Is this a good use of the hard drives?

[Nerevarine]

I'm trying to figure out the most cost effective solution for my storage needs. My need for redundancy in my data overall is very low, only small amounts of the data has to be backed up and safe, the rest is basically just for a large media library where most is replaceable. Not in any way vital.

I have two 2TB disks that I thought could be put in a raid 1 pool and be used as 2TB of backup space, for my pictures and music library, and some other random backups like OS stuff and so on.

After that I just want to maximize storage of the rest, and I have a 3TB drive and a 4TB drive. I thought I would buy two more, one 3TB, one 4TB and create two raid 0 pools. That would leave me with 14TB's of non secure but fast storage and 2TB of secure storage in total right? Have I understood how this works, and could that be a cost effective solution for my needs?

 

[danb35]

I thought I would buy two more, one 3TB, one 4TB and create two raid 0 pools.

You could put all four disks (2 x 3 TB and 2 x 4 TB) in the same striped pool; you don't need to group them by size. As long as you're aware of the risk that presents to your data--when any disk in a striped pool fails, all the data on that pool is lost.

 

[Nerevarine]

You could put all four disks (2 x 3 TB and 2 x 4 TB) in the same striped pool; you don't need to group them by size. As long as you're aware of the risk that presents to your data--when any disk in a striped pool fails, all the data on that pool is lost.

Thanks!

Are there any disadvantages to setting them up as two separate pools other than the inconvenience of having to share and use two separate "drives" from my units accessing the NAS?

Seeing as it would lessen the losses if one drive would fail it might feel like the better alternative.

 

[danb35]

Performance would be better with all four drives in one pool, and as you observed there's the convenience factor. Balanced against that is the risk of loss. I'm not saying you should put all the disks together, I just didn't want you to think that the pool needed to consist of the same size drives.

 

[Nerevarine]

Performance would be better with all four drives in one pool, and as you observed there's the convenience factor. Balanced against that is the risk of loss. I'm not saying you should put all the disks together, I just didn't want you to think that the pool needed to consist of the same size drives.

Thanks, good to know :)