Do I really need RAIDZ2 - If I am diligent with my backups

[DaveFL]

So I plan to do a build with a relatively small case. The maximum capacity is 6 drives (hotswap) and they are 2.5" so 1-2TB in size. There are also two other internal drive spots but I would prefer to leave them out of the setup. That said, maximizing my space utilizatoin is a priority.

I full understand why one would want to use RAIDZ2 as you can obviously lose your data when waiting on your drive replacement or bringing the new drive online (this nearly happened to me before and wasn't fun!).

That said, for the scenario where this does happen if you have a system in place where you are backing up your NAS frequently to something like Crashplan how important is it to have RAIDZ2 assuming you are ok with the time it would take to download your data.

Obviously usage in the home is very different than an "Enterprise" environment. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Jailer]

It's entirely about risk assessment. If it's worth the risk to you then go for it.

I personally wouldn't because my data is valuable to me but I'm a bit more conservative with the handling of my data.

 

[fta]

If I had a known, tested, very reliable backup (i.e. not crashplan), and I didn't care how long it took to restore the data, I'd be ok with less redundancy.

 

[DaveFL]

It's entirely about risk assessment. If it's worth the risk to you then go for it.

I personally wouldn't because my data is valuable to me but I'm a bit more conservative with the handling of my data.

How would you possibly lose data in this instance? It's been backed up on the cloud.

 

[DaveFL]

If I had a known, tested, very reliable backup (i.e. not crashplan), and I didn't care how long it took to restore the data, I'd be ok with less redundancy.

Use S3 or Glacier or some service you are comfortable with. If your house burns down and the Amazon data center blows up we've got bigger issues.

 

[Jailer]

How would you possibly lose data in this instance? It's been backed up on the cloud.

That's why I said it's entirely about risk assessment.

I went with RAIDZ2 to lessen the possibility that I would lose my pool due to hard drive failure. That's what I meant about being more conservative. Every individual has to decide what they feel is the best tradeoff between storage space and the risk of data loss. A data backup plan is only one portion of that, pool redundancy is another.

 

[Sir.Robin]

How would you possibly lose data in this instance? It's been backed up on the cloud.

Well, you could get corruption in parts of your data.... wich you not necessarily will know about until some time has passed. And when you notice, your backup is also corrupted and you might not have that cind of backlup that lets you go long enough back in time.

If 1 disk fails in your Raidz1 array, you are unprotected until it is replaced and resilvered. Raidz2 will have better protection against corruption because after first disk failure you still have redundancy and parity intact.