Hello, author here! It&#x27;s a nice surprise to notice my own post here, but the timing is unfortunate as I&#x27;m shuffling things around on my home server and will accidentally&#x2F;intentionally take it offline for a bit.Here&#x27;s a Wayback Machine copy of the page when that does happen: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20251006052340&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ounapuu.ee&#x2F;posts&#x2F;2025&#x2F;10&#x2F;06&#x2F;datablocks-white-label-drives&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20251006052340&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ounapuu.e...</a>

I&#x27;ve had the same thing from random disconnects etc from various USB hard drives and SSD&#x27;s over the years.

Been using like 7 external usb drives with 40-50tb total for a few years with no issues. Not raid, just backing up drive to drive. No controller or drive issues. Mix of seagate and wd 8&#x2F;12&#x2F;16gb.I hate blanket recommendations like this by docs. To me, it just sounds like some guy had a problem a few times and now it&#x27;s canon. It&#x27;s like saying &quot;avoid Seagate because their 3tb drives sucked.&quot; Well they did, but now they seem to be fine.

The official TrueNAS docs recommend against using USB drives [1]. My understanding is that between the USB controller, flaky connectors and cables, and usb-to-sata bridges of varying quality, there are just too many unknowns to guarantee a reliable experience. For example, I’ve heard that some usb-to-sata controllers will drop commands and not report SMART data. That said, there are of course many people on the internet who have thrown caution to the wind and report that it’s working fine for them.Personally I’m in the process of building a NAS with an old 9th gen Intel i5. Many mobos support 6 SATA ports and three mirrored 20 TB pairs is enough storage for me. I’m guessing it’ll be a bit more power hungry than a ugreen&#x2F;synology&#x2F;etc appliance but there will also be plenty of headroom for running other services.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.truenas.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;core&#x2F;13.0&#x2F;gettingstarted&#x2F;corehardwareguide&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.truenas.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;core&#x2F;13.0&#x2F;gettingstarted&#x2F;coreha...</a>

Why is USB so bad at data integrity. Doesn&#x27;t it have error detection&#x2F;correction? If so, that sounds like a huge design flaw.

If you don’t need any performance it’s a great backup strategy. If your only way of connecting the drives to the laptop is USB I would be concerned about data integrity if it’s important data.

You can. It works fine if you know the limitations. An important one is, drives could disconnect, so traditional RAID wouldn&#x27;t be good.If you want redundancy, look at something like SnapRAID, <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.snapraid.it" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.snapraid.it</a>If you want to combine into a single volume, consider rclone. These remotes specifically are the ones I&#x27;m thinking could be useful,- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;local&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;local&#x2F;</a>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;combine&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;combine&#x2F;</a>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;cache&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rclone.org&#x2F;cache&#x2F;</a>Good luck o7

When I used a laptop as server, the battery became a spicy pillow. I think laptops are not designed to be running continuously and on warmer temperatures than normal.

I’ve use an P51 for about a year now with no issues. I initially bought 6bay DAS, but I’ve since moved to pure SSD storage inside the laptop.

I believe Synology&#x27;s UPS monitoring is based on nut-server[1]. In my setup, I am running the server on a separate machine that reads UPS state over USB and Synology is just a client. Maybe UNAS could also just work as a client.[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;networkupstools.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;networkupstools.org&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;m considering doing the same, I guess one would basically just be splitting functions, a dedicated NAS, and a dedicated server for all the functions that Synos tend to perform (generally not very well, but at least with pretty low power usage).

I think they just released some new prosumer ups.

&gt; I was about to buy a NAS.The UNAS Pro 8 just came out and I&#x27;m thinking about getting it, switching away from my aging Synology setup ... only thing I wish it had was a UPS server as my Synology currently serves that purpose to trigger other machines to shut down ...

I was about to buy a NAS. I find the idea of using an old laptop instead interesting. Especially since it comes with UPS built in.The author is using a ThinkPad T430.Any experiences?

Weren&#x27;t shucked drives (removed from enclosures) referred to as White label drives at one point?

