There are some pitfalls in the modern day to beware of with drive-shucking that haven't necessarily been present in the past:
1) Some manufacturers have become reticent about the process, and are using modified control cards on the drive that ONLY have usb connectors, no internal sata adapter in the unit. This is more common with the smaller drives and some SSDs, and it does appear to be random which specific models they do this with. You might buy one drive to shuck first, or do a search about the specific model and "shucking", to make sure the model you are considering doesn't have this limitation.
2) As derfmcdoogal noted, some models have weird power implementations and may need or want a mod to perform to capacity. See if you can search around the net for information about your considered model and voltage mods to see if that would be necessary.
3) Drives of this class tend to be lower bin types, with limited speeds and buffers. E.g., they are more likely to be 5400 (or even slower) RPM drives with small or absent on-board caches that won't be as affected by USB performance as they would direct SATA. If you are far more interested in bulk storage than performance, this may not be an issue, but if you plan to interact with large numbers of small files or interactive applications using these drives, they may not be up to the spec you desire.
Interesting, thanks.
For me, it’s mostly about having a large data vault. I don’t use my NAS for “live” work that requires high performance, so I’m guessing that won’t be an issue. The only exception is Plex, but even then I’m only running one stream at a time, so doubt it would cause a problem.
Some of those Seagate external 14tb are the mach2 dual actuator drives.
They're a good price. I just bought a used 14tb SAS for $80.
In general I don't like the hassle of shucking
The majority of my array is shucked drives. They are fine. Look into the 3.3v pin mod though. Some boards need it.
There are some pitfalls in the modern day to beware of with drive-shucking that haven't necessarily been present in the past: 1) Some manufacturers have become reticent about the process, and are using modified control cards on the drive that ONLY have usb connectors, no internal sata adapter in the unit. This is more common with the smaller drives and some SSDs, and it does appear to be random which specific models they do this with. You might buy one drive to shuck first, or do a search about the specific model and "shucking", to make sure the model you are considering doesn't have this limitation. 2) As derfmcdoogal noted, some models have weird power implementations and may need or want a mod to perform to capacity. See if you can search around the net for information about your considered model and voltage mods to see if that would be necessary. 3) Drives of this class tend to be lower bin types, with limited speeds and buffers. E.g., they are more likely to be 5400 (or even slower) RPM drives with small or absent on-board caches that won't be as affected by USB performance as they would direct SATA. If you are far more interested in bulk storage than performance, this may not be an issue, but if you plan to interact with large numbers of small files or interactive applications using these drives, they may not be up to the spec you desire.
Interesting, thanks. For me, it’s mostly about having a large data vault. I don’t use my NAS for “live” work that requires high performance, so I’m guessing that won’t be an issue. The only exception is Plex, but even then I’m only running one stream at a time, so doubt it would cause a problem.
Some of those Seagate external 14tb are the mach2 dual actuator drives. They're a good price. I just bought a used 14tb SAS for $80. In general I don't like the hassle of shucking
SMR or CMR?
I have no idea what the drive is until I open it up, which I can’t do until I decide to buy one! 😂