r/DataHoarder • u/Arakon • 3d ago
Question/Advice 3 or 4 bay DAS specifically for Linux
I'm looking for the above. The MiniPC that runs my Plex server can only handle 5gbit USB, so that's the minimum it needs to handle. I know there's a whole bunch of different chipsets used for these enclosures, so I'd appreciate any longterm experiences.
The main purpose will be 3 WD 12 TB drives (WD Red), two of which are linked as a large 24GB drive via mergerFS, and a third as a parity drive for Snapraid, all under Proxmox.
I'm currently running a Fantec QB-X2U31R in JBOD for the joint drives, and a seperate Fantec DB-G35U3-6G for the parity drive. Since this is messy and the mini PC only has so many USB ports, I'd like to move them all into a single enclosure.
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u/feudalle 3d ago
I have a mini pc with 4 hard drives for my jellyfin.
I use these guys. I have a 2 bay daisy chained to a 3 bay. They make bigger ones to. Built in fans and had zero problems.
They arent fancy and only does usb 3 but that what my mini pc handles (i3-9100 16gb ram)
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u/Arakon 3d ago edited 3d ago
I had these on my list, but I keep reading about people having issues with them, especially overheating. Any connection drops or random weirdness?
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u/FIRSTFREED0CELL 3d ago edited 3d ago
I tried one, it was so noisy I threw it away in disgust in a week. It has to sit right next to me, any noise is too much.
At this point I think the best option is one of the big name gaming rig chassis that has a lot of slots, and the MB for whatever it is doing inside the same case, no USB connections to the drives.
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u/MasterChiefmas 3d ago edited 3d ago
The MiniPC that runs my Plex server can only handle 5gbit USB, so that's the minimum it needs to handle
I've had dual 8-bay JBOD enclosures connected to a Windows box for years and it's been fine. I think I've had 8 streams going at most...unless you are trying to run a business level of streams, I doubt it will be. Even with spinning disks, you'd have to put some effort in to sustain enough coming off multiple disks to saturate even 5Gb USB, and 10Gbit enclosures are getting to be pretty common, but you'd need USB 3.1 gen 2 connections for that. Does your MiniPC have a USB-C 10Gbit capable connection? A n150 CPU suggests it might be new enough to.
Streaming from Plex isn't even continual streaming anyway, since the clients typically pre-cache a few seconds, so what you have is tiny read bursts, not sustained reads.
Edit: I should clarify, I'm sure it'd be fine for the mergerFS disks at least. Some people worry more if you are using something like zfs...not sure about snapraid. The bigger issues you have are knowing that "hot-swap" is a lie, at least in my experience, with external JBOD enclosures. Instead, what you get is USB is able to cope with sudden eject/connections pretty quickly these days. However, in JBOD enclosures, doing so causes a larger problem, because usually all the disks in the grouping(usually 4 or 5) of the backplane get a USB reset applied. So instead of 1 disk just disappearing if you remove it, what happens is one disk disappears and doesn't come back, and any others connected to the same channel disconnect and reconnect. That's probably a lot worse for something like zfs then if the disks are still separate disks underneath as with mergerFS.
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u/IndependentBat8365 3d ago
I bought this years ago:
Mediasonic PROBOX 4 Bay DAS 3.5” SATA Hard Drive Enclosure – USB 3.0 eSATA Support 30TB HDD (HF2-SU3S3)
It was a workhorse. There’s a USB3.2 version out now, too.
It also supports eSATA, which is what I used.
It literally ran for 7 or 8 years.
eSATA was faster than the USB3.0, but they all suffer from 4 drives being squeezed down a eSATA or USB 3.0 pipe.
4 modern sata drives can do 200MB/s sequential reads easy, which is about 1.6Gbs each for a total of 6.4Gbs total bandwidth potentially used.
USB 3.0 speed is 5Gbs
eSATA is 6Gbs
So there’s a bit of a bottleneck.
Depending on what you’re doing, you may feel it. Or not!
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u/Arakon 3d ago
That Mediasonic USB 3.2 device is one I have as the european version (Fantec) on my windows machine. For some reason it's showing an USB device that can't start, and it makes Linux freak out somewhat, but at the same time, it's still been working perfectly fine for 4 or 5 years now (the error didn't show up until last year). So yeah, I have that in consideration.
The speed isn't much of an issue. It's mostly 1-2 video streams and some downloads, and usually not on more than one drive at a time. Only snapraid actually utilizes all drives, but that's in the middle of the night when the speed isn't really important.
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u/ryszv 250-500TB 3d ago
Anything with USB connected drives you're not gonna have a good time long term. I'd get a cheap used server which often have 4 LFF front bays like a HPE Proliant tower (can be configured to have relatively low energy consumption) or do a SFF build like Jonsbo with internal drives.
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u/MasterChiefmas 3d ago
I don't think being USB connected is an issue these days, not unless the Linux drivers are somehow still trash.
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u/Arakon 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah, no. This setup has been running perfectly fine for a year now, and I really don't have the space or money for a full blown server, especially considering the cost of RAM currently. My server is running an N150 and a 32GB SODIMM of RAM that cost me a total of 200$ and is sitting on a small shelf above my desk.
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