How many disks?
CRM or SRM?
I had some CMR 3.5 inch disks and put them in externally powered USB 3 enclosures for use with Pi 4. Disk A is file server. Disk B is a local backup of disk A. A simpler config than RAID mirroring.
For a Pi 5, there are PCIe SATA options but the dual USB 3 SATA is still a good option and the Pi 5 can boot from NVMe with the NVMe acting as a workspace for things like compressing directories into a backup file.
Do you own some old disks for the project? You might want to check their SMART data before use. Some of my CMR disks were so old, internally they were inscribing data on slate tablets.![:D]( "Very Happy")
After retiring the ancient disks, I had only one CMR and decided on using that for the file server with an overnight backup to a SMR disk. That way, it does not matter if a 1 minute write takes 2 hours in SMR.
CRM or SRM?
I had some CMR 3.5 inch disks and put them in externally powered USB 3 enclosures for use with Pi 4. Disk A is file server. Disk B is a local backup of disk A. A simpler config than RAID mirroring.
For a Pi 5, there are PCIe SATA options but the dual USB 3 SATA is still a good option and the Pi 5 can boot from NVMe with the NVMe acting as a workspace for things like compressing directories into a backup file.
Do you own some old disks for the project? You might want to check their SMART data before use. Some of my CMR disks were so old, internally they were inscribing data on slate tablets.
After retiring the ancient disks, I had only one CMR and decided on using that for the file server with an overnight backup to a SMR disk. That way, it does not matter if a 1 minute write takes 2 hours in SMR.
Statistics: Posted by peterlite — Tue Feb 10, 2026 12:32 am