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2x3tb vs 3x2tb RAID drives for home nas

What's more reliable if both of them cost the same money?

2x3tb in RAID 1

3x2tb in RAID 5

From my perspective removing one failed drive of 2tb is cheaper than 3tb. And I think currently 2tb drives are physically more reliable than 3tb

1 Answer 1

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RAID 5 would make it significantly easier (and arguably cheaper) to expand your storage later. Are you trying to hit any specific performance characteristics?

Raid 5 -

Pros:

Easier expansion (Put the new disk in and tell it to expand. It essentially does the rest.)

Cheaper expansion (You can expand 1 disk at a time rather than have to stripe sets of disks identical to your original set.)

Arguably more robust file integrity (at pool sizes that you are looking to initially run at, it shouldn't make a different. However, larger sets of disks will be more secure because it matters significantly less which disk fails.)

Cons:

Slow (Disk performance is slower on RAID 5 that it is on RAID 1.)

Higher initial cost (Requires more disks to start.)

Not the best integrity (RAID 6 is highly recommended due to the increase of disk sizes. It allows more drives to fail in an array before you lose your data.)

RAID 1 -

Pros:

Initially cheap (Requires less disks, costs less money up front.)

Cons:

Becomes increasingly more complex to manage as you add disks (Expanding requires you to do so by installing additional disks in a configuration like you started with.)

The further you expand your array, the more likely you are to lose your data (You'll be fine with a few disks but the more you add the greater your chances of losing your pool.)

More information:

ZFS Hardware Recommendation Guide - Gives great info on RAID and it's limitations.

Why you should reconsider RAID5 - Explains RAID 5s limitations.

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