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As OP says, I think this is the kind of thing that needs to be considered whenever the decision is made. As another data point, my NAS runs 4x4TB drives. When

As OP says, I think this is the kind of thing that needs to be considered whenever the decision is made. As another data point, my NAS runs 4x4TB drives. When I bought them new some 2-3 years ago, all at the same time, they were cheaper than buying the equivalent 2x8TB. My situation was somewhat different, though, since I'm running raidz1. But I did consider running a mirror, specifically in order to ease upgrading the capacity. However, I didn't expect to fill them /that/ quickly and I was right: yesterday it was still less than 70% full.

sandreas 1y ago
You are right, but to be max cost effective you could have gone 2 * 4tb or 2 * 6tb for 18 months and then sell the drives still in warranty to upgrade to more storage... Estimating storage growth is hard but when you monitor it regularly, its saving you much money
- vladvasiliu 1y ago
  Maybe... When I was younger, I used to buy and sell computer stuff. Didn't have much money, so it kinda made sense. But it required me to keep up to date with prices, specs, figure what's the best value, follow markets and jump on an occasion, etc. It got old after a while. There's also value in getting something that just works for you, if it's not absurdly expensive, and forget about it. Do something else with my time. I still love to tinker and set up a homelab and whatnot, but I don't care that much about hardware anymore. For my needs, if it's at least a 6th gen Intel and I can't hear it in my living room, it's good enough. The NAS lives in my parents' basement, so it can be somewhat louder (with 4 drives instead of two). For this particular setup, my initial usage was above 4 TB, so I should have went with 2x6, which was /maybe/ cheaper (don't remember), but then it would have required me to deal with selling used gear and go through the motions of upgrading again. Doing this every 4-5 years? Sure. Every year? Hell no.

sandreas 1y ago

You are right, but to be max cost effective you could have gone 2 * 4tb or 2 * 6tb for 18 months and then sell the drives still in warranty to upgrade to more storage... Estimating storage growth is hard but when you monitor it regularly, its saving you much money

vladvasiliu 1y ago
Maybe... When I was younger, I used to buy and sell computer stuff. Didn't have much money, so it kinda made sense. But it required me to keep up to date with prices, specs, figure what's the best value, follow markets and jump on an occasion, etc. It got old after a while. There's also value in getting something that just works for you, if it's not absurdly expensive, and forget about it. Do something else with my time. I still love to tinker and set up a homelab and whatnot, but I don't care that much about hardware anymore. For my needs, if it's at least a 6th gen Intel and I can't hear it in my living room, it's good enough. The NAS lives in my parents' basement, so it can be somewhat louder (with 4 drives instead of two). For this particular setup, my initial usage was above 4 TB, so I should have went with 2x6, which was /maybe/ cheaper (don't remember), but then it would have required me to deal with selling used gear and go through the motions of upgrading again. Doing this every 4-5 years? Sure. Every year? Hell no.