Thanks for the response. I should say that I not a geek at all, wish I was. I am not very knowledgeable about computer systems and have been struggling to find an easy solution for my needs. A lot of your advice goes over my head and it may therefore be a bit complex for me but I will try to investigate.
Well honestly I think as soon as you're needing this amount of storage, and you're considering JBODs, that's more advanced than most people. You're basically putting on the hat of IT staff. No matter what you buy, you're going to have to manage it.
Essentially I would like to transfer all photos and iTunes to an external drive, use another large drive for films, then use another for TM backups and then other drives for clone backups to be stored off site. I had thought that a 4 bay enclosure would be ideal as the fourth bay could be kept spare for the clone disks.
I don't think this is particularly simple. Why separate drives for these things? Do you have 2-4TB each of photos/music, video, and Time Machine backups?
And the cloning is going to be done automatically or manually? If it's manual cloning that's also not easy.
Currently have an iMac and will be replacing it with a Mini and they don't have eSATA.
There are modifications that will get you eSATA but it's understandable you don't want to cut a hole in your iMac or Mini. If performance is even remotely a consideration, like working with live video, you're going to need Thunderbolt. Or get a fast internal drive which will have a direct SATA connection of course.
Will GigE be as fast as FW800, I have read that although technically faster in reality it is slower?
GigE vs FW800 performance differences vary depending on the kind of data. More compressible data will be faster on FW800 compared to GigE. FW800 is easier to connect: one cable, done. The cable is more expensive and higher quality and more reliable. GigE best performance means using proper cables (Cat 6) for all connections between computer and NAS, and that the runs are the proper length, not too many or too tight of a bend, not crimped under furniture or staples, etc.
So depending on your existing network or willingness to tune it, GigE is in the ballpark of FW800. Sometimes it's faster. I've pushed 100MB/s and I've seen 110MB/s pushed through it.
But a single FW800 connection to a JBOD enclosure means you will get 1/2 that performance when accessing two disks.
