6. HDD Options
SATA drives (shuckable)
These hard drives are external consumer HDDs removed from their outer shell. Inside is a normal enterprise-grade 3.5" HDD. Western Digital is the king of the shuckable drive market right now, offering high capacity drives at low prices.
Reference the topic below to track shuckable drive prices.
SAS Drives
If you’re using SAS drives, you must connect them to a SAS controller. SATA drives can be used with your motherboard’s onboard SATA OR a SAS controller.
Take a look at the forum post below for more information on SAS controllers.
Pricing
Always, always, always make use of the “best offer” option on ebay. Especially if you’re buying multiple. Some sellers also have quantity discounts built into the listings, but those are not shown in the table below.
| Brand | Model (link) | Capacaity | Spindle RPM | Cache | Interface | Price/TB | Expected Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seagate | ST32000444SS | 2TB | 7200 | 16MB | SAS | $9.50/TB | $18.99 |
| HGST/Hitachi | HUS723030ALS640 | 3TB | 7200 | 64MB | SAS | $7.98/TB | $23.95 |
| Seagate | ST33000650SS | 3TB | 7200 | 64MB | SAS | $8.33/TB | $25.00 |
| HGST/Hitachi | HUS724040ALS640 | 4TB | 7200 | 64MB | SAS | $11.25/TB | $44.99 |
| HGST/Hitachi | HUS726060AL5210 | 6TB | 7200 | 128MB | SAS | $11.50/TB | $69.00 |
| Seagate | ST6000NM0034 | 6TB | 7200 | 128MB | SAS | $12.50/TB | $75.00 |
| HGST/Hitachi | HUH728080AL4205 | 8TB | 7200 | 128MB | SAS | $13.63/TB | $109.00 |