I’m wondering what the best (cheap) option is to have as much storage as possible. I have two DL380 g7 servers with one running lemmy, npm, wireguard and busy getting nextcloud and jellyfin installed. The other one is to run a Proxmox cluster. Just for fun tbh. Amd if needed spare parts. I only have a few tb of storage. Problem is that these have a 2.5 inch harddrive. So expensive drives. Is it a good idea to just buy more drives which will cost me more in the long run i guess… Or should i go for a dedicated storage server with 3.5 drives…
Ceph is excellent as a distributed storage solution - but should really have 4 machines with 2 or more drives each to reach a good level of redundancy - which is a bit much for most people on this sub.
One nice feature is it deals with heterogeneous drives well, like if you need to buy a bunch of used ones on eBay for cheap.
Probably not a good solution for your case because of the footprint - but good to be aware of it.