Desktop Storage Expansion - HBA Card

[Wittgenstein]

I maxed out my motherboard on my recording / editing desktop with six SATA hard drives and was looking to expand. After checking out Synology NAS boxes which seemed way overpriced, I picked up a $50 LSI 9211-8i HBA card which hooks up via PCI-E and provides an additional 8 SATA drives. I flashed the LSI card to ver20 IT firmware and removed the BIOS, so it didn’t slow down boot times, and problem solved.

I can now expand to 14 hard drives for over 100 terabytes of storage. Now to find more deals on 10TB and 8TB Western Digital EasyStore external hard drives and shuck em. For those interested, here is my full build list.

[tedmich]

$3k total!
Can it mine ethereum/heat the house while you work the second job?

I guess spinny HDs still do have a role to play, that's a good amount of storage!

[Wittgenstein]

$3k total!
Can it mine ethereum/heat the house while you work the second job?
I guess spinny HDs still do have a role to play, that's a good amount of storage!

Haha... That is the inflated "today's" price that Amazon pulls. I snagged almost all the parts on sale and did not pay nearly that much for everything. The power supply and graphics card were the worst offenders.

[big_teee]

I guess spinny HDs still do have a role to play, that's a good amount of storage!

SSD is only practical for smaller systems.
I own 3---1TB SSDs, but wouldn't want to fill up a server with them, not on my fixed income!
Wittgenstein, nice looking build!
T

[Wittgenstein]

SSD is only practical for smaller systems.
I own 3---1TB SSDs, but wouldn't want to fill up a server with them, not on my fixed income!
Wittgenstein, nice looking build!
T

Thanks! Once they start making 12TB or larger SSD's for $300 or less, I will gladly switch over haha. I do have a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive for my main windows drive, but I swapped out all my smaller 1TB SATA SSDs to my old computer to make room for larger spinning platter HDD's.

I use this computer as my DAW and for editing and storing video and photos. I have been shooting lately in 10-bit 4-2-2 4K 60fps with a Panasonic GH5 recording on a Atomos Inferno Ninja in Apple Pro-Res Hi Res format and the file sizes are just massive. I can fill up a 2-TB SSD in my Inferno Ninja with just 2 hours and 15 minutes of footage. And because it is for clients, I have to back everything up to a redundant hard drive. I probably should be doing it a third drive that is off-site tbh, but I can only do so much.

For the best bang for my buck I have been buying 8TB, 10TB, or 12TB Western Digital MyBooks and EasyStore external hard drives, which contain either a WD 5,400RPM Red drive or a "White Label" which is the same specs as a Red drive, but cost $100+ less than the bare drive. You just have to "shuck" the hard drive from it's enclosure carefully and store in case you need to send it in for warranty replacement. The "White" label drives have a anti-shuck feature that sends 5.5V of power on one of the pins which prevents the disk from spinning when placed into a desktop, but you can just cover that one pin with a piece of tape, and problem solved.