Nice writeup, thank you. I already thought about having NixOS on my server, but currently I prefer proxmox. There are projects with NixOS + Proxmox, but I did not test it yet.
> My main storage setup is pretty simple. It a ZFS pool with four 10TB hard drives in a RAIDZ2 data vdev with an additional 256GB SDD as a cache vdev. That means two hard drives can die without me loosing that data. That gives me ~19TB of usable storage, which I’m currently using less than 10% of. Leaving plenty of room to grow.
I would question this when buying a new system and not having a bunch of disks laying around... having a RAID-Z2 with four 10GB disks offers the same space as a RAID1 with two 20GB disks. Since you don't need the space NOW, you could even go RAID1 with two 10TB disks and grow it by replacing it with two 20TB as soon as you need more. This in my opinion would be more cost effective, since you only need to replace 2 disks instead of 4 to grow. This would take less time and since prices per TB are probably getting lower over time, it could also save you a ton of money. I would also say that the ability of losing 2 disks won't save you from having a backup somewhere...
Oh yeah, I don't think the way I went about it was necessarily the most cost effective. I bought half of them on sale one year, didn't get around to setting things up, then bought the other two a year later on another sale once I finally got my server put together. I got them before I had my current plan in place. At one point I thought about having more services in a Kubernets cluster or something, but dropped that idea
Also agree, RAID isn't a replacement for a backup. I have all my important data on my desktop and laptop with plans for a dedicated backup server in the future. RAID does give you more breathing room if things go wrong, and I decided that was worth it
I went through the same situation and noticed that modern hard drives are big enough for fitting RAID1 into nearly every homelab use case except high-res Video footage (including a bluray movie collection)
Two drives are easy to replace, easy to spare, consume less power and are quieter than 4+.
The only advantage i See in raid5/6 is on 25Tb of storage requirement within 3 years.
As OP says, I think this is the kind of thing that needs to be considered whenever the decision is made.
As another data point, my NAS runs 4x4TB drives. When I bought them new some 2-3 years ago, all at the same time, they were cheaper than buying the equivalent 2x8TB.
My situation was somewhat different, though, since I'm running raidz1. But I did consider running a mirror, specifically in order to ease upgrading the capacity. However, I didn't expect to fill them /that/ quickly and I was right: yesterday it was still less than 70% full.
You are right, but to be max cost effective you could have gone 2 * 4tb or 2 * 6tb for 18 months and then sell the drives still in warranty to upgrade to more storage...
Estimating storage growth is hard but when you monitor it regularly, its saving you much money
Maybe... When I was younger, I used to buy and sell computer stuff. Didn't have much money, so it kinda made sense. But it required me to keep up to date with prices, specs, figure what's the best value, follow markets and jump on an occasion, etc. It got old after a while. There's also value in getting something that just works for you, if it's not absurdly expensive, and forget about it. Do something else with my time.
I still love to tinker and set up a homelab and whatnot, but I don't care that much about hardware anymore. For my needs, if it's at least a 6th gen Intel and I can't hear it in my living room, it's good enough. The NAS lives in my parents' basement, so it can be somewhat louder (with 4 drives instead of two).
For this particular setup, my initial usage was above 4 TB, so I should have went with 2x6, which was /maybe/ cheaper (don't remember), but then it would have required me to deal with selling used gear and go through the motions of upgrading again. Doing this every 4-5 years? Sure. Every year? Hell no.
> My main storage setup is pretty simple. It a ZFS pool with four 10TB hard drives in a RAIDZ2 data vdev with an additional 256GB SDD as a cache vdev. That means two hard drives can die without me loosing that data. That gives me ~19TB of usable storage, which I’m currently using less than 10% of. Leaving plenty of room to grow.
I would question this when buying a new system and not having a bunch of disks laying around... having a RAID-Z2 with four 10GB disks offers the same space as a RAID1 with two 20GB disks. Since you don't need the space NOW, you could even go RAID1 with two 10TB disks and grow it by replacing it with two 20TB as soon as you need more. This in my opinion would be more cost effective, since you only need to replace 2 disks instead of 4 to grow. This would take less time and since prices per TB are probably getting lower over time, it could also save you a ton of money. I would also say that the ability of losing 2 disks won't save you from having a backup somewhere...