I have a Plex media server PC that I run at home where I store movies, TV shows, etc. to watch on TV. It currently has a 1TB m.2 SSD for the OS and a 3TB HDD for movies & TV shows & such. Recently I've been able to fill up the HDD, so I had to remove some things, but I decided to buy a bigger HDD for it. I went for an 18TB HDD, so hopefully that should last a while.. But I can hear someone say sarcastically "18TB ought to be enough for anyone", and I'll probably fill it up eventually.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

On 14 Jul 2022, Nightfox said the following...

I have a Plex media server PC that I run at home where I store movies, TV shows, etc. to watch on TV. It currently has a 1TB m.2 SSD for the OS
and a 3TB HDD for movies & TV shows & such. Recently I've been able to fill up the HDD, so I had to remove some things, but I decided to buy a bigger HDD for it. I went for an 18TB HDD, so hopefully that should
last a while.. But I can hear someone say sarcastically "18TB ought to
be enough for anyone", and I'll probably fill it up eventually.

Nightfox

What OS are you running? depending on what it is you could be using ZFS and then you can basically JBOD everything and just keep adding as you go. If your in windows you can't really do that but if I remember from when I had a plex server you could have multiple locations. This way you can still have JBOD. No back up options this way though.

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
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|10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
|20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

Re: Re: Plex Media Server drive upgrade
By: claw to Nightfox on Fri Jul 15 2022 09:20 am

I have a Plex media server PC that I run at home where I store

What OS are you running? depending on what it is you could be using ZFS and then you can basically JBOD everything and just keep adding as you go.

I have Linux installed on it. I'm not familiar with ZFS or JBOD..?

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

What OS are you running? depending on what it is you could be using ZFS and then you can basically JBOD everything and just keep adding as you
go. If your in windows you can't really do that but if I remember from when I had a plex server you could have multiple locations. This way
you can still have JBOD. No back up options this way though.

Can you do that with ZFS efficiently? You need to add each device as a VDEV, and then it stripes everything over all devices if I recall correctly, so getting it to use all the space might be tricky.

I'd recommend BTRFS for that. It has a mode much closer to JBOD than ZFS. You can use all the space of a hodge podge of various size disks and is much more amenable to ad hoc additions, removals and alterations.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 15 Jul 2022, Nightfox said the following...

I have Linux installed on it. I'm not familiar with ZFS or JBOD..?

Nightfox

JBOD just stands for Just a bunch of disks. Wherever you see that just means the its a pile of disks being used in someway.

ZFS is a unique files system that allows for easy expansion, live back up, greater performance and much more. So lets say your drives getting full and you want to add another to the pool (a pool a JBOD tied together) and expand the storage. Easy just slap that disk in go to the config and tell it to add the disk. The space is just added and all the disks act as 1 drive to the system so no figuring now to organize mount points.

There's a ok read on it on the TrueNAS site
https://www.truenas.com/zfs/

There are a ton of softwares that make it easy to setup and use. But if your so inclined you can just learn about it while setting it up and have it on any Linux system without additional software. You will have to manually manage it when adding new disks but, if you set it up in the first place that will be pretty easy.

Hope this helps. Feel free to reach out sometime on MRC if you have questions. I'm on most days. If you need access to MRC you can sign up at my board and use it from the main menu with (!).

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
|10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
|20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

On 16 Jul 2022, boraxman said the following...

Can you do that with ZFS efficiently? You need to add each device as a VDEV, and then it stripes everything over all devices if I recall correctly, so getting it to use all the space might be tricky.

I'd recommend BTRFS for that. It has a mode much closer to JBOD than
ZFS. You can use all the space of a hodge podge of various size disks
and is much more amenable to ad hoc additions, removals and alterations.

Depends how you set it up initially. Using it with JBOD will not get a performance boost because its not striping anything.

BTRFS is also another solution. The good and bad thing about Linux is there are usually 10 ways to do the same thing.

A bit of searching and you will find all kinds of mixed reviews and why one person like this or that. A little research and you will find what fits you.

Heres a reddit discussion on which is better. But at this time both have been around for years and are fairly solid.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9z7h7u/zfs_vs_btrfs/

Heres an article from TrueNAS
https://www.truenas.com/blog/open-zfs-vs-btrfs/

In the end its really not going to make too much difference for you. If you were some enterprise looking for their next solution I would suggest testing both and learning both. Since your not Google a bit and do what feels comfortable.

I don't have much experience with BTRFS. But there are so many guides out there how both of these work. If your using Linux already your smart enough to use either of these technologies.

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
|10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
|20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

claw wrote to boraxman <=-

I'd recommend BTRFS for that. It has a mode much closer to JBOD than
ZFS. You can use all the space of a hodge podge of various size disks
and is much more amenable to ad hoc additions, removals and alterations.

