Looking for suggestions on expanding my storage options.
I have a dell t620 server with 2.5 inch drive bays. Currently I have 16tb of movies in my plex library and I am running out of storage space as I still have a lot of Blu-ray movies to add. I used to work at a video store when they were still a thing and have acquired 1000’s of movies over the last 30 years.
I was thinking of adding a disk shelf that would give me room to grow as I need more space. I know I will need an additional controller to interface with a disk shelf but I’m not sure what would be best for a home lab.
I have seen some shelves that use external sata, and others that appear to have Ethernet connections. I want to stay away from usb connections if possible.
A solutions that I can put some 10-12tb 3.5 drives in would be nice as I can get more storage at a lower price than 2.5 drives.
My current server is running proxmox with VM’s and passing storage drives to trunas and 10gb networking.
LSI (or rebranded LSI as long as you can reflash the original LSI firmware) are generally the goto for controllers.
There are a few threads on this forum about people deciding JBOD enclosures, a common suggestion is the EMC KTN-STL3 ( I would suggest just reading the recent threads on this topic that I linked below), but I do think that you should look at what is available used locally as shipping enclosures is a bit of a hassle, and personally I have been able to get good deals buying locally.
If you have any more specific needs where an LSI card and a SAS JBOD enclosure do not work for you feel free to reply with more info.