What exactly are these &quot;white label drives&quot;? Aren&#x27;t these just normal seagate exos drives with SMART information wiped and labels removed? i.e. just a worse used drive.

Might be a bit adventurous for primary storage (though with enough backup and redundancy, why not). But seems perfect for me for backup &#x2F; cold storage.

You can find cheap used enterprise SSDs on ebay. But the problem is that even the most power efficient enterprise SSD (SATA) idle at like 1w. And given the smaller capacities, you need many more to match a hard drive. In the end HDD might actually consume less power than an all flash array + controllers if you need a large capacity.

Curious, what&#x27;s the use case for wanting your data backed-up without fail? Is it personal archives or otherwise (business) archive related?Not to say you shouldn&#x27;t backup your data, but personally I wouldn&#x27;t be to affected if one of my personal drives errored out, especially if they contained unused personal files from 10+ years ago (legal&#x2F;tax&#x2F;financials are another matter).

I would also prefer having a large number of high capacity SSDs so I could replace my spinning hard drives.But even the cheapest high capacity SSD deals are still a lot more expensive than hard drive array.I’ll continue replacing failing hard drives for a few more years. For me that has meant zero replacements over a decade, though I planned for a 5% annual failure rate and have a spare drive in the case ready to go. I could replace a failed drive from the array in the time takes to shut down, swap a cable to the spare drive, and boot up again.SSDs also need to be examined for power loss protection. The results with consumer drives are mixed and it’s hard to find good info about how common drives behave. Getting enterprise grade drives with guaranteed PLP from large on-onboard capacitors is ideal, but those are expensive. Spinning hard drives have the benefit of using their rotational inertia to power the drive long enough to finish outstanding writes.

Don&#x27;t RAID these days. Software won rather drastically, likely because CPUs are finally powerful enough to run all those calculations without much of a hassle.Software solutions like Windows Storage Spaces, ZFS, XFS, unRAID, etc. etc are &quot;just better&quot; than traditional RAID.Yes, focus on 2x parity drive solutions, such as ZFS&#x27;s &quot;raidz2&quot;, or other such &quot;equivalent to RAID6&quot; systems. But just focus on software solutions that more easily allow you to move hard drives around without tying them to motherboard-slots or other such hardware issues.

RAID. Preferably RAID 6. Much, much better to build a system to survive failure than to prevent failure.

I have a dozen refurbished exos disk in my storage machine. Works super!
SSD for bigger storage is simply too expensive

Not really. I know that my sleep is worth more than the difference between HDD and SSD prices, and I know the difference between the failure rates and the headache caused by the RMA process, so I buy SSDs.In essence, what we together are saying is that people with super-sensitive sleep that are also easily upset, and that don&#x27;t have ultra-high salaries, cannot really afford 18 TB of data (even though they can afford an HDD), and that&#x27;s true.

And I prefer to have a healthy bank account balance.Storing 18TB (let alone with raid) on SSDs is something only those earning Silicon Valley tech wages can afford.

There&#x27;s a big difference between used as in I just bought this hard drive and have used it for a week in my home server, and used as in refurbished drive after years of hard labor in someone else&#x27;s server farm

Every drive is &quot;used&quot; the moment you turn it on.

I admire the courage to store data on refurbished Seagate hard drives. I prefer SSD storage with some backups using cloud cold storage, because I’m not the one replacing the failing hard drives.

I have to imagine that the best NAS build is simply a 6-core or 8-core standard AMD or Intel with a few HBA controllers and maybe 10Gbit SPF+ fiber or something.&quot;Old server hardware&quot; for $300 is a bit of a variation, in that you&#x27;re just buying something from 5 years ago so that its cheaper. But if you want to improve power-efficiency, buy a CPU from today rather than an old one.--------IIRC, the &quot;5 year old used market&quot; for servers is particularly good because many datacenters and companies opt for a ~5-year upgrade cycle. That means 5-year-old equipment is always being sold off at incredible rates.Any 5-year-old server will obviously have all the features you need for a NAS (likely excellent connectivity, expandibility, BMS, physical space, etc. etc.). Just you have to put up with power-efficiency specs of 5 years ago.

