Help / advice for external storage solution

[CaNeW0rld]

Hello there,

 

I’m looking for an external storage solution and need a little help or some alternatve suggestions.

 

I use a 3.5-inch HDD on my laptop as a data archive (not for backup), and I still have two 500 GB 2.5-inch HDDs and one 120 GB 2.5-inch HDD lying around.

 

My idea was to get a new 4-bay HDD enclosure so I could use the unused HDDs as additional storage.

 

I was thinking of something like this:

https://yottamaster.com/products/yottamaster-aluminum-5-bay-usb3-1-type-c-external-hard-drive-enclosure-for-3-5-2-5-inch-sata-hdd-ssd-support-5-x-16tb-mac-style-direct-attached-storage-das-ps500c3?srsltid=AfmBOopmt0DaYaDhkT48LsxyaP8bqoudFiN4EB_PGTtunq3SvIwmS35C&variant=40041462726774

 

RAID as a fail safe would be preferred – spinning metal with different ages and uptimes…

 

Now the thing with different RAID types.

Storage space vs. data parity

 

RAID 0 / JBOD - max storage space but no parity

RAID 1 or 5 - parity but a lot of space lost

RAID 10 also leaves a lot of space unusable

 

RAID 3 (?) I don't really get the difference from 5

It's probably not that common or typical either

 

Does anyone have any advice, tips, or alternative suggestions for me?

 

Thanks in advance

 

(This post was translated from German to English using DeepL – sorry for maybe some grammar hicups)

[Blue4130]

24 minutes ago, CaNeW0rld said:

Hello there,

 

I’m looking for an external storage solution and need a little help or some alternatve suggestions.

 

I use a 3.5-inch HDD on my laptop as a data archive (not for backup), and I still have two 500 GB 2.5-inch HDDs and one 120 GB 2.5-inch HDD lying around.

 

My idea was to get a new 4-bay HDD enclosure so I could use the unused HDDs as additional storage.

 

I was thinking of something like this:

https://yottamaster.com/products/yottamaster-aluminum-5-bay-usb3-1-type-c-external-hard-drive-enclosure-for-3-5-2-5-inch-sata-hdd-ssd-support-5-x-16tb-mac-style-direct-attached-storage-das-ps500c3?srsltid=AfmBOopmt0DaYaDhkT48LsxyaP8bqoudFiN4EB_PGTtunq3SvIwmS35C&variant=40041462726774

 

RAID as a fail safe would be preferred – spinning metal with different ages and uptimes…

 

Now the thing with different RAID types.

Storage space vs. data parity

 

RAID 0 / JBOD - max storage space but no parity

RAID 1 or 5 - parity but a lot of space lost

RAID 10 also leaves a lot of space unusable

 

RAID 3 (?) I don't really get the difference from 5

It's probably not that common or typical either

 

Does anyone have any advice, tips, or alternative suggestions for me?

 

Thanks in advance

 

(This post was translated from German to English using DeepL – sorry for maybe some grammar hicups)

If you want to use RAID, then you need to give up the 120GB drive otherwise the rest of the drives will only be able to use 120 GB of space. A mirror of the two 500 GB drives would be what I do. The 120GB drive is not really worth using in my opinion. 

[Aleph256]

41 minutes ago, CaNeW0rld said:

I use a 3.5-inch HDD on my laptop as a data archive (not for backup), and I still have two 500 GB 2.5-inch HDDs and one 120 GB 2.5-inch HDD lying around.

 

My idea was to get a new 4-bay HDD enclosure so I could use the unused HDDs as additional storage.

 

What capacity is the 3.5" drive? If it's above 500GB, you might want to either consider going JBOD or invest in drives matching it (you can buy them used/refurbed, just have the seller send you a SMART test result).

 

If you use any kind of RAID configuration, each drive will be capped at the capacity of the smallest drive in the array - as @Blue4130 pointed out, you might want to drop the 120GB altogether, its functionally e-waste in 2026.

 

I would go with RAID5 - it's what would result in the least space lost.

It will, however, stress your remaining drives more than RAID10 when you need to rebuild the array. But for the capacities we're talking about here it should be OK.

[keskparane]

For the cost of that box you'd be able to find a 1TB external SSD. USB 3, simple, portable.

[CaNeW0rld]

2 hours ago, Aleph256 said:

What capacity is the 3.5" drive?

it's 4 TB

 

1 hour ago, keskparane said:

For the cost of that box you'd be able to find a 1TB external SSD. USB 3, simple, portable.

Already got a 2 TB portable SSD, no need for that.

 

I also have a 8 TB 2-bay NAS as a backup and mediaserver.

 

Just don't want to throw away working hardware.  

 

I get it, it's a dilemma and that's why I posted here to maybe get some other ideas.

[Aleph256]

2 hours ago, CaNeW0rld said:

it's 4 TB

Then going for any kind of redundancy is pretty much a no-go unless you plan on buying extra drives.

Honestly if you just have the bare drives lying around and want to drop stuff on them, you should just grab basic SATA-to-USB enclosures (or, hell, just the cable), make a second copy of your most important files on the small ones, and call it a day.

[CaNeW0rld]

1 hour ago, Aleph256 said:

Honestly if you just have the bare drives lying around and want to drop stuff on them, you should just grab basic SATA-to-USB enclosures (or, hell, just the cable), make a second copy of your most important files on the small ones, and call it a day.

 

2 or 3 separate enclosures or just cables is not very practical.

 

But maybe it is time to go for a cheap or uses office desktop  and building a dedicate storage server.

I tihnk a PCIe adapters for a few SATA drives.

Then just use a software RAID solution or something along those line.

To bad my old laptops battery regulation circuits died.

[Aleph256]

1 hour ago, CaNeW0rld said:

2 or 3 separate enclosures or just cables is not very practical.

Well, duh, but with what you have on hand, it's what makes the most sense.

 

Building a NAS is a good objective, but as already discussed, these 2.5" you have lying around won't cut it in this usecase, and thus we're out of the scope of your initial question which was reusing them.

The only second lives you can give them is as external media, or slapped into laptops that also have a second slot for a SSD/NVME (or in place of the optical drive with an adapter bracket).

[CaNeW0rld]

I think I'm going to use this for the 2x 500GB

 

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005007317767076.html?src=google&snpsid=1&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=272-267-0231&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&gclsrc=aw.ds&albagn=888888&ds_e_adid=726717691648&ds_e_matchtype=search&ds_e_device=c&ds_e_network=g&ds_e_product_group_id=296303633664&ds_e_product_id=de1005007317767076&ds_e_product_merchant_id=5551326180&ds_e_product_country=DE&ds_e_product_language=de&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product_store_id=&ds_url_v=2&albcp=22054759359&albag=172828878419&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22054759359&gclid=CjwKCAjwq6DQBhBVEiwA4ZD5XKJKSPnyma2lKKlVoLN9Nu9KkRyUSdivgK37yJ3Yf-0dt80co84ckRoCqsYQAvD_BwE

 

and a powered USB hub to combine with my 4 TB HDD.

 

The 120 GB is out, doesn't make sens for that little storage space.

 

Thank you for the suggestions and advice