So, I am working on my first Storj v3 node now and for the moment I only have 2x NEW 1TB WDC Black 7200RPM drives available for the build. (Plan on moving to a bigger system when up and running).
The drives are NEW and have less than 50 hours of running time each - I plan on migrating to a bigger system with more storage space about 6-8 months after deploying this initial system.
Which one am I better off with for now:
1x Node with Software Raid0 (2TB Total Capacity)
1x Node with Software Raid1 (1TB Total Capacity)
2x Nodes 1TB with No Raid (1TB Capacity Per Node)
Your plan should be based on your use-case. With your requirement of the node existing for greater than 6-8 months, we can rule out RAID0.
1TB capacity will likely not be filled in that time. So the benefit of having more capacity for a single node, RAID0, or multiple nodes (No Raid) can be eliminated.
I’d recommend a 4th option, use a single node, with No Raid, until it has been filled. OR, the 2nd option, 1 Node in RAID 1 for redundancy.
Those two choices come down to how you plan to expand it in the future, with more nodes, having No Raid, or if you want to give up some capacity for redundancy.
I would start with one node and wait until it’s vetted and then immediately start the second one. The reason for this is that we have seen good months in the past where disk space usage can go up by 1TB a month. And since the second node will take longer to get vetted, it’s best to get that whole 2TB online as fast as possible. And then if you buy bigger disks, I would just run another new node on there. By that time you will have a better idea of how quickly they fill up as well and you know what kind of HDD size is reasonable to buy. And with this setup you don’t have to discard the 1TB HDD’s. They can still be put to good use as well.