Blast from the past >_<

[Cheb]

I wanted to tell this story here right away in the January but I forgot

There were four brothers, Samsung HD204UI 2Tb.
One dropped from the raid array in less than a year.
"Infant mortality", I thought and bought a WD Green to replace it (which turned to be a royal pain with its LCC quirk, being incompatible with Linux).
But i didn't throw the carcass away, I shelved it, then forgot about it.

More than 7 years had passed.

The three brothers are still online, 24/7, without a single relocated sector.

In January 2019, I decided to upgrade my file server as the venerated PSU began rattling. Using antique parts I found at the dig site of my storage closet, I managed to increase the number of 2Tb drives from 7 to 9. Among other things, I connected all 4 cadavers I had to a test machine. 2 of them turned out to be quite alive, including the fourth brother. Self-diagnostics returned all green, wear level = 10 months online.

I installed it into my file server. The venerated Ubuntu 11.10 (which I haven't reinstalled since, just cloned it to a SSD) recognized her wayward son, automatically mounting it as an additional degraded raid 1. I added another drive to it, giving it a day to rebuild.

I got a real time capsule! It captured the state of my file server as it was back in 2011. I got lost videos of my late pigeon's youth I since deleted by accident, a snapshot of my game engine from the period of 2007..2014 for which no other archives survived and several anime amvs from the early 2000s

I still haven't repurposed that raid since I now have 4 of them forming 8Tb of space, the 9 drives distributed as 3-2-2-2. >_<

I think shock absorbing brackets to mount 3-inch hdds into 5-inch bays via rubber holders are really useful in keeping them living longer. Not to mention the soft foam pads I usually keep the case standing on.

[Spica75]

I got a real time capsule! It captured the state of my file server as it was back in 2011. I got lost videos of my late pigeon's youth I since deleted by accident, a snapshot of my game engine from the period of 2007..2014 for which no other archives survived and several anime amvs from the early 2000s

Nice! Don't forget to make a copy of those files now!

the dig site of my storage closet

Pure archaeology.

I still haven't repurposed that raid since I now have 4 of them forming 8Tb of space, the 9 drives distributed as 3-2-2-2. >_<

Still not using RAID at all... But just got myself an external 6TB drive to backup my current setup, 250GB SATA SSD/3TB WD Red/2TB WD Red. Next stop, getting a 6TB to replace the 3 and 2 TB drives with(the latter has been around for quite a few years now), and replacing the SSD with a 500GB M2 SSD(but that means reinstalling, soooo boring, wait, strike that, ANNOYING).
It's amusing how much space you throw around casually nowadays.

[Cheb]

Pure archaeology.

No, really, it turned out that PCI board was designed for jailbreaking xbox360 and wasn't good for much else.
There are 3 SATA ports on it, one full-fledged and two paired, of which only one could be used at the same time. After much experimenting I found out that only the *external* SATA port of these two worked. The board had jumpers, so I went googling on how to switch them. It turned out there is a manual but because the board is so rare-earth, The Internetz didn't have it, it could only be found on the OEM CD included with the board.

And just as I read that, something under my chair's wheel said "Crack!"

It was the OEM CD that had fallen off the table. Died still sealed in its plastic wrapping ...

So I now have a SATA cable sticking out of my file server's butt, twisting and running back into the case.

but that means reinstalling, soooo boring, wait, strike that, ANNOYING

So true
That's why I just cloned that 8 years old Ubuntu install.
Could you use cloning like I did?

Still not using RAID at all...

I can't help it, traumatized by a drive dying slowly while I frantically copied the data elsewhere, not having enough capacity and abandoning some things over others. There are things lost from my early programming hobby, including a unique story text comparator utility I forgot the algorithm of and was never able to re-create it.

But just got myself an external 6TB drive to backup my current setup,

Ugh, I think I'm stuck with 2Tb drives for the foreseeable future. The current hardware *definitely* won't be able to work with bigger ones, I'd have to make myself a second file server, but... The price of two terabytes inside the Valley of Optimum haven't changed a iota since 2011, stuck at ~4500₽. The only difference is that the 2Tb drives are slightly out of the Valley now, their price grew for about 25% to ~5600₽. making a new server using 6Tb drives (say, 3x in raid 1) I'd have to pay for 9x 2Tb price (a full cost of all the 2Tb drives in my current setup already) and get less space out of it (6 instead of . A meaningless waste of money, even considering the power cost (~9000₽ a year for 1800 Kw*h). But would a new file server be consuming noticeably less energy? It's the mobo and the CPU who are the main offenders: all the drives together eat less than 40 Watt when idling and the system total ~200 Wt. Also, I've already invested 5000₽ into a new PSU and still have two 2Tb drives in reserve, one brand new (manufactured in 2012, with zero wear) and one sorta-Ok.

