Recently, my 10-year old drive that I pulled out of an old computer died. I want to buy another one now. The machine will run Jellyfin (I have an existing collection that I will be transferring from another drive), Immich, and the *arr stack.
I have this motherboard which has one SATA port and one PCIe x1 port. For this reason, I won’t be able to add a second drive for redudancy, unless I add a PCIe to SATA card.
My biggest concern is that I want the drive to last. I don’t want much capacity, I think 1-2 TB is enough. My budget is from 0€ (of course) to 65-70€.
So I have a couple of questions:
- Should I buy an SSD or an HDD?
- I live in Greece and ServerPartDeals is not an option because shipping is really high. Do you know a place where I could purchase it? (Preferably in Greece, but not necessary)
- Do you have any specific drive suggestions?
- Is there any other way (except for buying a PCIe to SATA card) to add more drives in the motherboard?
Thank you.
I’ve been happy with Crucial’s MX500 SSDs.
Is there any other way (except for buying a PCIe to SATA card) to add more drives in the motherboard?
The site does say “1 x M.2”.
This. OP, get an M.2 NVME SSD in 2280 or 2260 size. Then you can add a SATA drive later, when/if you need it.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.
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If ambient noise is a concern, I’d go with an SSD. If money is tight, an HDD will give you the best value.
My server is in an otherwise quiet home office/sitting room, so I went with an 8TB SSD (870 QVO). Spinning disks make a fair bit of noise just waking up, let alone the actual file operations.
If it’s only 2 TB I’d go ssd.
And don’t get a super cheap one, but something from like Samsung or Sandisk or WD or sth.
You can go PCIe to m.2 pcie nvme.
If you dont need the drive to be fast and want best bang for your buck storage capacity, HDD is the way to go.
If you want speed and are ok with a higher price, SSD is best. Used enterprise HDD are usually a good value. Im in the US so not sure about where to purchase exactly.
Something to consider is if the drive you are storing the os and files on are the same, using am HDD will make it slower on start up.
My recommendation would be buying a used HDD at a local online marketplace, if you want bang for the buck, if you don’t, then buy a SSD from AliExpress(important to check reviews)
OP wants it to last, so I wouldn’t consider used hardware an option
I have bought several used hardware at local marketplaces which are working like a charm, it depends if you know about what are you looking for when you buy.
Going in a different direction here:
Buy a stable SSD with your budget to host your OS. Then call around to computer repair places, or E-Waste recycling joints, and ask if they have any old HDD drives laying around that can be recycled to use. Use these older HDDs to store your media and things that can be replaced. You may even get lucky enough to have a few larger HDDs where you can make a backup of your SATA HDD over USB every so often.
Why use SSD OS (unless he is using windows ). System can do to USB stick and rest od data to disk, and SSD may be a good option.
As someone who had jellyfin running on HDD and moved it to a solid state: it’s a night and day difference when loading things. The reduced storage capacity for the same cost is very much worth it IMO.
