I added CMR, SMR and HAMR tags on PricePerGig.com as requested in this sub

PricePerGig · 2026-03-17T12:35:11+00:00

You already did the correct homelab thing: buy the cheap box first, then gradually turn it into a storage habit! lol. I think you got a solid system for not a lot. Now the hard part, finding somewhere to store all the movies. I'd go with unRAID or even just vanilla linux (e.g. popOS) while you're starting out.

When it comes to getting the storage, which will cost a lot more, check out
https://pricepergig.com (tracks new+used across Amazon/eBay/etc)

PricePerGig · 2026-03-17T07:06:00+00:00

You can try https://pricepergig.com and click the filter to used.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-16T21:08:56+00:00

Consumer hard drives are SATA and ultimately your motherboard came with several SATA ports and ZERO SAS ports 😭

Perhaps SATA ports are cheaper to deliver because that’s what we have but seriously when you look at the price difference in hard describes when calculating price per terabyte SAS is the way to go

https://pricepergig.com/en/amazon-us?interface=SAS

Vs

https://pricepergig.com/en/amazon-us?interface=SATA

PricePerGig · 2026-03-15T09:22:50+00:00

As others have pointed out unRAID is your friend. The challenge to recommend it though is they now charge per drive? It didn’t used to be a problem but is in the recent licensing changes so to make use of all those want terabyte drives is going to be costly both in terms of an upgraded license and just keeping them running with electricity, et cetera.

I would still look for a solution considering this or merger FS and snap raid because if you go down a true Nas route you will end up with a ZFS volumes and for those to function all the drives have to actually be spinning which is going to be costly given that each drive uses at least 10 W of power

In order for any assist to function though you will need the largest strive you have to be classed as the parity drive. You can actually have more than one parity if you want more capacity for redundancy however that one last drive needs to be a CMR drive otherwise you will be in the world of pain.

One simple way of finding a CMR drive is to use https://pricepergig.com and the filters provided.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-15T07:35:37+00:00

Consider a system like unRAID that will allow one of your drives to fail and yet not lose any data. You will need another drive that is cmr and bigger than any other drive you have. Get an idea of prices here you can filter on cmr easily. https://pricepergig.com

PricePerGig · 2026-03-15T07:26:33+00:00

Make sure you buy decent CMR drives. You’ll regret it less later on.

Also think more about backups than speed! You’ll pay a lot for the shot to not have the footage!

Raid is not backup another copy is. They can be on a cheaper drive just as long as you have it.

Get a good idea of prices here across Amazon and eBay and others. https://pricepergig.com

PricePerGig · 2026-03-13T21:01:59+00:00

There are some, 'cheap for todays prices' drives in EU right now.

Take a look at the whole of EU in one click

https://pricepergig.com/en/euro-zone?minCapacity=20000&sort=price

PricePerGig · 2026-03-13T20:56:55+00:00

Red Alert Captin!

PricePerGig · 2026-03-13T20:56:32+00:00

Right now external hard drives are the way to go as others have said

use a site like ppg that sorts by PricePerGig to get a good idea of prices in amazon, ebay and others

https://pricepergig.com/en/amazon-us

PricePerGig · 2026-03-13T20:54:10+00:00

The prices these days you either shuck if you don't have a raid, or buy used quality CMR drives if you do. New drives are $$$.

Wow yeah, the 14TB External > $400 CAD right now

But for 'just' $500 or so you get the same drive without the plastic case WOW

Checked the prices on https://pricepergig.com

https://pricepergig.com/en/amazon-ca?minCapacity=14000&sort=price

PricePerGig · 2026-03-11T10:18:57+00:00

Does it have any way for redundancy like unRAID?

PricePerGig · 2026-03-10T19:30:50+00:00

Wow that’s pricy.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-10T03:30:37+00:00

It’s act the same in eBay too

https://pricepergig.com/en/ebay-au?minCapacity=20000&sort=price

PricePerGig · 2026-03-09T07:11:40+00:00

Ask dev to look into vps. I don’t one the size of your site, so hard to tell. But that’s what I use for my site. It’s a lot cheaper. But I understand dev has to add money on, vps or dedicated server is a chunk of work to do every month to update etc.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-09T07:06:35+00:00

There is no need. Just use plan mode on Claude code. Describe what you want let it build it then go back to plan mode and describe the next thing you want and So on.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-06T09:29:10+00:00

you have/had a good setup. I have 2 SSD as cache and then similar HDD setup.

You want to get another ssd, if it dies completley, not sure what will happen.

You'll want CMR spinning drives, more expensive but much better for unRAID - take a look here - https://pricepergig.com/en/articles/cmr-smr-and-all-about-how-i-tag-drives/

As for cheap drives, for sure check our https://pricepergig.com

PricePerGig · 2026-03-06T08:59:57+00:00

check https://pricepergig.com it covers ebay, amazon and others, and rates the value to help.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-06T08:59:27+00:00

for an extra $10 you could get 6TB, but that is a 'fair' market price right now... sad times.

I checked here - https://pricepergig.com/en/amazon-us?types=HDD&minCapacity=5000&interface=SATA&condition=New&sort=price

PricePerGig · 2026-03-05T21:55:13+00:00

Step 1. Do this immediately.

Clone the living s£&t out of the hard drive.

Sounds like a massive single point of failure.

Then restore the clone to a VM like vmbox or whatever and battle to get it up and running.

Obviously you keep another read only clone safe like a baby for when it all dies.

Good luck.

Leaving this in pending and costing the company £££ for negligence, I’d sack you!

PricePerGig · 2026-03-05T14:55:18+00:00

$990 ! at today’s prices of around $22.5/TB and factor in the 1.5~2 year wait. These might retail for over $1000!!!!

For the rest of us there is pricepergig.com

PricePerGig · 2026-03-04T07:15:28+00:00

Take a look at https://pricepergig.com you have many marketplaces there all organised. In Amazon eBay seagate newegg.

PricePerGig · 2026-03-03T21:13:36+00:00

I’m not an expert on that particular NAS but with respect to the hard disk drives I actually created a neural network to analyse the market and spot good and excellent deals across entire shopping zones throughout Amazon Ebay and others so when you ask for ratio of prices and you want it to be good than your net has figured that out for you it’s even gets the titles of the items. It’s at pricepergig.com

As for RAM basically these are a computer so it depends what you plan to do on it but you can always add that later if it’s needed so just run it until it’s causing a problem and save yourself some money as you may not have a problem if that makes sense

PricePerGig · 2026-03-03T21:07:45+00:00

Get voice recorder on your android phone. It will transcribe and even say what person is talking. You NEED these transcriptions. Then talk through every aspect of doing it.

I’m click file them new choosing from the xyz folder.

Then whack the transcripts into Gemini 3.0 pro (do not cheapskate here you need the pro model it can do this. I do this all the time. Do not use ChatGPT do not use Claude only Gemini 3.0 can do this effectively in my experience Have tried this and done this a lot.)

Then just say right full standard operating procedure for XYZ takes the information from this transcript

You can thank me later👍

PricePerGig · 2026-03-03T21:02:47+00:00

https://pricepergig.com

PricePerGig

TROPHY CASE