Larger Disk or JBOD Raid?

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

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I have two media PC's. One also serves as a network backup for the other media PC and my main PC.
One media PC has an 8TB hdd in it and the other has a 12TB. The second drive must be at least 2TB larger than the first.
Unfortunately, the 8TB is filling up and I need to replace the drive. 10TB should do me for some years.
There are two options -

1. Buy a 10TB drive to replace the 8TB drive. This will give me 10TB in one media PC and 12 in the other which meets my needs for some years. Probably the life of the drives. The 8TB drive gets put in a draw for who knows what.
2. Buy a RAID card and a 6TB. Use JBOD to add to the 8TB drive to make 14TB in one media PC and 12 in the other. Arguably this is too much space but I suppose at least seems more worthwhile for the money.

Option 2 costs the same as option 1, which is a few hundred quid.

Which would you buy?
 
Any specific reason for hardware raid rather than just software pooling them? Might change your mind in terms of costs, but presuming each are equal they seem to have pros and cons to me:

Jbod 14tb

Cons
- additional complexity and faff
- additional power/sound/heat
- when you expand again you'll need to jbod again or your card cost is sunk (unless you just software it)
- increased risk of loss of all data as you now have 3 single points of failure (card, disk 1, disk 2), one of which (8tb disk) is used so much higher risk

Pros
- if the drives last, they won't need replacing as soon due to being a higher total size vs 10tb


Single 10tb disk

Cons
- have to replace it earlier due to less total size vs 14tb

Pros
- same complexity as current
- same power/sound/heat as current
- same risk level due to only one failure point, of which none are used
- no sunk card cost if change from jbod setup later (unless you just software it)

Might be missing something but that's my 2p. If you're not fussed about any of the cons of the multi disk solution then it's a case of just estimating solution cost over its life.
 
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Thank you for the reply.
It seems that the JBOD is way to go.

Wait....
Can Windows 11 do JBOD?
I am watching a video that seems to think it can. That it can create a single volume that spans two drives.
If that's the case then the solution is a done deal. It means I don't need the RAID controller so expanding the 8TB to 14TB would only be £150.
 
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Yes it can. I had no idea. I thought RAID solutions were BIOS level but apparently not. As long as it's not boot drives then Windows can create JBOD type or Striped volumes over multiple drives.
Good enough for me! It's a cheap option and allows me a huge increase for only £150 for a new 6TB drive.
I am not bothered by failure. The systems act as backups for each other, so if one fails the other is a backup.
 
Yep easy enough, just convert to dynamic disk and boomshanka. Will lose all your data but as you say you can just restore from backup.
 
Windows storage spaces is much more versatile
Than software jbod made in disk management
More resilient too survives motherboard/hardware changes
Windows reinstall etc
Only thing to be aware of with it
When you set up a storage pool
You have to give it a size
Just tell it a much bigger size than the total sum
Of the disks used
That allows additional drives to be added in the future
You can have multiple storage pools too
If required
Can mix sata hdd ,ssd,m2 ,different sizes,speeds etc
If it could make bootable storage spaces or pools
Then it would be perfect
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Windows storage spaces is much more versatile
Than software jbod made in disk management
More resilient too survives motherboard/hardware changes
Windows reinstall etc
Only thing to be aware of with it
When you set up a storage pool
You have to give it a size
Just tell it a much bigger size than the total sum
Of the disks used
That allows additional drives to be added in the future
You can have multiple storage pools too
If required
Can mix sata hdd ,ssd,m2 ,different sizes,speeds etc
If it could make bootable storage spaces or pools
Then it would be perfect
Click to expand...
Ooh that's very interesting.
 
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