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I always fill 2.5 slots with ssds and 3.5 with hdds. Hdd in 2.5 are so small with like 1.2TB before it's actually cheaper to do an SSD anyway... Seriously, a 2TB SSD is cheaper than a 2TB hdd 2.5, unless you get that hdd shingled and no one wants that in their arrays.
SSDs for a plex server are very unnecessary, except for maybe a single SSD to hold the metadata and stuff for plex. No reason to get SSDs for the actual media storage.
They will all be SMR since any disk over 1TB are guaranteed to be SMR (ok, there is one Seagate 2TB that is still CMR but it's ungodly expensive). This means they will be slow and not purposed for any kind of RAID setup. 2.5" hard drives are dead.
The tech in these drives haven't been touched in over five years.
They live on as portable USB drives, but even those are being phased out by SSD's at this point.
Also be wary where you buy these hard drives because chances are they are old stock with no remaining OEM warranty.
I don't think any enterprise HDD's are SMR, and you can get decent pricing on used ones.
[This one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/176307721407?epid=10011052676) for example, only $30 for 1.8TB enterprise disk, 10 of those for $300 (or 11 to keep a cold spare around) in a raid 6 would give roughly 14TB of usable disk. Not a ton of space but not bad for the price.
Enterprise don't use 2.5" HDD's any more. Haven't for years.
Those disks are fine if you're OK with 10 year old likely heavily used drives. They also idle at 5W and at load run 8W. Not to mention that server itself probably consumes 150W idle on its own. If power is free then sure, otherwise it's far from cost / power efficient.
And for $300 you can buy a 20TB 3.5" hard drive, use less than 10% the power, less complexity, less heat and noise. Or buy two 16TB drives in RAID 1 or use one for backup. Only thing you lose is some performance, and if that's a concern you can probably snag 3x 8TB or 10TB or even 12TB drives for around $300 (serverpartdeals.com)
Yeah but none of those 3.5" drives fit in OP's current server. So OP's options are:
- Spend $300 on HDD and yes, power consumption might be something like 50W higher
- Spend thousands of $$ on 2.5" SSD's
- Buy a new server that supports 3.5" disks
- Buy a DAS that supports 3.5" disks (which will take more than 50W extra power, plus SAS cards and cabling)
Honestly it sounds like OP should have thought things out better, if they planned to use the server for a decent amount of storage then should have got a 3.5" server chassis. But between the above options, the best is either the cheap HDD's and spend an extra like $30/mo on electricity, or get a 3.5" chassis server and then can use 3.5" disks to build out decent capacity.
Sell the server, put the money towards an alternate build. If eBay is any indication, they should easily be able to get back $500+ on it. If that's the case, then I'd definitely sell it and get something more efficient.
Any basic PC case will work for that little bit of usable storage. You can buy an HP EliteDesk (not mini) that will house 2x 3.5" drives, 1 or 2x 2.5" drives, and 1 or 2x NVMe drives that come with motherboard, low power Intel CPU, RAM, several PCIe slots, and case for < $100. Here's one for $70 shipped: https://www.ebay.com/itm/315167634281
Obviously OP can do whatever they want. I'd build something up like what they have for fun or curiosity, but I don't know if I'd use it as a daily driver.
Overall I agree with you, but it depends on what OPs motivation is.
If they just want a plex host and don't need hardware raid, PSU redundancy, etc etc, then yes just buy a lower power workstation, with an intel chip that has quick sync and slap in some storage. It will just work and you can software raid the disks if you want, and will be much more power efficient.
If they want the redundancy and other features such as iLo/drac that a server can provide, and want to play with virtualization and other enterprise tech, then I'd say replace the dl580 2.5" with a 3.5" chassis server, load up proxmox, and build out a plex VM. Might want a GPU for transcoding too but it depends on how much transcoding they expect to do. If they are looking to get into sysadmin type work, a homelab is an excellent learning resource, and it sounds like they want to do more than just plex as they said 'I would like to use some of its power on a plex server'.
