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Modern external raid enclosure?

CMetaphor

Quadfather
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
6,661
Location
Montreal, Canada
Hi once again HWC, it's me with yet another question / picking your brains.

Short version:
Help me pick an external, future-proof... something.

Long version:
My main gaming PC has... a storage problem. (Who knew, right? Oh ya, I put this in the storage section). It's an ASRock X570 Phantom ITX/TB3 motherboard that has (in order of speed + desirability):
-1x NVME PCIe 4.0 4x slot (underneath the board but I've wrapped it around to the top via an NVME extension)
-1x Thunderbolt 3 (40gbps) / USB 3.2g2 (10gbps) combo port.
-2x Rear USB 3.2g2 ports (10gbps)
-2x Rear USB 3.2g1 ports (5gbps)
-2x front panel USB 3.2g1 ports (5gbps)
-4x Sata3 6gbps ports

Now, I've got a problem: I don't like uninstalling games and I store too much on this PC. As a result, almost every port listed above is used (mostly external drives) except for the 4x Sata ports. I want to consolidate as much as I can onto one external device.

Options / Ideas (feel free to suggest others):

1) Find a USB 4.0 (that's obviously backwards-compatible with my boards TB3 40gbps Port) enclosure for a single drive nvme enclosure with a 4TB nvme drive. (A top-end PCIe 4.0 nvme can theoretically reach above 60gbps, but they're $$$)

2) USB4 enclosure as above, but for 2x-8x NVME drives, all as individuals. (Obviously would be multiplexing in some way, budget NVME drives would be fine here and would likely provide more total storage space)

3) USB4 enclosure but for 2x-8x+ NVME drives with an integrated RAID controller running raid 0/1/10 or possibly even RAID 50/60. (As with option 2, cheap nvme drives could be used. And while the Raid controller would likely need to be Veerrrrry fast to get anywhere close to 40gbps, it *Would* provide some data protection / redundancy and faster read speeds than a single cheap NVME drive could provide)

4) A USB 3.2g2 (10gbps) enclosure for 2x-8x+ SATA SSDs, as individual drives.

5) A USB 3.2g2 (10gbps) enclosure for 2x-8×+ SATA SSDs with a Raid controller for some sort of RAID array, which obviously would provide much faster read (and possibly write) speeds than option 4.

6) *Unlikely as heck* rebuild the entire PC into a new case with space for 4x 2.5 internal SSDs in a Raid array. (I already have a new case for my main build to move into someday, but it won't fit 4x 2.5 drives easily at all and I'm not buying a different case for it).

Well this post got long fast, sorry about that.

Summary / conclusion:
I'd really like to find a balance of storage space and speed, but there are some huge price differences to consider, as well as future-proofing and/or allowing for further expansion in the future. In short, I can't decide what to do, so I'm once again asking HWC for their opinions.

So, tell me what you think HWC! If you like I'll add a poll for everyone to vote on.

😅🤷‍♂️👍
 

CMetaphor

Quadfather
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
6,661
Location
Montreal, Canada
TerraMaster has a number of JBOD options and I think QNAP has a few now too.
I like those from a budget standpoint, but the only real advantage they offer is using less of my available ports. No speed increases or redundancy, so I'm on the fence for those.
 

ipaine

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 13, 2008
Messages
3,965
Location
Edmonton, AB
I have 2 of these:

Nothing fancy but they work well. As for "redundancy" I use stablebit drivepool and have everything set to duplicate.
 

CMetaphor

Quadfather
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
6,661
Location
Montreal, Canada
I have 2 of these:

Nothing fancy but they work well. As for "redundancy" I use stablebit drivepool and have everything set to duplicate.

How do these handle moving between systems? Does "stablebit drivepool" need to be installed on every PC in order to see the virtual raid -equivalent, or is the SW only needed for the interesting features of stablebit*?

*= dam cool software by the way! I've searched for a long time to find NAS -style software that could do things like stablebit can. Especially designating specific folders to be duplicated across all physical drives of the areay, that's a game-changer for old-school raid users like me.
 

JD

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
12,457
Location
Toronto, ON
Internally connected storage will always give you the best/most stable performance I'd say. No place at all to tuck a 2.5" SATA SSD? As you could just get a 8TB QLC drive since games aren't write-heavy.
 

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