Subj : To shuck or not to shuck...
To   : All
From : Digital Man
Date : Sun Dec 03 2023 03:14 pm

I was looking to add some terabytes to my workstation's "cold" storage. I already have 8 terabytes of very fast NVMe-SSD and a slow (SMR) internal 8TB hard disk, as well as some USB external drives and network attached drives. Why the need for so much storage? 4K video editing and all kinds of video hoarding.

During Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals, I found a good deal on an external Seagate 14TB USB drive at Costco: $149. Dollars per terabyte, hard to beat that price.

The disk inside this external drive enclosure is just a standard Seagate Exos or IronWolf Pro NAS class-drive CMR hard drive (which separately, sell for more than, sometimes double, the external drive). Reportedly, this price difference is because the warranty on the bare drive is longer than when sold as part of the external drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41JwxULVdAs

My first instinct/plan was to "shuck" the drive and install it inside my workstation (there's room and cabling and power to support it), but now I'm having second thoughts: USB 3.0 is 5Gbps while SATA 3 is 6Gbps. Is that potential 20% gain in performance something I need for this drive? Not especially. Some say that removing the drive, which usually damages the USB enclosure, may void its warranty. Others say it does not. Shucking cheaper external drives as replacement drives in a NAS (where USB isn't an option) is a fairly popular thing to do, but I'm not really sure about the advantage for workstation use. It is another box on the flower, another USB cable and port used, and its own power adapter. But what is one more in mess under and beside my desk?

What are you experiences with external USB drives? Have you shucked them and used the bare drive in SATA NAS or workstations?
-- 
                                            digital man (rob)

Rush quote #45:
The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect
Norco, CA WX: 66.2øF, 47.0% humidity, 0 mph ENE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

---
 þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

.