Need 32TB+ usable storage — auction server or build my own?

That's enterprise SATA/SAS URE spec. The shucked drives most homelab people use are 10^14. Run the math again: ~70% chance of URE during RAID6 rebuild of 7 remaining 8TB drives. RAIDZ2 with ZFS checksums doesn't fix the URE, it fixes the silent corruption detection. The rebuild still fails if the sector is unreadable.

This is why RAID60 or RAIDZ3 exists at scale. For 8x 8TB, I'd honestly consider RAIDZ3 or accept that rebuilds need to be monitored and you'll swap early.

I buy what others scrap and it usually works.

Last month: Dell R730, 2x E5-2630v3, 64GB, H730, 8x 3.5" bays, no rails. €180 from a Latvian recycler. Added 8x 4TB SAS from eBay Germany, €35 each. Total €460 for 24TB usable in RAIDZ2.

Idle is 155W. I pay €0.18/kWh here. That's €20/mo in power. Over 3 years, €720. Still cheaper than any colo option I can find in Baltics or Nordics.

The R730 is in my basement. I wear headphones.

Singapore power is S$0.32/kWh, roughly US$0.24. 180W here costs S$42/mo just in electricity. Plus apartments are small and AC is mandatory year-round. Nobody runs servers at home unless they're insane or very rich.

I use Vultr object storage for cold archive: S$6/TB/mo. Hot data is on a local Synology. The break-even for home server vs cloud here is basically never for anything over a few TB.

Then test your restore on the replaceable stuff. Seriously. Spin up a VM, pull a "Linux ISO" from your backup, verify it boots. Takes an hour. Do it twice a year.

The number of people who discover their backup is corrupt during the only restore that matters is too high. ZFS scrub helps, but it's not a restore test.

Your monthly rsync to external 8TB: is that drive powered on and connected 24/7? If so it's not really a backup, it's a mirror with lag. If it's disconnected and stored elsewhere, good.

Following this thread closely. I'm in the same boat, 16TB usable now, need to double.

One thing not mentioned: used enterprise SAS drives from eBay. Are we trusting these for primary storage? I bought 4x 6TB HGST SAS, 30k hours, one failed within 6 months. SMART looked fine. The replacement from the same seller failed in 3 months.

Now I only buy new or factory recertified with warranty. Costs more upfront, fewer 3am surprises.

This. The "cheap SAS from eBay" strategy works until it doesn't. HGST/HUW drives are tanks but 30k hours is 3.4 years of 24/7. You're buying the tail end of the bathtub curve.

If you go auction server + used drives, budget for one early replacement. Or buy 9 drives for an 8-slot chassis and keep a cold spare. The $50 you save per drive evaporates fast when you're paying for downtime or shipping a replacement from Germany to Latvia.

I like quiet servers and quiet rooms.

My solution: no rackmount hardware at home. Fractal Define 7 with Noctua fans, 6x 8TB WD Red Plus, Ryzen 5600G, passive PSU. 38W idle, inaudible at 1m. Not 32TB but 24TB usable in SHR-2.

For the extra 8TB I need, I add an external USB enclosure seasonally, rsync, then unplug. Not elegant. But I can sleep in the same room.

If I needed 32TB hot I'd look at colo too. Home is for quiet.

Has anyone priced Hetzner's auction servers lately? They used to be the go-to but their stock is thin now. The SX lines with 8x HDD are rarely available, and when they are, the setup fee is €100+.

I ended up at Contabo too. Not as cheap per month but actually in stock. Their Düsseldorf DC pings 4ms from my office.

This. Hetzner auction is a ghost town for storage servers. I had a watcher script running for 3 months, got one alert, it was gone in 90 seconds.

Contabo's "auction" is really just discounted older stock, not a true auction. But at least you can buy it.

Back to the colo math: OVHcloud's €80/mo is for 2U, 500W, 1Gbps unmetered but 100Mbps guaranteed. Read the fine print. If you're pushing backups overnight, that 100Mbps cap hurts. 32TB at 100Mbps is 29 days.

I asked about burst pricing. They want €40/mo extra for 1Gbps guaranteed. Now you're at €120. The math changes fast.