Why did I get a Western Digital 2TB Red Plus NAS hard drive
and not a larger hard drive?
That was one of the questions I got
when I ordered a new hard drive for what turned out to be
a failed SSD boot drive.
Here are three reasons why I'm using 2TB hard drives
in my TrueNAS file server.
(♫ piano music ♫)
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My storage needs are very modest for my YouTube channel.
I record talking head videos in 4K and transcode to DNXHD
for editing in Davinci Resolve Studio.
A transcoded 5GB video file becomes a 110GB video file.
I don't keep the transcoded video file
after I'm done editing.
Steve at Gamers Nexus talked about the storage needs
for his channel a few years ago.
He runs a script that deletes older talking head videos
to free up space on his file server.
The best parts of a talking head video
are in the finished video uploaded to YouTube.
Keeping the talking head video
after a certain amount of time doesn’t make sense.
I wrote a Python script that runs as a cron job
to delete talking head videos after 90 days.
That script deleted three years of talking head videos
when I first ran it.
Freeing up enough space on the 1TB drives
that the 2TB drives I added in 2020
still have 2TB in formatted free space.
Only once or twice did I ever regretted
not having the talking head video
available for another video.
For over 20 years, I've bought $50 US hard drives
for my file server every five years.
Why new hard drives every five years?
The Seagate drives that I used to get for 15 years
died like clockworks after running 24/7 for five years.
They hit the five-year mark and
the “click of death” would soon follow.
(click)
Older hard drives would start clicking
before the read/write head crashes
into the spinning platters.
I switch to Western Digital Red NAS hard drives in 2015.
The size of a $50 US hard drive increased every five years.
I started off with 20GB drives in 2000,
80GB drives in 2005,
160GB drives in 2010,
and 1TB drives in 2015.
That changed in 2020 when the Western Digital 1TB
Red NAS hard drives were still $50 US when on sale.
When I added the SAS card and two new hard drives,
I got the 2TB hard drives instead.
The 2TB hard drives are available from $60 US to $75 US.
The 2015 1TB hard drives are still fine
after running 24/7 for seven years.
Another reason why I got 2TB hard drives
was because of the LSI 3081 SAS/SATA-2 controller card.
That controller card only recognizes 2TB
of hard drive space.
If I got 3TB, 4TB, or 20TB hard drive,
the controller card would only format the first 2TB.
The rest of the hard drive would remain unavailable.
I paid $15 US for that controller card in 2020.
Prices went up to $150 US on both Newegg and eBay
because of the coronavirus for the last two years.
Depending on where you look today,
prices are a bit different.
A third-party seller on Newegg
has the controller card for $275 US.
A glut of these controller cards on eBay
are available from $20 US to $200 US.
Why don't I upgrade the controller card?
Buying a SAS/SATA-3 controller card
would cost $100 US or more.
Since my storage needs and financial commitment are modest,
I don't need anything larger than a 2TB hard drive.
That's it for today's show.
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Thank you for watching!
(♫ piano music ♫)