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From: -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anybody Still Here
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 06:40:07 -0400
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On 3/2/24 2:18 PM, Alan wrote:
> On 2024-03-01 05:31, -hh wrote:
>> On 2/29/24 5:35 PM, Alan wrote:
>>> On 2024-02-28 18:34, -hh wrote:
>>>> John <nopam@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>> [-hh wrote]
>>>> Yeah, still checking in periodically.  With the demise of GG, it’s a 
>>>> lot
>>>> less convenient, as it’s now a “go launch an app” instead of having a
>>>> webpage interface.
>>>>
>>>> Meantime, I’ve been starting to debate getting a new NAS, versus 
>>>> taking an underutilized Mac mini I have and load it up
>>>> with some external HDDs and sharing them.
>>>
>>> Would you really save much by reusing the Mini?
>>
>> Probably some.  First, the Mini is currently doing nothing important,
>> so it is "free" vs buying a Synology NAS (probably the DS1522+ ($700);
>> for its storage pool, I have a decent number of external HDD's that I
>> could technically reuse .. for the drives to go therein, I have a huge
>> stack of "small" (under 8TB) capacities.
>>
> 
> Ah! That changes the equation quite a bit.

Indeed.

> 
> If both the "brain" of the NAS and the drives are sunk cost, the yeah, 
> the Mini will save you.

Well, the mini is a sunk cost, as is also the existing NAS, but buying 
another NAS (for more storage capacity) isn't a sunk cost.  Question is 
really if using the mini for this purpose is reasonable or not.  Answer 
to that comes down to the potential cost of external HDDs that I already 
have which would be 'free', as opposed to buying new HDDs for filling a 
new NAS.

> 
>> Probably the big technical question is given the age of some of these
>> legacy HDD cases, they could have max drive capacity constraints
>> which would prevent me pulling their existing small 1-2TB drives and
>> replacing them with 10TB's to reuse the external drive cases.  A
>> "short list" example to look into first are a pair of ~ten year old
>> USB/FW400 NewerTech dual HDD cases.
> Honestly, there is a hassle factor that I would be trying to avoid as 
> well. You might save a few dollars by reusing the Mini, but doing all 
> the research to see what your drive enclosures can support, and manually 
> configuring a RAID...
> 
> ...how many hours do you want to spend?


Ideally, zero :-)

But I'm figuring that a few hours is okay, especially since it would 
need to do an inventory all of the HDDs that I've accumulated over the 
years, and verify my redundant data backups, which I'm quite delinquent 
in having done anyway, so a chunk of this touch labor is notionally 
being "paid for" by this other existing 'maintenance overhead' task.


-hh