Homelab Storage-Related Questions

#HomeLab

NAS vs DAS

For anyone who cares:

NAS is a basically a computer with a stack of hard drives attached to it for a storage. DAS is a piece of hardware that allows you to stack hard drives and attach them to your computer.

If you build a home lab with a DAS attached to it, you are likely crafting a NAS yourself. But since it is a home lab, you are much more flexible in the choice of hardware and software that you use for it

What's wrong with entry-level NAS

For my homelab I was initially considering a small and inexpensive NAS device like WD Personal cloud

I find it somewhat purposeless now. With only one drive, it lacks redundancy, and the hardware isn’t very powerful. Plus, the device is a bit bulky.

HDD vs SSD

Times where HDDs were considered as more reliable than SSDs have passed. According to the stats, in the long run, SSDs are more reliable.

However, for an SSD the price per TB is still much higher so there is a tradeoff between speed, capacity, and reliability.

3.5 vs 2.5 HDD drives

I was always thinking that 3.5 drives are considered more reliable, while 2.5 are for laptop dummies.

It turns out that it's a myth. 2.5 drives were initially designed to be portable so there is an opinion they are even less vulnerable to vibration and other external impact.

It turns out that 2.5 drives are often used in data centers because they need less space.

Key takeaway: At least they are not necessarily less reliable.

External USB vs. Internal SATA drives.

All external HDDs have plain old good 2.5 HDDs inside. Surprisingly, it turns out that external drives are often cheaper than the exact same models sold as bare internal 2.5 HDD.

It happens because external drive producers are capable of buying internal drives in bulk for cheaper prices and then making further decisions on their external drive pricing policy.

HDD & SSD References

For diversity reasons, it's advised to buy drives of different brands, models, and times of production. It makes a lot of sense to gradually buy drives increasing the home storage capacity step-by-step.