Recommended Media Storage Configuration?

[Gilt Brick]

Hey guys I was just wondering what you would suggest as a recommended storage configuration for a media NAS. The NAS has to be 5TB minimum with the ability to expand.
The problem is I'm not really sure how to balance power, redundancy, and capacity. For capacity more drives in an array is better, but that's worse for power since they all have to spin up, and more redundancy means less capacity.

Since this is for media, performance is not really an issue. That brings up another question, since Vdev's in a Pool get striped would it be better to just make new pools for each array I add? That way I don't lose everything if one vdev fails, the whole pool doesn't have to spin up, and they can be different sizes.

Any suggestions? Did I get something wrong? Let me know!

 

[gpsguy]

What's your budget? You need 5TB now, how much will you need a year from now, two years from now?

I'd start with a minimum of 6 disks in RAIDz2. Based on the answer to the second question, I'd start with 3TB drives (at a minimum). Depending on your projected growth needs, I might also look at 4-6TB drives.

Given your use case, I'd keep all the disks in the same pool and use RAIDz2.