2.5 Admins 2.5 Admins 272: NVMe Surprise
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Nov 6, 2025 Discover why refurbished hard drives might be your next best investment for a NAS setup. The hosts debate if drives are getting better with time, revealing surprising longevity trends. Jim shares a cautionary tale about his M.2 NVMe drive failure during a presentation, highlighting overheating issues. They also dive into the complexities of using multiple partitions with ZFS and offer insights on boot strategies. Tune in for expert tips on maximizing your storage solutions!
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Buy Refurbished Drives Pragmatically
- Consider buying refurbished or recertified hard drives to lower cost per terabyte.
- Use redundancy and backups so occasional earlier failures from refurbs won't be catastrophic.
Inspect Refurbished Drive History
- Check warranty length and power-on/power-cycle history when buying refurbished drives.
- Reject drives with high power-cycle counts or only short return windows unless the price justifies the risk.
Hard Drive Failure Curve Has Changed
- Backblaze's longer-term data shows drive failure rates now resemble a near-constant rate rather than a bathtub curve.
- This suggests better manufacturer testing and selection of appropriate drives over time.
