Homelabbers are making classic storage mistakes just to save money on hard drives

Published Nov 1, 2026, 2:30 PM EST Nick Lewis is an editor at How-To Geek. He has been using computers for 20 years --- tinkering with everything from the UI to the Windows registry to device firmware. Before How-To Geek, he used Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. In college, Nick made extensive use of Fortran while pursuing a physics degree. Nick's love of tinkering with computers extends beyond work. He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years using Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. He also uses Proxmox to self-host a variety of services, including a Jellyfin Media Server, an Airsonic music server, a handful of game servers, NextCloud, and two Windows virtual machines. He enjoys DIY projects, especially if they involve technology. He regularly repairs and repurposes old computers and hardware for whatever new project is at hand. He has designed crossovers for homemade speakers all the way from the basic design to the PCB. Nick enjoys the outdoors. When he isn't working on a computer or DIY project, he is most likely to be found camping, backpacking, or canoeing. Hard drives became expensive very quickly—over the last year or so, hard drive prices have jumped about 50%, and prices show no sign of coming back down. That has put everyone, but especially homelabbers and self-hosting enthusiasts, in a difficult position. It is now common to rip out every old drive you can find and spin them up in your server for extra storage. Rising hardware costs have also pushed people to use SBCs, thin clients, and mini PCs, since they're less expensive. You eventually end up with a Frankenstein system. Unfortunately, that approach is inviting disaster. USB can be a problem for storage Mini PCs, thin clients, and SBCs rely on USB for expanded storage Most mini PCs, thin clients, and SBCs rely on USB-to-SATA adapters to connect external storage. That introduces a few problems. Foremost among them are the adapters themselves. USB-to-SATA adapters or enclosures vary wildly in quality; sometimes they use a decent chip with reliable firmware. Other times, a quick search will reveal page after page of people complaining about issues. Unfortunately, unless you can find out exactly what chip and firmware the adapter is using, you're taking a gamble. The box almost never tells you outright. These adapters are also prone to weird bugs. USB connections can drop out unexpectedly, which is a problem under the kind of sustained loads self-hosted storage is often subject to. Dual or quad-bay enclosures sometimes accidentally report the same ID for all of the drives you attach, which, depending on how your software handles drive management, can lead to only one drive showing up. And, worst of all, these devices often don't work with SMART correctly, so you may not even know a failure is coming. If you need a backup or "cold storage," a single USB drive will be fine as long as you confirm everything is transferred correctly. If you must use a USB-to-SATA enclosure of some kind, pick one up from a reputable brand with a good reputation. Mismatched and mystery drives make it worse Arrays are only as reliable as their worst member Homelabs frequently put drives in arrays for data redundancy or a speed boost. If you're using RAID or ZFS with a mix of drives, that means each drive will only contribute as much space as the smallest one, and you're stuck dealing with the wasted space on the larger drives. Similarly, your write speed (and sometimes read speed, depending on your configuration) is fundamentally limited by the slowest drive in the array. If you have two 7,200 RPM drives, one 5,400 RPM drive, and one 10,000 RPM drive tied together in some Frankenstein array, the mismatched speeds are going to cause hiccups. Pulling drives out of every old laptop and desktop you find is also a gamble. Once you pool enough old drives together, the odds of any one of them dying sometime soon become relatively high. To make it worse, there are an alarming number of fake "used-like-new" or "refurbished" drives available on the internet, including Amazon. I've seen very used Seagate Exos drives sold "as new" even though they had spent literal years running. That isn't to say you can't use old drives or even USB enclosures; you just need to take the proper precautions. Stretch a storage budget without gambling on the data Use fewer, better drives for important data If you're storing important data, there is no substitute: you need to buy fewer, better drives and ensure they're mirrored. When shopping, look at the dollar per TB and the warranty rather than the sticker price. As of mid-October 2026, the best value is generally found in 18TB drives (around $30/TB on a good day). Keep these drives connected via SATA or HBA if at all possible; if you must use a USB enclosure, buy a good one. Make sure whatever mirroring approach you use, like rsync, is working reliably and will notify you if it fails. I also always run a SMART test on every drive I purchase these days. You can never be too sure. Reserve the old mixed drives for less important jobs However, I also have a hodgepodge mix of drives of my own that I use. To ensure nothing critical is lost, I don't store anything really important on them at all. The hodgepodge serves up media, stores server files, experiments, sensor data, and that sort of thing. I might be a bit disappointed to lose a Minecraft world from 2019, but it isn't going to cause a practical problem. Try to avoid mixing drives of different speeds, and mirror as much as you can tolerate. My "hodgepodge" setup typically mirrors across four drives. I try to spread out the ages of the drives so that the odds of a bulk failure when all the drives reach "old age" are lower. Protect the data that matters Saving money on drives shouldn't come at the expense of irreplaceable data, and it shouldn't mean betting that a cheap, slightly loose USB cable will reliably back up your files a few times a week. Unless something drastic happens, there is likely no price relief in sight. A smaller, more reliable array for your essential data is a better long-term option than a larger, volatile one.