Yeah i think the Network can grow much faster as expected.
Many SNO’s run their Nodes on virtualized machines and are able to set up new
datastores within minutes. I currently run 38TB for storj + >100TB offline atm so if the demand
increases and the “bigger machines” becomes profitable the network will grow x2 or more i guess…
Same for me - I have some free space, It is not allocated to the node VM because expanding a virtual disk is easier than shrinking it. If there is more ingress or I get a proper second line with an external IP though… Also, my server still has some empty drive slots.
i got 3 additional 6TB drives coming tomorrow, which will increase my capacity by 27 TB or something like that… will most likely take a few days if not longer to migrate my 14tb node into a new pool configuration.
but i don’t expect that to be used by storj… will most likely spin up a few more nodes spread across the different pools i have and then the main pool will be shared with other storage project similar to storj.
Well I’m not sure I’d buy anything for Storj unless there would be quite an immediate incentive for doing so, honestly.
Is that so? That would mean that the Storj network is mainly made up of professional SNOs? I thought most SNOs where home users, but I could be wrong 
Why can’t a SNO be both? You can be a professional, working from home, part time.
After browsing through these forums for long enough and RocketChat before this, there are a not-insignificant number of SNOs running very scalable setups with server grade infrastructure and lots of expansion capability (myself included). Those are the SNOs that would see something like this through successfully from the SNO perspective.
You may not be interested in adding capacity without some instant gratification, but there are a number of SNOs who have been and will continue to be involved in this platform for the long haul. This would be a huge win for the platform and these committed SNOs would do their part to work to make it a success.
There are of course also lots of people with simple setups like RPIs but those are rather scalable too 
I got a simple setup too, just hooked up an esata enclosure for 4 drives and can buy another one for the 2nd esata port, so easily scalable to additional 5*8TB=40TB. Then I’d have 50TB for STORJ. doubtful I’d need more than that. (but scaling up to 50TB would cost me 750€ so not sure I would do that anytime soon, but it is possible if the revenue makes sense. I just recently invested 500€ into the system which I had earned from storj so why not…)
i built my server so i can hook up disk shelves… so i could add like 100 drives with minimal issue, really the only question is if its worth the effort and ofc with so many drives i cannot get the bandwidth out of them, because the server cannot handle that much data… but still in the end it’s more often iops rather than raw bandwidth thats the issue…
but thus far i got like 4 free slots in the server and 4 x 3tb i will take out when i need to upgrade… put on a shelf or use them to start experimenting with a disk shelf
so i’m 7 months in and when i put in my new drives… i’m basically 50% of what the server can hook up without changing out the existing 6tb ones, and next time i may go 14tb or something like that… so thats … gets expensive real quick…
but just with my current capacity i think i’ve calculated that i end up with like 41tb for storage, after overhead and i can still add 2 sets of 4 with 1 redundant
so 6x14 worth of capacity and then subtracting 10% for overhead.
so 84 - 8.4 so 75.6TB i could add without having to hook up a disk shelf or rip out semi okay drives…
and ofc we can get 20tb drives today… they just tend to be more expensive, and tho i’m sure i will regret buying smaller drives in the beginning, then my max is just so far away that it’s not realistic to even get near it, atleast within a reasonable budget… and i really like to have a good amount of iops.
Even some low end nodes operators can scale a bit following the demand. In my case, adding another used cheap and reliable laptop (hello Lenovo) with USB3 attached drives hidden in my TV cabinet . My FTTH internet is far from being the bottleneck (900Mbs down & 400Mb/s up - unlimited traffic). With this kid of hardware ,the electricity cost and the heat is not an issue to me neither.
I downloaded the latest smartmontools and made it on linux.
Then you can do -d usb,jmicron,etc.
When I said most of my enclosures do not reply to SMART queries, I was implying when using smartctl -d auto. Besides, it’s not always easy to find out what controller is inside a cheap case…
you ask it… it is after all that controller the computer is talking to, so it has to know what it is to understand it… or speak to it correctly
also if there where a default driver / instruction set for it, then it would work for everybody… i think if one used the command @andrew2.hart suggests then one should be able push smart command lines through almost any usb - sata controller
very much like getting smart data through raid controllers one needs to define the controller else the data doesn’t go through… and most likely for good reason…
i mean in a raid system having smart access means smart functionality which means one can put the disk in test modes and such… which means a wrong smart command can put the disk offline for the raid array…
some similar reasons maybe behind why it doesn’t seem to work on default for usb… it’s simply not because it doesn’t work, its because the manufactures knows there are certain issues with this… like say if you disable hdd power management, then your usb hdd might overheat, because the enclosure isn’t meant for 24/7 operation.
and thus disabling power management makes it continually dump heat when connected and then burn out…
not the best example… but there may very well be some reason for the methodology to keep users out of the smart