Thanks for the pointers. I'm running SHR1 on my Synology NAS, am interested
in learning more about ZFS and BTRFS - the newer Synology units support
BTRFS, and proxmox uses ZFS as part of its clustering feature.

It sounds like with proxmox you could create a ZFS pool out of two server's local storage, set up clustering, and it'll auto-failover a node when a
server fails.


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BTRFS is also another solution. The good and bad thing about Linux is there are usually 10 ways to do the same thing.

You're not wrong there especially in the FileSystem market... I don't recall what it was I tried for jbod.. but it was a massive failure... Also used to
be information about using things like ZFS with RAID.. so you'd get some performance benefits.. I gave the whole thing away in favour of using single disc arrangements.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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Depends how you set it up initially. Using it with JBOD will not get a performance boost because its not striping anything.

BTRFS is also another solution. The good and bad thing about Linux is there are usually 10 ways to do the same thing.

A bit of searching and you will find all kinds of mixed reviews and why one person like this or that. A little research and you will find what fits you.

Heres a reddit discussion on which is better. But at this time both
have been around for years and are fairly solid. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9z7h7u/zfs_vs_btrfs/

Heres an article from TrueNAS https://www.truenas.com/blog/open-zfs-vs-btrfs/

In the end its really not going to make too much difference for you. If you were some enterprise looking for their next solution I would suggest testing both and learning both. Since your not Google a bit and do what feels comfortable.

I don't have much experience with BTRFS. But there are so many guides
out there how both of these work. If your using Linux already your
smart enough to use either of these technologies.

I use BTRFS for some storage. I have a VANTEC 2 disk enclosure with RAID support.. I got the VANTEC to just expose the two disks as individual disks and used BTRFS to join then together.

Works great. Have a few other BTRFS storage partitions. ZFS is nice, but with Linux it can be a slight issue if you upgrade the kernel and don't have the ZFS module compiled alongside it. I feel it is overkill for simple situations to use ZFS.

BTRFS's main disadvantage is that the FSCK program isn't there yet, so if there is some corruption, you're better off restoring from a backup than trying to use FSCK which may bork your filesystem up.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

I have a Plex media server PC that I run at home where I store movies, TV shows, etc. to watch on TV. It currently has a 1TB m.2 SSD for the OS and
a 3TB HDD for movies & TV shows & such. Recently I've been able to fill up the HDD, so I had to remove some things, but I decided to buy a bigger HDD for it. I went for an 18TB HDD, so hopefully that should last a while..
But I can hear someone say sarcastically "18TB ought to be enough for anyone", and I'll probably fill it up eventually.

Trust me, you will eventually fill it up. There is no such thing as too much storage. Being a storage hoarder like myself, I'm always looking to expand.

I know many that use Plex. I use a Windows Server with mapped drives on an AD domain and use Kodi on Nvidia Shields to get to all my content. My main data server is a 4U SuperMicro that has (34) hard drives, (3) raid-5 arrays and (1) mirror. A total of 90TB at the moment - and I'm starting to run low.

- Mark
ÿÿÿ
--- WWIVToss v.1.52
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Thanks for the pointers. I'm running SHR1 on my Synology NAS, am interested in learning more about ZFS and BTRFS - the newer Synology units support BTRFS, and proxmox uses ZFS as part of its clustering feature.

It sounds like with proxmox you could create a ZFS pool out of two server's local storage, set up clustering, and it'll auto-failover a
node when a server fails.

I think the biggest difference between then, apart from whether they are part of the kernel or not is how they manage did disk pooling. ZFS needs planning, whereas BTRFS can better handle ad-hoc additions and replacements.

Both support snapshots, compression, multiple subvolumes, but ZFS's tooling is better here.

Try looking at reddit.com/r/datahoarder, these guys store heaps of data, being datahoarders so there is some combined experience here.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Try looking at reddit.com/r/datahoarder, these guys store heaps of
data, being datahoarders so there is some combined experience here.

I started lurking there as soon as I bought my Synology NAS. I bought an old chassis for $119 at a local thrift shop, and had a stash of 2TB drives left over from an older system I had with 1 2TB mirror, 1 2TB internal backup and another 2TB that I had in a case. Bought another 2TB drive online, ending up with 7TB of RAIDed storage space. Been trying to find a use for it ever
since. :)


... Abandon desire
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I have a Plex media server PC that I run at home where I store movies, TV shows, etc. to watch on TV. It currently has a 1TB m.2 SSD for the OS

I'm getting an Asustor for a similar setup, as I try and figure out how to
sync important data across devices and also not run out of space anywhere.

