Hello!

I am getting the parts together for a tower server build. I plan on running Jellyfin, maybe dive into arrs and nextcloud for 2 users total, wireguard only for external access as it’s not the main focus for now.

Situation: if I have access to refurb/used 4TB enterprise HDDs at the same price as 1.9ish TB enterprise SSDs.

I’d take lower capacity as it is not that big of a concern for me rn. I want to have somewhat redundant storage of my documents, photos, but otherwise it’s not gonna be a giant media vault overflowing with movies.

Question: In terms of noise, shipping concerns and longevity, would you go with SSDs instead of HDDs? Is it lower maintenance?

I can of course buy spinners later if I find flash only to be restricting in any way, and add to the rig as needed.

Speed would not be an issue in any case. This is for TrueNAS scale, so zfs. I am planning to buy 3-4 disks now, and add more if needed in 6 months time or later.

I am eager to hear others opininons on this. Thanks!

  • 🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    11 months ago

    Failure rates for sdd are better than hdd

    I’m curious on where did you find this. Maybe they have lower DOA rates and decreased chances to fail in the first year, but SSDs have a limited usage lifetime / limited writes, so even if they don’t fail quickly, they wear out over time and at first they have degraded performance, but finally succumb in 5 years or less, even when lightly used (as in as OS drives).

    To avoid DOA / first year issues with HDDs, just have the patience to fully scan them before using with a good disk testing app.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Backblaze and other “bulk storage providers” tend to release reports every-now-and-then about the lifetime of their drives (it’s important for them to understand the costs). Here’s one such Backblaze Report.

      At this point we can reasonably claim that SSDs are more reliable than HDDs, at least when used as boot drives in our environment.

      • 🅿🅸🆇🅴🅻@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        Holy shit, I stand corrected, those graphs speak for themselves. Bookmarked for future stats.

        LE: Well, there’s also the section about average age of failure in their newest report: 2 years and 7 months for HDDs, 14 months for SSDs.

        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          11·
          11 months ago

          Yeah there are a lot of ways to cut the data. Average age of failure doesn’t mean more things fail, just that if they do fail they’re likely to be around that age.

          In general the reliability seems to be “close enough” between the two that it won’t matter for a home user who doesn’t have 10,000 storage units running in a server room. 😀