Best system to buy for Tivo archiving (et al)

mdgm wrote:
X-RAID2 is like RAID-5. There is a dual-redundancy (like RAID-6) option on 6-bay systems which I use. There are a few expansion limitations at the moment. Cannot expand past 16TB (volume capacity), have to factory default with that capacity in place. Also there's an 8TB limit to online expansion. e.g. if you start with a 2TB volume, expansion will work up to a 10TB one.

Mostly got it, but...

"Factory Default with that capacity in place." Does this essentially mean that you have to install >16TB of disk, and the press the magic button for 10 seconds (or equivalent) to reset the device to factory defaults, and then start from scratch on the new big array? Or does this mean that you have to do this, and then build a partition larger than 16TB. (I.E, would building 14TB and 4TB (assuming 3*6) partitions leave you in the same original situation where you would need to "factory default" if you wanted to build a partition>16TB?)

If it has to do with partition sizes as opposed to installed disk size, does the >16TB requirement relate to allocated partition size or formatted file system size on a given partition?

With this limitation, I'm considering just jumping to 6*3TB to avoid the problem, but I don't want to cause difficulties later because I choose to create, for example, 2 8GB partitions as opposed to a single 16.

Lastly, does the jump past 16TB alleviate the "can only increase by a total of 8TB" problem?

Many thanks for your patience.