I’m looking for a NAS and am wondering if there is any advantage to one vs two bays for the equivalent amount of storage. For instance, if I need 12TB of storage, is it better to get one 12TB drive in a one bay array or two 6TB drives in a two bay array?
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NAS - one or two bays?
- Thread starter jclin10
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Having 2 bays is generally more future-proof because it provides more options. However, it ultimately depends on how you plan to manage your data and configure the RAID options.
very easy and if you go with a well known brand like Synology it is part of the easy or advanced setup
Depending on how you configure it, two drives can be faster than one (at the expense of reliability), or can be more reliable than one (at the expense of capacity). A second unoccupied bay might provide future expandability even if you leave it empty for now.
It really comes down to cost and goals. I mostly use 5bay NAS systems with mismatched drives and parity for a fully suboptimal mix of convenience, cost, reliability and performance.
Unless the data is backed up somewhere else, I wouldn’t just put data on a single drive. Of course it depends on what you want to do with it. If it’s a NAS for back up, definitely two bay or higher. I’ve done a little research on this, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet. I’m trying to not overspend, but don’t want to get something I’ll regret buying.
The only other thing is if it’s accessible outside your network, you want to stick with Synology.
The only other thing is if it’s accessible outside your network, you want to stick with Synology.
