Re: [tlug] Any recommendations for cheap reliable external storage?

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com>]

If you can live with 5TB get a single WD Red 6TB drive, a good external case (metal with passive heatsink) that supports eSATA and USB3.0 properly. ext4 with some tune2fs depending on what data you store. Get a second same drive and do occasional rsync backups. Every few months switch master and backup drive after rsync, to wear evenly.

Most NASes that I've seen support NFS (e.g QNAP), that is faster and more user friendly to linux.

Personally I don't bother with lvm2, hardware or software RAID or distributed filesystems, unless absolutely necessary (e.g. to have PB uniform storage). For things like digital photos and system backup (most of my personally stored data), I would put them on separate drives if the don't fit in one and mount them appropriately. ( so far I did this once at the 1TB limit, now I am about to get a pair of 6TB disks that should be good for 2 years at least) .