Linus Tech Tips: Building a 960TB Storage Array with Recertified Seagate Drives

Recertified Seagate drives offer significant cost savings for large-scale storage solutions.

### Cost-Effective Storage Solutions: The Journey of Recertified Drives
* 💾 Over the years, the need for storage has escalated, leading to the acquisition of **over 2.5 petabytes of bulk storage**, yet the demand continues to grow, particularly for **upcoming projects**.
* 💡 To address this challenge, the team is exploring the purchase of an **additional petabyte of storage**, seeking **more affordable options** in a tough economic climate.
* 💵 They discovered recertified drives from Seagate, available at **half the price of new drives**, prompting a **$10,000 order for 60 drives** from eBay.
* 📦 Although the recertified drives come with warranties and good seller ratings, there remains **uncertainty about their condition** and the implications of being labeled as **"recertified."**
* 🔍 After unboxing, the drives appeared nearly unused, with **low power-on hours** and **no visible signs of wear**, suggesting they were **recently manufactured**.
* ⚙ The team plans to repurpose an old Storinator XL60 server for the drives, emphasizing the **cost-effectiveness of on-premise storage** compared to cloud solutions.
* 🖥 To enhance performance, they are upgrading the server's hardware, including a **faster processor** and **more efficient storage controllers**, while ensuring proper cooling with **high-performance fans**.
* 🔧 Ultimately, the project aims to create a **reliable storage solution** using ZFS, with hopes that the recertified drives will **perform well**, as they have in past experiences with similar products.

Is Buying a PETABYTE on Ebay Stupid?

Linus Tech Tips is a passionate team of "professionally curious" experts in consumer technology and video production who aim to educate and entertain.


Linus Tech Tips

Existing storage (2.5 petabytes) is insufficient for current and future projects.

Upcoming projects, including a badminton gaming center and employee perk (free storage backups), require at least another petabyte.

Exploration of cost-effective storage solutions is initiated.

Discovery and Purchase of Recertified Drives

Seagate recertified drives are found at half the price of new drives.

60 drives (20 TB each) are purchased from eBay for $10,000.

Concerns about the quality and condition of recertified drives are addressed; eBay buyer protection and seller ratings are considered.

eBay listings indicate low power-on hours and no bad sectors.

Drives purchased from Server Parts Deals; burn-in tested option selected to minimize DOA risk.

A decommissioned 45-drive Storinator XL60 is reused; now holds 60 drives due to larger capacity drives.

Discussion of on-premise server advantages over cloud storage; Backblaze backups are used only for active projects.

Scalability options are discussed, from a single drive in a recycled computer to NAS chassis and 3D-printed cases.

An 8-year-old CPU is replaced with an ASRock Rack Rome D82T with an EPYC 7402P 24-core processor.

BIOS update and thermal paste replacement are recommended for reused hardware.

Existing 256 GB RAM is deemed sufficient for the current workload.

Outdated HBAs are replaced with LSI 9200 series cards (mix of genuine and counterfeit).

A Mellanox Nvidia ConnectX-6 dual-port 100 gig network card and a 2.5-inch Dell Gen 4 NVMe SSD are added.

A Noctua industrial fan is installed for cooling.

TrueNAS SCALE is chosen for its free nature and ZFS file system suitability.

Alternative NAS software options (Hexos, Unraid, Open Media Vault) are mentioned.

Drives are installed and detected; 61 out of 62 drives are working.

A short SMART test is performed; all drives pass.

Drives are grouped into six 10-drive RAIDZ2 vdevs for data protection.

The resulting storage capacity is 960 terabytes.

Investigation into the origin of the recertified drives is attempted, with limited success.

Total cost of $1160 for 62 drives is compared to the estimated $235,000 cost of new drives.

ZFS resilience and Server Parts Deals warranty are highlighted as mitigating factors against potential drive failures.

Personal experience with recertified drives is shared, emphasizing long-term reliability.

The availability of recertified enterprise IT equipment is discussed.