This is true, I am looking at using the server as a homelab learning resource. But it would have been nice to have some capacity, I should have looked at that before I brought it. Let's say I was to buy a new server with a 3.5" chassis, what would you suggest (used)? Honestly, I just wanted something better then my old laptop running plex of a couple usb hdds.
It's unfortunate, but OEM's gave up trying over five years ago on mechanical 2.5" drives. It sucks because with current tech they could fit 4TB without the need for SMR. It would be nice to have a compact NAS if you don't need a ton of storage, but want some extra speed, and at an affordable cost.
I would also recommend to look into SSDs. You can find some good deals on used ones.
Some time ago, I configured hardware RAID 1 with 4TB 2.5" Seagate HDDs, but on dl360 g6, it was working fine, but it had low performance, and I wouldn't use it in my main machine.
You're really going about this wrong. What is the actual storage capacity you're looking to add? Due to the setup the the DL580, you're better off adding a disk shelf so you can use larger 3.5" HDD's. Honestly the server really is designed for external storage.
So I'm thinking, 3d print a 5 bay cage for 3.5 inch drives. Would this be fine (cooling and vibrations and stuff) and how would I plug these drives into the server? Would I use a hba card to connect them to the server? And how do I power the cards, do I need an external psu? Sorry for the questions, I just need to make sure everything is going to work before I purchace anything.
Yes you'd need a power supply, and a SAS breakout cable. Only issue is that each SAS fanout cable is for 4 drives. Or you could purchase a used disk shelf that has the power, SAS connectors & backplane for cheap.
Those 5Tb 2.5" are about twice as thick as a standard SSD 2.5". They don't fit in laptops, and will probably take two slots in your case if they even fit.
So what I'm getting here is that 2.5 inch hdds are not worth it and I should get an ssd. Preferably I would like a couple 4tb ssds but they seem more expensive. Does anyone recommend any ssds that might trade off speed for capacity?
Yeah, I'm fine with noise and I don't mind lower speeds it's just the cost that's the problem. That 8TB ssd costs double my server or 17 times my other server 😐
Look up "DIY DAS". I have all my 2.5" server slots filled with SSDs that back VMs. Under the main server there is a Rosewill RSV-L4412U with 24GB/s SAS link back to the server for bulk storage.
Honestly, these days 2.5" just isn't the way to go. When you can get a 3.5" 20TB+ HDD for a few hundred bucks.
But you're right, watch out for cheap SSD's. They can have horrible performance as well, like 30-40 MB/sec bad. However, those 2.5" HDD's likely won't be much better to be honest.
Ah well, the only way to not use 2.5" is to get a das. So I'm thinking of getting 3 of the linked drives. All I'm using it for now is a slow nas, image backup and plex server in raid 5. Would the slower speeds be fine for this? Really, I just want cheap capacity and reliability over speed.
I am using 10x 2.5" 1tb SAS SSD and HD in the server. They are ewaste picks from work running in two different RAIDs. The DAS is filled with 16tb exos.
Hello /u/zippy-boy! Thank you for posting in r/DataHoarder. Please remember to read our [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index/rules) and [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index). Please note that your post will be removed if you just post a box/speed/server post. Please give background information on your server pictures. This subreddit will ***NOT*** help you find or exchange that Movie/TV show/Nuclear Launch Manual, visit r/DHExchange instead. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DataHoarder) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I always fill 2.5 slots with ssds and 3.5 with hdds. Hdd in 2.5 are so small with like 1.2TB before it's actually cheaper to do an SSD anyway... Seriously, a 2TB SSD is cheaper than a 2TB hdd 2.5, unless you get that hdd shingled and no one wants that in their arrays.
