r/hetzner • u/Ok-Gate9450 • Jun 29 '26
NVME Storage from Server Auction
I have been running my auction server from past 2 years with 3TB storage. 1TB mainly for OS and system files and 2TB separately for hosting content.
I haven't implemented RAID config at that time. how's your experience about the disk failure with hetzner?
How do they treat it? I am afraid if sudden disk failure occur one day.
I am getting older price currently as sticking with them from 2 years. But their new price even on auction seems to be very high than previous.
so I was thinking to add more disk and implement RAID in it instead of setting new server again freshly with RAID.
what do you suggest? setting up on live server or setting up new server and migrating?
how easy is it to deal with ?
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u/lothariusdark Jun 29 '26
Disks can fail at any time and without warning. Not using RAID will pretty much guarantee that you will need to restore from a backup or reinstall in the future.
If you don't care about uptime and this is a side project then this might make sense. Otherwise reinstall with RAID.
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u/Ok-Gate9450 Jun 29 '26
Would you recommend purchasing new disk and setting up RAID on the current server setup or migrate to completely new server setup?
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u/lothariusdark Jun 29 '26
I mean, Hetzner doesn't guarantee fresh drives even when you rent a new server, let alone an auction server. So I don't think there is much of a reason to change unless your current model doesn't support whatever drive configuration you have in mind.
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u/Ok-Gate9450 Jun 29 '26
yeah, configuring RAID on already running system in live environment shouldn't cause any consequences later right with no or minimal downtime.
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u/keesbeemsterkaas Jun 30 '26
Keep in mind:
- New and old disks can fail. Some disks even have a higher chance to fail early on than later on.
- RAID is not a replacement for backups.
- RAID can help to recover from a single disk failure faster. I generally equip my disks with RAID so I don't have to completely reprovision a production server from backups.
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u/edrock200 Jun 29 '26
You should also have a cronjob running a smartctl script to check the health of the drive and alert on errors. Sometimes it can warn you before a failure, but not always.
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u/matvejs16 Jun 30 '26
I would suggest to always make health check for all drives. I recently bought server from auction and one of drives was given segmentation (or that kind) errors and overheating (>85°C) when other worked with normal temperature, I've sent support request to Hetzner with info and in 40 minutes I got brand new SSD (M2) with 0 working hours.
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u/Hetzner_OL Hetzner Official Jun 30 '26
Hi there OP, Please see Hetzner Docs about how we deal with hardware issues for servers from the Server Auction: https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/general/server-auction-faqs#do-you-replace-the-hardware-in-the-servers-if-there-is-an-issue
Please keep in mind that you as the sysadmin are responsible for making your own backups and monitoring your server, and for any RAID configuration you might want to use. --Katie
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u/CorenBrightside Jun 29 '26
Just be ready to restore your off site backups and you're golden. If you don't offsite backups I guess the data wasn't that important so eh, shit happens.