this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
72 points (97.4% liked)

Selfhosted

61674 readers
139 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
72
Dying of prosperity, 14TB HDD left unused (lemmy.cafe)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by NotAgaug@lemmy.cafe to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
47 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I got into self hosting almost a year ago. Since then, I bought (low) hundreds of dollars worth of hardware, but I've never used any of my services outside of testing. My server is left unused since may (I think).

Now I've found a use for my server, but my HDD, (which I bought for a good price ($150 for HC530 14TB, 10k POH) for european standards in last November) isn't really being used. To be frank, I never really used it, I don't need a NAS, I always preferred (pirated) streaming services over local streaming, so I mostly had it just to have it.

I kinda know what I can do with it. I could set up a proxmox backups on it or run a nix cache (I run NixOS on my desktop PCs, I would be using the cache, but it would be annoying to set up and cachix free tier is enough for now).

I'm also anxious to use it, because I'm scared to wear it down, but, at the same time, I know that it will degrade if I don't use it. I might want to sell it, but my previous sales on online marketplaces were abysmal and I know I might regret it if I change my mind and decide I need so much storage.

What would you suggest? If I want to keep it, how should I treat it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 25 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

There's no 'wearing it down' - age is age.

If anything, unpowered drives die faster because lubricants slowly harden over time. Ah least a running drive is unlikely to suffer that fate.

Also, any drive can lose magnetic cohesion on areas of the platter - with a running drive that's maintained by a system like ZFS, these areas of magnetic loss can be automatically discovered and corrected.

Everything I've read (and from my own anecdotal experience) drives on a shelf die every bit as frequently as running drives, if not more often.

But in the end, don't go doing anything just because you feel like "you have to". I have a dozen smaller drives (500GB to 1 TB) that are just waiting for a purpose. I have a plan for them, but it's not urgent. Eventually they'll go in a Proxmox/TrueNAS/UnRAID box, when I can find a motherboard for the right price with low power draw (the drives will be the worst power consumer anyway).