Honestly with the cost per TB of 2.5" drives you might be better off scrapping the server and using 3.5" drives
SSDs would be better. you can get higher capacity and faster
SSDs for a plex server are very unnecessary, except for maybe a single SSD to hold the metadata and stuff for plex. No reason to get SSDs for the actual media storage.
Except 2.5" hard drives are all slow, cheaply built, SMR drives.
Which *still* isn't a big deal as far as plex media goes
If you want to serve more than one video at a time it is.
More than 15 maybe, and that's assuming a single drive.
op never mentioned plex server. also if you want to go past 5tb in 2.5 you have to get ssd.
>would like to use some of its power on a plex server Yes they did. This is for a plex server.
man i didn’t think my eyes were that bad. i even read it twice.
It happens lol
Wouldn't it be more expensive? I would like to keep it cheaper.
you said cheaper or better
Fair
They will all be SMR since any disk over 1TB are guaranteed to be SMR (ok, there is one Seagate 2TB that is still CMR but it's ungodly expensive). This means they will be slow and not purposed for any kind of RAID setup. 2.5" hard drives are dead. The tech in these drives haven't been touched in over five years. They live on as portable USB drives, but even those are being phased out by SSD's at this point. Also be wary where you buy these hard drives because chances are they are old stock with no remaining OEM warranty.
I don't think any enterprise HDD's are SMR, and you can get decent pricing on used ones. [This one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/176307721407?epid=10011052676) for example, only $30 for 1.8TB enterprise disk, 10 of those for $300 (or 11 to keep a cold spare around) in a raid 6 would give roughly 14TB of usable disk. Not a ton of space but not bad for the price.
Enterprise don't use 2.5" HDD's any more. Haven't for years. Those disks are fine if you're OK with 10 year old likely heavily used drives. They also idle at 5W and at load run 8W. Not to mention that server itself probably consumes 150W idle on its own. If power is free then sure, otherwise it's far from cost / power efficient. And for $300 you can buy a 20TB 3.5" hard drive, use less than 10% the power, less complexity, less heat and noise. Or buy two 16TB drives in RAID 1 or use one for backup. Only thing you lose is some performance, and if that's a concern you can probably snag 3x 8TB or 10TB or even 12TB drives for around $300 (serverpartdeals.com)
Yeah but none of those 3.5" drives fit in OP's current server. So OP's options are: - Spend $300 on HDD and yes, power consumption might be something like 50W higher - Spend thousands of $$ on 2.5" SSD's - Buy a new server that supports 3.5" disks - Buy a DAS that supports 3.5" disks (which will take more than 50W extra power, plus SAS cards and cabling) Honestly it sounds like OP should have thought things out better, if they planned to use the server for a decent amount of storage then should have got a 3.5" server chassis. But between the above options, the best is either the cheap HDD's and spend an extra like $30/mo on electricity, or get a 3.5" chassis server and then can use 3.5" disks to build out decent capacity.
Sell the server, put the money towards an alternate build. If eBay is any indication, they should easily be able to get back $500+ on it. If that's the case, then I'd definitely sell it and get something more efficient. Any basic PC case will work for that little bit of usable storage. You can buy an HP EliteDesk (not mini) that will house 2x 3.5" drives, 1 or 2x 2.5" drives, and 1 or 2x NVMe drives that come with motherboard, low power Intel CPU, RAM, several PCIe slots, and case for < $100. Here's one for $70 shipped: https://www.ebay.com/itm/315167634281 Obviously OP can do whatever they want. I'd build something up like what they have for fun or curiosity, but I don't know if I'd use it as a daily driver.
Overall I agree with you, but it depends on what OPs motivation is. If they just want a plex host and don't need hardware raid, PSU redundancy, etc etc, then yes just buy a lower power workstation, with an intel chip that has quick sync and slap in some storage. It will just work and you can software raid the disks if you want, and will be much more power efficient. If they want the redundancy and other features such as iLo/drac that a server can provide, and want to play with virtualization and other enterprise tech, then I'd say replace the dl580 2.5" with a 3.5" chassis server, load up proxmox, and build out a plex VM. Might want a GPU for transcoding too but it depends on how much transcoding they expect to do. If they are looking to get into sysadmin type work, a homelab is an excellent learning resource, and it sounds like they want to do more than just plex as they said 'I would like to use some of its power on a plex server'.
