The hardware - commodity hardware

[dlucian]

One of the takeaways from Vint Cerf was that the "digital preservation" might run on old hardware.

This made me think. These days, everyone has an old computer or a friend that has an old computer that does nothing and might be repurposed. I am a huge fan of sustainability and reducing waste.

And, since I have a Mid-2011 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM lying around, I decided to give it a new life. For that to work, I still need the storage solution, which is an IceBox HDD Rack, holding up to 4 HDD drives.

First I thought to wipe the MacOS and put Ubuntu Server instead, but then I realized that I want to use MacOS to leverage an iCloud sync to my storage volumes. So I installed MacOS back.

Therefore my storage system is:

• Mid-2011 MacMini with 16 GB RAM (already have this)
• Icy Box SINGLE enclosure for 4x HDD with USB 3.0 Type-A interface and fan
• 4 x WD Red Plus NAS HDD 4TB (totalling 16 TB)
• IcyBox FireWire 800 Adapter (ordered)
• FireWire 800 cable (ordered)
• eSata Cable (to be ordered)

The last 3 are because the MacMini has USB 2.0 only which is pretty slow, but it does have a FireWire adapter making it a good option for data transfer from the storage.

I opted for a total of 16 TB of storage because I plan to put ZFS with RAID-Z1, which puts the practical usable storage capacity at about 10.2 TB, plenty of space for the long term.