Looking for recommended future-proof setup for Pro 6
Hei,
I am about to buy a Pro 6 as replacement for my single drive 2TB NAS. I plan on using X-RAID2 and am wondering about my initial disk setup. As 3GB disks still have some price premium here in Europe and are not really as well tested as the 2TB disks (which have become ridiciuosly cheap) I planned on buying 4 Western Digital 2TB Green 3,5", SATA WD20EARS as they rank good on the compatibility list and are not that expensive either (and they are quite too as I read on some tests).
Is it smart to have 4 of these when I lateron plan on extending with 2 additional 3TB drives (and maybe replacing some/all of the 2TB drives lateron)? Or is it smarter to start with 3x2TB and extend with bigger disks after that?
Anybody having the Pro 6 in the TV room? How noisy is it? Have a Mac Mini + PS3 + my current Buffalo LinkStation Pro there as for now... and all I hear when nothings on is the harddisk in its (well ventilated) closet, this noise has never been an issue when watching films (also in quite scenes in movies).
Re: Looking for recommended future-proof setup for Pro 6
If you are going with dual redundancy under X-Raid2, then 4 drives is indeed the way to go. Dual redundancy requires 4 drives of identical capacity. The specific comment was about vertical expansion.
There are two forms of exapansion, horizontal which is triggered by adding drives and the vertical by replacing some or drives with larger drives. Adding larger drives to an existing array of smaller drives that do not fill all the slots may do both.
Single redundancy will allow the array with your data to survive the failure of a single drive. This requires at least two drives of the same size. Dual redundancy (only available on units with 6 or more bays) requires 4 or more disks of the same size.
Going from a one drive NAS to a 6 bay unit is a big change. You can start with as few as 2 drives and single redundancy and later as you add drives when you have enough, you can switch to dual redundancy if desired. Dual redundancy is recommended with 6 drives, but just remember you only get the storage space of 4 drives (2 of the six provide redundancy). For this reason, when I was buying a new ReadyNAS, I could not justify the additional expense of the 6 bay Pro. I went instead with two 4 bay units (NVX) with the second backing up the first. Remember, a ReadyNAS, even with dual redundancy is not a backup plan.
RAID will protect against drive failure, but if there is a problem with the array, or there is a problem or catastrophe with the unit you data could still be gone.
Re: Looking for recommended future-proof setup for Pro 6
note also, you can still start with less than 4 disks, then enable dual redundancy later (you must do it any time before adding the last disk).
I've done it my self, but also be aware that it took several days to go from single to dual redundancy. Id recommend starting with 4 disks and dual redundancy from RAIDAR from the factory reset/initialization, its much faster.
Re: Looking for recommended future-proof setup for Pro 6
thanx for the feedback. besides replacing the NAS I have I plan on using the new one to replace my USB based time machine disks for the two iMacs in the house, thus the need for a small capacity jump 🙂
just ordered the pro 6 and four harddisks. cant wait to get this stuff - keen on testing plex on the readynas as well 🙂
