Dell PowerEdge r710 storage upgrade

[HeroRareheart]

I have an old Dell PowerEdge r710 that I'm using to run a Minecraft server for friends on and currently I have 3, dirt cheap, 120GB SSD's in it. I wouldn't mind having the server be multipurpose and serve as my NAS as well given that my actual NAS is built from trash picked parts and is on the verge of dying any day now. The server has 8 2.5 drive bays and can take both SAS and SATA drives, does anyone have good recommendations for drives I could use? Between the Minecraft server backups, a Satisfactory server I want to get running, and what's stored on my NAS I'm comfortable with a 2TB minimum but more is nice to have. I'm prepared to spend what's likely too much to upgrade this old thing, but I don't want bleeding edge stuff. My instinct says to buy quality NAS drives, such as ones from WD or Seagate, and just use those but I'd like to double check with other people first before making a purchase.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Well unfornalty there just aren't many good 2.5in hdds out there these days. Most are smr now, which really isn't good for raid.

 

Your options are to try to get older drives to get cmr 1 and 2 tb 2.5in hdds, or get ssds, or get smr drives and deal with the performance loss. Since is mostly backups, Id just get the smr drives here, and run them in raid 1/10 and replace drives as needed.

[Needfuldoer]

If it's just bulk storage, not where your world file is running from, 2.5" SAS hard drives are dirt cheap. (Get a couple extras as cold spares, just in case.) You should be able to find regular drives, but if they came out of NetApp storage arrays you might have to reformat them to 512 byte sectors using some Linux tools. They might even come in the right drive caddies for your chassis, but don't pay more than you would buying them separately.

 

I put together a Proxmox cluster over the last year or so, and the storage arrays are all 600 gig, 10k RPM Seagate drives. They averaged out to about $10 USD apiece (including shipping), and across several vendors I only got one DOA.

[HeroRareheart]

6 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If it's just bulk storage, not where your world file is running from

The world file for Minecraft will be stored on the drives, same with satisfactory. As far as the other files go though I'll mostly be storing music and photos.

 

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id just get the smr drives here, and run them in raid 1/10 and replace drives as needed.

Would the performance loss be enough to cause me significant issues? Also all new NAS drives I found were 3.5 anyhow...

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, HeroRareheart said:

The world file for Minecraft will be stored on the drives, same with satisfactory. As far as the other files go though I'll mostly be storing music and photos.

 

Would the performance loss be enough to cause me significant issues? Also all new NAS drives I found were 3.5 anyhow...

Really depends on your exact use case, but with raid 1/10 and ligher use it should be fine. They can drop down to the 10-20mB/s speeds with random writes though. If you can buy the drives from a place that allows returns I would just get the cheaper 2/3/4/5 tb 2.5in hdds and see if they work for you.

[HeroRareheart]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Really depends on your exact use case, but with raid 1/10 and ligher use it should be fine.

Other than generating new chunks in Minecraft the use is rather light.

 

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I would just get the cheaper 2/3/4/5 tb 2.5in hdds and see if they work for you.

Any recommended brands or models?

 

Edit: I just checked WD and they have 2.5 750GB CMR RED drives on clearance, going to order them right away as it seems like a good fit for my use case.

Edited February 20, 2022 by HeroRareheart
Update

[Needfuldoer]

Cheaper than $25, including the caddy?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223091733205

[HeroRareheart]

10 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Cheaper than $25, including the caddy?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223091733205

After adding in caddy cost it's about $50 a drive and but these are new instead of used so I expect it would last longer and I'd run into less issues. Personally I think that double the cost is worth it for my situation, however if someone was trying to be more budget conscious your idea would be a great solution as well.