Post by @ironicbadger@techhub.social

2026-06-28 13:09 UTC

I’m seriously considering shrinking my ZFS pool to protect myself from current hardware pricing. My primary pool is split into 2 z2 vdevs each presently. 7x 20tb disks + 3x 18tb. The pool is about 62% full. I could easily delete a ton of media and get it under 40%. And with USED 18tbs on average going for $275 a pop these days, I think that’s just smart. My doing this I can keep 2-3-4? Drives as spares. Maybe I won’t need them. But I think I’ll worry a bit less about them if I know I can have at least 1-2 spares ready. Anyone else considering such measures in these testing times?

Replies (3)

@bcon@infosec.exchange 2026-06-28 13:54

@ironicbadger@techhub.social I did this before prices skyrocketed. I reduced to 4 drives (two mirrored pairs) and got very selective about the format or media and what I kept. Went from 12 drives being full to being at about 60% on 4. I worry about failing drives roughly 0% of the time now and I don’t have any negatives that have emerged as a consequence.

Open ##3449612
@grantjbutler@hachyderm.io 2026-06-28 13:17

@ironicbadger@techhub.social I just finished spending three weeks running all my media through FFMpeg on an M1 Mac mini to re-encode it to try to save space. Went from 71.6% used on my pool to 32.5% reclaiming over 16 TB of space. Going to set things up so this process runs automatically as I add new media. With any luck, I’ll only have to buy drives to replace existing ones that go bad, and won’t have to grow the size of my pool for a little while.

Open ##5286515
@adelie@darkpenguin.social 2026-06-28 13:33

@ironicbadger@techhub.social mmkay...I just did this (kinda) so I have opinions, but need more info a. where are you getting 18s for 275?! b. Is this 2 10-wide vdevs or just the 10 disks total?

Open ##5286537