I currently have a pretty simple media server. It runs on a desktop made of old parts and has 4 6 TB drives in a raidz1 array. It is used by a lot of friends who add a lot of media, so its been nearly at capacity for a while. The desktop has no more open SATA ports or drive enclosures, so I’m not sure what the best option for adding more drives is.
I know the most obvious answer is buying NAS, but I think it might be a little complex for what I need, because no other devices need any access to this storage. I was considering purchasing a DAS, as it seems like a simple option, but I’ve seen many people say its not worth purchasing a DAS over a NAS. Any opinions would be appreciated.
Edit: Thanks for the suggestions! I’m likely going to go with a new case for some extra drive bays and a PCI-E SAS controller, this seems like the best option for the simplicity and price!
Depending on how power hungry the drives are, and if your PSU has enough spare power, you can get cable splitters. I had some spare molex ports which I plugged a cable from Amazon that split it into 5 SATA power connectors.
You don’t want to infinitely split cables though, as tempting as that can be, because there are real electrical limits to doing that. Also just because a power supply is rated at X watts, that’s the total. Hard drives will use the 5V and 12V rails and usually there are individual limits on each rail.
Upgrading the PSU is another option. Probably the cleanest easiest best solution IMO. But even then, you probably can’t find a PSU that’ll give you 12 SATA connectors out of the box so you’ll probably need some splitters in there anyways.
In my case specifically, I’ve actually got a second power supply (because i already had it and it was otherwise just gathering dust) powering the extra drives. It’s a bit more complicated to get set up but, it’s an option as well.
Edit: also if you’re asking yourself where can you physically PUT the drives, I 3D printed these and slapped some fans on them:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4875498