I'm still trying to mentally figure out how I want the situation to work. I'm not really sure what I envision, but I'm hopeful it includes filling up the drives in that, and not on my laptop or desktop.

a while.. But I can hear someone say sarcastically "18TB ought to be enough for anyone", and I'll probably fill it up eventually.

It feels weird, here, where all our messages and ANSI graphics and whatnot
can generally fairly comfortably fit into a very small place (depending on
what our retention policies and file bases look like I suppose).

And then we mostly have cell phones (or actual dedicated cameras) that can produce some rather high-quality videos that suck up space, even if we don't wind up with too much produced-by-other-people saved video.

And, yeah, I imagine you'll fill that 18TB eventually. I'm thinking that it won't be _all_ that long until having a personal petabyte of storage will
seem at least vaguely reasonable.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)

First up, aloe vera, or is that the Adeptus Astartes. :) You've been quiet
for a bit.

I'm getting an Asustor for a similar setup, as I try and figure out how to sync important data across devices and also not run out of space anywhere.

I have a Thecus device filling that role. At the time I bought 2 new 8TB
drives to put in it. I did have a massive amount of monolithic data tied up
in video, unfortunately I lost most of it while playing around with mergerfs
so it lies heavily under utilised.

I'm still trying to mentally figure out how I want the situation to work. I'm not really sure what I envision, but I'm hopeful it includes
filling up the drives in that, and not on my laptop or desktop.

I find I still tend to collect stuff in the downloads folder and all over my desktop. Part of it is images, for the Apple II Hardware data base, but the rest of it is pretty random, odd music, applications. I have to get around
and pack it away into the NAS preiodically.

It feels weird, here, where all our messages and ANSI graphics and whatnot can generally fairly comfortably fit into a very small place (depending on what our retention policies and file bases look like I suppose).

Mine are hanging out of a ~40Mb NFS share... handy to just mount the share in
a virtual system and run it from there.

a while.. But I can hear someone say sarcastically "18TB ought to be enough for anyone", and I'll probably fill it up eventually.

A while back, read a long time ago, "we" had trouble having HD space for all the stuff we were downloading or creating. But somewhere through the Gb
range of hard drives space started to exceed my ability to fill, and I find that is much the case even now. Aforementioned loss of data partially to
blame but I don't acquire data at the same rate I used to.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)

First up, aloe vera, or is that the Adeptus Astartes. :) You've been quiet for a bit.

Hi! Yeah, I've still been logging in on a daily basis, but I was getting
behind on FSXnet general sub posts, and was less likely to respond to things
a thousand messages ago.

A bit of the ebb and flow of things, I suppose.

I have been thinking more about demoscene things, though, so I suppose more
of my creative energies are in that direction, at the moment.

I have a Thecus device filling that role. At the time I bought 2 new 8TB drives to put in it. I did have a massive amount of monolithic data
tied up in video, unfortunately I lost most of it while playing around with mergerfs so it lies heavily under utilised.

I've now set mine up, have 2 new 8TB drives that I put into a RAID 1 array
(if I'm not going to use 16 TBs, I may as well have two drives with the same info...).

And, yeah, not sure how much of it I'll use. Probably most will go to
automated backups. For now, I put on half a terabyte of videos, and that's probably the biggest bit I'll do.

base, but the rest of it is pretty random, odd music, applications. I
have to get around and pack it away into the NAS preiodically.

Yeah, and I should probably do that, too. My downloads folder is fairly massive, and most of it I probably don't need to have multiple copies of, so just keeping it all on the NAS is probably the best idea.

Mine are hanging out of a ~40Mb NFS share... handy to just mount the
share in a virtual system and run it from there.

I think my Mystic install is significantly bigger than that, but I'm not deleting messages, and I imagine the file base keeps getting bigger.

Now all the ANSIs I've ever made... Yeah, that's probably still pretty tiny.

the Gb range of hard drives space started to exceed my ability to fill, and I find that is much the case even now. Aforementioned loss of data partially to blame but I don't acquire data at the same rate I used to.

I think the whole, "Well, video comes through streaming, not downloading"
meant that people no longer are really collecting things that take up lots of space.

I imagine I'll eventually use up the space I have, even if just for backups, but filling will probably depend on how much time I spend with DaVinci
Resolve.

GIMP, coding, and BBSing just aren't enough.

But I guess I'm basically happy with this state of things -- like how
processor speed has basically plateaued since the early 2000s, so, yeah,
sure, lots more cores, graphics cards stuff, and general parallel processing, but top speed basically stopped getting higher.

And the need for hard drive space is just less.

Unless you have lots of 4k video, I imagine.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)