this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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How bad of an idea is it to use computing HDDs in a DIY NAS? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 5 days ago by theorangeninja@sopuli.xyz to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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The title says basically everything but let me elaborate.

Given the recent news about the sold out of harddrives for the current year and possibly also the next years (tomshardware article) I try to buy the HDDs I want to use for the next few years earlier than expected.

I am on a really tight budget so I really don't want to overspend. I have an old tower PC laying around which I would like to turn into a DIY NAS probably with TrueNAS Scale.

I don't expect high loads, it will only be 1-2 users with medium writing and reading.

In this article from howtogeek the author talks about the differences and I get it, but a lot of the people commenting seem to be in a similar position as I am. Not really a lot of read-write load, only a few users, and many argue computing HDDs are fine for this use case.

Possibilites I came up with until now:

  1. Buy two pricey Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red HDDs and put them in RAID1
  2. Buy three cheaper Seagate Barracuda or WD Blue and put two in RAID1 and keep one as a backup if (or should I say when?) one of the used drives fails.

I am thankful for every comment or experience you might have with this topic!

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[–] canthangmightstain@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Has no one mentioned shucking yet? I’ve had 8 shucked drives in my server for 5yrs now and the motherboard died before any of my drives did.

Buy western digital external drives (MyBook and Passports) to tear them apart for the white-label drives on the inside. No warranties after you start using them (unless you save the enclosures to send them back) but they’re essentially the same drive as the red label NAS drives for about half the price.

All storage prices are insane in the current market but if you’re careful and test the drives before you use them (since that’s when you usually need the warranty) then you shouldn’t have a problem. Just be aware you’re either going to need to use the “kapton tape trick” or buy “SAS drive adapters” from your online store of choice for about $10 apiece to allow the drives to power on outside of the enclosure.