[Spica75]

And just as I read that, something under my chair's wheel said "Crack!"

It was the OEM CD that had fallen off the table. Died still sealed in its plastic wrapping ...

OUCH! That's epic irony and bad luck...
Still, i think you probably CAN get a copy of that online if you manage to ask in the right place, but if it's so rare, it's probably going to take a boring amount of effort.

Could you use cloning like I did?

Possibly, but because of how there was a tiny little hardware glitch while i originally installed(one CPU voltage got set too low, causing minimal instability, only very rarely but i can't know if the install is really ok), so i probably, REALLY should just reinstall.

I can't help it, traumatized by a drive dying slowly while I frantically copied the data elsewhere, not having enough capacity and abandoning some things over others. There are things lost from my early programming hobby, including a unique story text comparator utility I forgot the algorithm of and was never able to re-create it.

That sucks.

I pretty much always try to keep some sort of backups for anything i really want to keep, and so far, only 3 HDDs in almost 35 years that's gone bad, and only one of those crashed completely(back in late 80s), and thanks to a friend of my brother, he located the circuit that had burnt out, and transplanted an identical one from a spare parts drive, and the drive worked again, even if it forever more smelled a bit smoky.

More recently, i've made it my standard procedure that whenever i buy a HDD with a new system, i tend to buy a larger size than last time, and then copy stuff over and add the largest HDD from previous system to the new one.
So, for this system, i started it with a 3TB drive and a 2TB drive from my previous system, which started with a single 1TB drive and a 480GB from the system before that, and when replaced by this, it had two 1TB drives and the above 2TB drive...

Basically, trying to keep anything important in at least 2 places at any time. Currently, thanks to the new external, the important stuff is now on both drives in this system, on the external drive and on a USB memory.

Ugh, I think I'm stuck with 2Tb drives for the foreseeable future. The current hardware *definitely* won't be able to work with bigger ones, I'd have to make myself a second file server, but... The price of two terabytes inside the Valley of Optimum haven't changed a iota since 2011, stuck at ~4500₽. The only difference is that the 2Tb drives are slightly out of the Valley now, their price grew for about 25% to ~5600₽. making a new server using 6Tb drives (say, 3x in raid 1) I'd have to pay for 9x 2Tb price (a full cost of all the 2Tb drives in my current setup already) and get less space out of it (6 instead of . A meaningless waste of money, even considering the power cost (~9000₽ a year for 1800 Kw*h). But would a new file server be consuming noticeably less energy? It's the mobo and the CPU who are the main offenders: all the drives together eat less than 40 Watt when idling and the system total ~200 Wt. Also, I've already invested 5000₽ into a new PSU and still have two 2Tb drives in reserve, one brand new (manufactured in 2012, with zero wear) and one sorta-Ok.

The drive i got, a Seagate Backup plus was only 1630SEK, ie around 170USD. That's the advantage of external drives, they're still a bit slow compared to internal and you really need USB3 or better to have them run decently fast, but comparatively they're very cheap nowadays.
For an internal WD Red, i would have had to paid about 50% more, and almost twice that for a WD Black.

And IF you want a new fileserver, go for TWO larger drives in RAID1, much cheaper than many smaller ones. Or, get a single large drive, and 1 or 2 external drives that you run backup to.

[Cheb]

, even if it forever more smelled a bit smoky.

>_<

And IF you want a new fileserver, go for TWO larger drives in RAID1

Not for at least 5 yers, I think.
And only two make me feel naked and grate on my nerves. I use three for the array that holds the really important stuff and still have a nagging feeling I should have configured for four. The 2-drive arrays are for stuff of lesser importance.

of external drives

That too, but I only back up really important stuff that way, on leftover 2-inch SSDs and HDDs. Everything else resides on the file server.

When I first made it I was planning on replacing the drives every 4 years, according to Google's server analytics report. But surprisingly, most of them lived much longer. Even a Seagate Barracuda worked for 70K hours before passing away.

That sucks.

Yeah.
But honestly, it was simply bad luck coupled with my propensity for buying cheap drives.
Those weren't the best years for barracudas.

Basically, trying to keep anything important in at least 2 places at any time.

That is... A good reason.
I'll see if I could re-purpose that Atom web server into a backup file server for automatic backups.
Funny thing, that. I first bought an Atom mini-ITX mobo, intent to run the file server in a custom case of foam boards duct-taped together - and it worked for a while, until I noticed that the Atom CPU wasn't powerful enough for a software raid. So I conceded and re-assembled it in a standard tower with a Phenom II.

For several years, that file server was also my desktop. Now, I still use it to stress-test my game engine (the most badass rotating cube there is: 17 years in development, yo!) as there is no OGL2-compatible video card in existence wussier than GeForce 7025.