I agree to a point. I’ve been buying used SAS drives for cheap on eBay. Not a single failure in the dozen or so that I’m running right now in my server. I have a few spares sitting on the shelf just in case but I’m not expecting to use them for some time.

Yes they’re all encrypted with LUKS. Using unRAID as my base OS which handles most aspects of the process.

Snapshots on the file system are instant and can be rolled back or opened in read only mode if you need an older version of the file.

Sending a snapshot through replication is also much faster as the system just sends the snapshot itself which updates the files system in one pass by sending all of the changes made rather than having to compare file by file.

For comparison, using rsync to update my backup with 250,000 files might take 20-30 minutes because it has to check every file on the source and destination to see if it has been modified. Sending a zfs snapshot is 15 seconds because it just sends the differences in one pass.

I have a couple of 8TB Seagate SMR drives. They’re slow as sin but perfect for cold storage backups.

One sits in a safe deposit box and the other is in my backup server and gets zfs snapshots replicated to it automatically with sanoid. I swap them out about every six months. My data is very safe.

Main server zfs array with snapshots replicated hourly to backup zfs server, replicated weekly to HD swapped in SD box every 6 months.

I’ve been using renewed (refurbished) 8TB drives off of Ebay - SAS 8TB for $50-60 each. Not a single failure in over a year on the dozen or so drives I’m running right now. I’m running unRAID with a combination of unRAID’s native array drives (for media and “disposable” stuff) in a dual parity config, and ZFS (with snapshots replicated to a live backup on a secondary server) for important personal stuff (and backed-up off-site a few times a year).

Even if something were to perish, I have enough spares to just chuck one in and let it resilver without worrying at all. I’m content with this as a homelabber and when I’m not supplying critical service for a business, etc.

Just wish they were more affordable. The only reason for the crazy pricing is that it’s what big companies can afford to pay rather than home labbers. They’re not all that complex compared to other mass market tech.

Get a controller that works with SAS drives and buy them used and cheap from eBay. Consumer devices won’t run SAS drives on SATA controllers so they’re usually cheaper.

Cave paintings aren’t video or audio. They’re pictures. You can print your photos or print grabs from your videos.

I’m a big advocate of unraid servers. Mix And match any size of drives you have available into a single large NAS with protection against drive failures. You can use old pc hardware you might have lying around. It’s commercial software but you can demo it for free. It’s good enough that I own two full pro licenses.

Storage is dirt cheap. Just add more. IT at work bugs out their eyes when I talk about adding more storage space. I have more at home than they do in the office. Lol.

I’ve been buying used 8TB HGST drives from eBay. Dirt cheap and haven’t had one fail yet.

Unraid natively supports full ZFS arrays in addition to unraid arrays since the last major release. Can mix and match both types on the same system as necessary.

All of my (easily replaceable) Plex media is native unraid arrays while my documents are all on a ZFS array on the same system with snapshots and such. It’s the perfect solution.

So you don’t know unraid has ZFS now then? Gotta keep up with the times.

And it’s worth every cent as commercial software. I bought 2 pro licenses because it’s just that good.

I get what you’re proposing but I’d respectfully suggest looking into unRAID on basically any hardware that can boot an OS.

It won’t necessarily be small and cute (though you can accomplish that if you wish), but you can make it do just about anything. I bought old enterprise hardware to run my main and backup servers on. I feel really comfortable with my data safety.

I went down the unRAID rabbit hole.

I never came back up, I’m happy here.

I’ve been buying used 8TB HGST SAS drives on eBay for $50USD each, so far no issues but I really don’t care if they die. Basically disposable at that price point.

I have 120TB in my unraid server so far and it grows every year.

Running a supermicro chassis now which is amazing if power hungry and a bit loud.

And at over 100lbs, a thief is gonna blow out their back trying to steal it.

If you’re in it for the long haul buy a “cheap” used server off of eBay and upgrade it.

If you want something more inexpensive buy the cheapest case you can find with the most HD mounting points. Then get yourself a SAS controller from eBay and connect everything up.

Then go look at installing unraid. Done.