lightrush

A compromise I can live with.

9x 14TB, WD HC530. Paid 25% less for some 16TB HC550 in 2024.

Being poor sucks.

No kidding. This didn't ruin me but it was painful. And on top of that, it's smaller disks for significantly more than I did last year.

I bought them for years ahead. My primary pool is gonna start having drives fail from age and use, and it'll need replacements. So I'm gonna be sticking these in as they fail over time so I use all the service life I can get from the existing (8TB) drives.

The M8000 derailleur/shifter on my bike are from 2017. The cassette is M7000 (SLX) which is also that old. I've done at least 25000km on this drivetrain. Probably closer to 30-40K. I don't clean it regularly. Maybe once every 2 years. Last year I shamefully fell behind on maintenance and rode it dry almost all summer. This drivetrain still shifts perfectly and new chains don't skip on the cassette. Point being that if this anecdata is any measure, even old, used compontents from these series might work great, if you find some cheap deal.

I don't have experience with the 12-speed drivetrains but the M7000/M8000 11-speed Shimano are incredible. If you have some cash burning in your pocket, you'd be delighted. That said as some have suggested, the same shifting consistency is probably available in cheaper parts too. I can vouch for M7000/M8000 as that's what I've been using since 2017. Especially coming from an old Suntour, it's gonna blow your mind. Perfect shifting under power? Yes.

I'm sure the good quality pivot joints don't start at XT. I just don't have other intermediary parts to test with. I've used an SLX derailleur and shifters in the past and the shifting consistency didn't feel worse in any way. Maybe it goes down to Deore. Maybe even to CUES. The CUES parts look really well made. But so does the Alivio so unless one can inspect it with their hands, it's not clear. :D

All that makes me curious about the quality of the newer "value" brands like Microshift, S-Road, Sensah, Ltwoo. If those have stiff joints, they may be a worthy upgrade for cheap setups.

That's how I found this.

Back in 2008-10 I started using 10-speed SLX and that was near flawless. Sometime around 2017 I switched to an 11-speed XT (M8000) that I found at a discount. That thing never misses a shift and in addition it can shift under load in either direction without mishifts. Never requires adjustment after a new cable settles. It's incredible. I've gotten really used to this experience.

Recently I got a foldable with M3100. I was pretty excited because the M3100 now has the shadow cage design and it looks more or less like a heavier, cheaper version of what I'm used to. I starter riding it and I got a few misshifts, adjusted the barrel, got a bit better, adjusted the deraileur hanger, got a bit better, B-screw, got better. I even got an old 9-speed XT shifter for it because the derailleur movement is primarily controlled by the shifter. Now it's closer to the consistency I'm used to but it still does some slow shifts / higher-lower shifts every few cassette sweeps. That got me thinking about what could possibly cause this and I started inspecting it physically. That's when I discovered how much play there is in the M3100. I could get the guide pulley to move half a gear from the indexed one by mildly pressing on it. I did the same test on my other bike. It barely moved even when pressing really hard. That's when it hit me that there's no way to get perfectly consistent shifting with this amount of play. It's still perfectly functional, it's not dangerous or anything, but it physically can't do it. I decided to bite the bullet and get some old M8000 gear. Once I removed the chain from the M3100 it was so much more obvious how much play there's in it compared to the M8000.

With all that said, for the price, an M3100 with a cheap trigger shifter is still very good. It just won't ever do perfect shifts and there isn't much point in changing cassettes, cables or shifters in the hope it'll improve significantly.

The AI search is just crazy, especially when you adjust the model quality.

I call it Ubuntu.

Reactivated the Battety health assistance setting and we're back to 91% capacity:

I'll buy the domain/s if you decide to start a trial.

🤗