Selfhosted

59955 readers

391 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:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam.
Posts here are to be centered around self-hosting. Please ensure it is clear in your post how it relates to self-hosting.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or git here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title.
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

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

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

curbstickle@anarchist.nexus

curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world

Have you ever bough an external hardrive only to take the disk out of it? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

82 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hiya, so am looking to buy more storage and while browsing am seeing some external harddisks, such as Western Digital My Book and Seagate Expansion Desktop for cheaper than the internal harddisks themselves. Have seen this one video from KTZ Systems where he bought up multiple of these external ones just to open them up and use the disks for his own server. Was therefore wondering if you peeps have ever done this and if there any downsides to it at all?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This must've changed as I've shucked WD Elements / Book drives and they were normal drives...

So, you're saying the actual harddrive has a USB chipset onboard and only a USB interface?

When did this start happening?

[–] norbert@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've shucked probably 100s of those WD essentials and they just had a little SATA -> USB adapter on it. It's been a few years but it doesn't seem like they'd make a whole new PCB just to include USB.

[–] Dhs92@programming.dev 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Within the past 2-3 years drive manufacturers have been swapping to USB PCBs directly attached to the drive controller, instead of using a SATA -> USB interface.

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 1 points 2 years ago

Ok, so does that also mean we can check the SMART parameters now?

Previously, the USB interface effectively blocked access to them.

[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago

the 2.5" size of disks are now mostly direct USB controller disks rather than sata adapters internally.

3.5" disks are still SATA as far as i've seen but the actual sku's of the disks are often the lower grades. like you will get a disk that looks like another good disk but with only 64mb of dram instead of 256 on the one you would buy as a bare internal drive for example so they can end up a bit slower. and warranties are usually void.