £396. 12TB pool (higher parity ceiling), approx 3 years usage.
  • 3x 12TB EMC Seagate ST12000NM005G £120 - £360. 12TB pool (higher parity ceiling), unknown time in use, Seagate?

I don’t want to go above £400, I have a need for at least 10TB in the pool and in my mind 2 Parity drives is mitigating some of the risk with refurb drives. Am I going about this the wrong way?

  • snatch1e@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Hmm, het the drives, check the smart data and run the full surface test. If the drives pass the tets, you should be fine. Also, clarify about warranty on refurb drives since they usually have a limited warranty for 2 years.