The two NVMe drives used for the mirrored logic-pool were WD_BLACK SN770 2 TB modules that originally cost $121.99 each. The current listing price for the same model is $499.99 per drive — $378 more per unit. Replacing both today would cost $756 more than the original purchase.

The bulk storage pool tells a similar story. The four 18 TB spinning disks were purchased together for $1,477.95 total, roughly $369.49 per drive. The current listing price for the same capacity is $499.99 each, or $130.50 more per drive — $522 more for all four.

Rebuilding the storage configuration alone today would cost roughly $1,278 more than what the system originally cost to assemble. That price difference is a useful reminder that a lot of this project depends on opportunistic hardware timing as much as it does on software architecture.

Thank you, AI, for making the world a worse place.