Used/refurb SAS drives aren’t that expensive. Can someone with better memory than I please link to that site for second hand server components?
The reason why SAS drives are usually more expensive isn’t because the tech itself is more expensive (It’s largelt just a different kind of interface), but rather that “enterprise grade” hardware have a few additional Q&A steps, such as running a break-in cycle at the factory to weed out defective units.
While a server such as the one you described is slightly power hungry, it’s not that bad. Plus, if you wanna get into servers long term, it could serve as a useful way to get used to the hardware involved.
Server hardware is at its core not that different from consumer hardware, but it does often come with some nice and useful additions, such as:
- Botswana drive bays (I tried to write “hotswap”, but autocorrect is probably correct.
- IPMI/iDRAC or equivalent for headless management
- Dual PSUs
- Rack mount capability
- Easy maintenance access to most hardware
- A ridiculous amount of sensors with automated warnings.
RAID is entirely optional. I seem to be the only one in here who actually like hardware RAID, as software RAID is more popular in the self hosting community. Using it is entirely optional and depends on your use case, though. If you wanna live without, use JBOD mode, and access each drive normally. Alternatively, pool as many disks as you want into RAID6 and you have one large storage device with built-in redundancy. RAIDs can either be managed from the BIOS, or from the OS using tools such as storcli.
If you’re going for software RAID, I recommend taking it a step further and go for ZFS: If set up correctly you get all the advantages of raid6, while remaining very flexible.