If you want 100TB, you need a bigger NAS than most, and that makes most of the DIY NAS not so good. 2-4 drives seems to be where DIY shines. These days motherboards often stop at 4x sata, so you&#x27;ll need a HBA or USB (eww).Personally, I just don&#x27;t have that much data, 24TB mirrored for important data is probably enough, and I have my old mirror set avaialable for media like recorded tv and maybe dvds and blu-rays if I can figure out a way to play them that I like better than just putting the discs in the machine.

I&#x27;ve been considering &quot;de-enterprising&quot; my home storage stack to save power and noise and gain something a bit more modular. Currently I&#x27;m running on an old NAS 1U machine that I bought on eBay for about $300, with a raidz2 of 12x 18TB drives. I have yet to find a good way to get nearly that much storage without going enterprise or spending an absolute fortune.I&#x27;m always interested in these DIY NAS builds, but they also feel just an order of magnitude too small to me. How do you store ~100 TB of content with room to grow without a wide NAS? Archiving rarely used stuff out to individual pairs of disks could work, as could running some kind of cluster FS on cheap nodes (tinyminimicro, raspberry pi, framework laptop, etc) with 2 or 4x disks each off USB controllers. So far none of this seems to solve the problem that is solved quite elegantly by the 1U enterprise box... if only you don&#x27;t look at the power bill.

I don’t trust big channels especially, because I assume they have just sold themselves out to the biggest sponsor. Influencers only exist due to campaign deals, where companies try to sneak their ads into your mind by abusing your inclination to trust another human being. All of it is sickening.In comparison, I’d rather read a general review magazine with a long history. At least they don’t try to trick me into believing they are working out of the goodness of their hearts, and they usually aren’t married to a single big sponsor.Online reviews are broken beyond repair.

They don&#x27;t have to tell you anything. Just unbox and show what they got.I just purchased a bicycle chain cleaning device. It was absurdly cheap. The plastic was extruded poorly, it was hard to assemble, it was not entirely obvious how to use it. However! It did the job and it barely got dirty. I expected it to be full of rusty oil both inside and outside but it accumulated just a tiny smudge on the inlet. If anyone made a video it would be a fantastic product.

Alternatively, unknown creators have less incentive to falsely promote or lie. It’s the reason I tend to trust random strangers on Reddit than popular YouTubers who have achieved monetization and sponsorship.

Coincidentally or not, those folks who have more subscribers usually charge more for their consideration. That’s why I generally trust Steve of Gamers Nexus more than other folks, because they don’t do ads except for promoting their own products, so there’s no conflict of interest. On the one hand, Gamers Nexus doesn’t manufacture their own hard drives, but on the other, they publish their methodology and have a reputation to uphold, so I would trust their judgement regarding testing computer hardware more than folks who do engage in outside advertising.

The reason you don’t see videos arranged by product is because everyone knows not to trust unknown creators telling you how great a product is.Viewers want to see opinions from specific people they’ve come to trust, not the first video that comes up for a product.

There&#x27;s Kakaku.com[1] in Japanese Internet for all consumer electronics, Minkara for cars, bookmeter.com for books, and 5ch.net as fallback. It&#x27;s surprising that there&#x27;s only Goodreads on English Internet that everyone have heard of...1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review.kakaku.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;K0001682323&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review.kakaku.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;K0001682323&#x2F;</a> | <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review-kakaku-com.translate.goog&#x2F;review&#x2F;K0001682323&#x2F;?_x_tr_sl=ja&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review-kakaku-com.translate.goog&#x2F;review&#x2F;K0001682323&#x2F;...</a>

OT&gt; Half of tech YouTube has been sponsored by companies like...It just struck me that the product reviews are a part of the social realm that is barely explored.Imagine a video website like TikTok or YouTube etc where all videos are organized under products. Priority to those who purchased the product and a category ranked by how many similar products you&#x27;ve purchased.The thing sort of exists currently in some hard to find corner of TEMU etc but there are no channels or playlists.

These drives are very likely refurbs that are unofficial.White labeling avoids lawsuits.

Testing two 18 TB white label SATA hard drives from datablocks.dev