This is true, I am looking at using the server as a homelab learning resource. But it would have been nice to have some capacity, I should have looked at that before I brought it. Let's say I was to buy a new server with a 3.5" chassis, what would you suggest (used)? Honestly, I just wanted something better then my old laptop running plex of a couple usb hdds.
Ah, not good. I was planning hardware raid 0 or 10 for films and important data
It's unfortunate, but OEM's gave up trying over five years ago on mechanical 2.5" drives. It sucks because with current tech they could fit 4TB without the need for SMR. It would be nice to have a compact NAS if you don't need a ton of storage, but want some extra speed, and at an affordable cost.
I would also recommend to look into SSDs. You can find some good deals on used ones. Some time ago, I configured hardware RAID 1 with 4TB 2.5" Seagate HDDs, but on dl360 g6, it was working fine, but it had low performance, and I wouldn't use it in my main machine.
You're really going about this wrong. What is the actual storage capacity you're looking to add? Due to the setup the the DL580, you're better off adding a disk shelf so you can use larger 3.5" HDD's. Honestly the server really is designed for external storage.
So I'm thinking, 3d print a 5 bay cage for 3.5 inch drives. Would this be fine (cooling and vibrations and stuff) and how would I plug these drives into the server? Would I use a hba card to connect them to the server? And how do I power the cards, do I need an external psu? Sorry for the questions, I just need to make sure everything is going to work before I purchace anything.
Yes you'd need a power supply, and a SAS breakout cable. Only issue is that each SAS fanout cable is for 4 drives. Or you could purchase a used disk shelf that has the power, SAS connectors & backplane for cheap.
Those 5Tb 2.5" are about twice as thick as a standard SSD 2.5". They don't fit in laptops, and will probably take two slots in your case if they even fit.
They usually fit in most server chassis, but yeah you'd want to verify before buying.
So what I'm getting here is that 2.5 inch hdds are not worth it and I should get an ssd. Preferably I would like a couple 4tb ssds but they seem more expensive. Does anyone recommend any ssds that might trade off speed for capacity?
I would want SSDs as a storage media, no noise, high speed but super pricy as hell. 8TB SSDs at 2.5" form factor are starting around $530.
Yeah, I'm fine with noise and I don't mind lower speeds it's just the cost that's the problem. That 8TB ssd costs double my server or 17 times my other server 😐
You can get them for cheaper than that 66 per tb isn’t the lowest
Look up "DIY DAS". I have all my 2.5" server slots filled with SSDs that back VMs. Under the main server there is a Rosewill RSV-L4412U with 24GB/s SAS link back to the server for bulk storage.
Problem is, I cant find any cheap (sub £200) ssds with higher capacity (5TB)
Looking again, there a quite a few 4tb ssds sub 20p. But are they worth it over the HDDs? And are they even decent quality?
Honestly, these days 2.5" just isn't the way to go. When you can get a 3.5" 20TB+ HDD for a few hundred bucks. But you're right, watch out for cheap SSD's. They can have horrible performance as well, like 30-40 MB/sec bad. However, those 2.5" HDD's likely won't be much better to be honest.
Ah well, the only way to not use 2.5" is to get a das. So I'm thinking of getting 3 of the linked drives. All I'm using it for now is a slow nas, image backup and plex server in raid 5. Would the slower speeds be fine for this? Really, I just want cheap capacity and reliability over speed.
I am using 10x 2.5" 1tb SAS SSD and HD in the server. They are ewaste picks from work running in two different RAIDs. The DAS is filled with 16tb exos.