RAID Storage for home use

[Beliblis]

Hi,

First of all: I'm running standard MAC OS – not the server version. But I thought this subforum may be the better place for my question (instead of the "Mac Basics" subform), because it goes a little beyond average home use.

Over the years, I've accumulated about more than 12 tb of data, mainly RAW/DNG-Files and Video. At the moment, it's spread across several hard drives. 'Naked' internal drives without enclosure, which I can swap via two USB-3 bays attached to my 2018 MacMini. (Two bays = I can do backups via Carbon Copy Cloner).

I'd like to run a leaner/cleaner setup, with less hard-drives, and ideally not having to swap drives every time I want to dig out an old raw file.
Read/write speed isn't so much an issue in most cases: for photo, I'm using Lightroom > find file > open in Photoshop. Video projects and larger files, I can temporarily copy to my internal SSD which is obviously speedy enough.


1) What would be a decent setup for this, for home office use? (noise levels, etc)
First research led me to this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TerraMaster-D5-300C-External-Enclosure-Exclusive/dp/B071S6ZCMM/
I'm guessing the the 5 hd-bays appear as 5 hd-icons in the finder, right? (4 if I'm running a raid on the first 2 bays)

My idea would be:
Bays 1+2 = RAID (for current/unfinished projects) = no need to constantly back up.
Bays 3-5 = Storage for old files/finished projects (with backups on other external hard drives).

Would this work? Do you have other/better suggestions?

2) How large a hard-drive would you use these days (I'm thinking hard-drive failure here). I'm currently running 4tb WD red drives. Are 8 or 16 tb drives good enough these days, or are they more prone to hd-failure?
I mean... a while ago, people wouldn't recommend 4tb files for safe data storage. ("More tb = more prone to errors"). Then again... When back in the 90s, "tb" drives didn't even exist...

Many many thanks for your help & input!!

 

[cmaier]

Unless you need the performance of attached storage, I’d go with something like Synology. I’ve been using their NAS’s since 2012, and they are fantastic and reliable. In fact, I’m still running one from 2012 (and another from last year).

As for drive reliability, I’ve had problems with Seagate Barracuda 8tb’s - high failure rate (I have two Synology boxes, each with 12 drives, mixed sizes and manufacturers, and I’ve had to replace the seagates a bunch, but only their 8tb’s. The 6, 10 and 12 seem fine). WD Red are a safe bet in my experience, at any size Up to 12tb. One of the nice things about a NAS such as synology is you can have 2-drive redundancy, and even spare drives that kick in if something goes wrong. That way, even if 2 drives fail simultaneously, you are still in business.

 

[Beliblis]

Thank you! Why do you prefer NAS storage? A NAS would be more expensive than attached storage, and redundancy can also be achieved with attached storage.
Is it because it makes the office quieter / less stuff on the office desk?

Working on a 2018 MacMini with WiFi only (prefer not to run long LAN cable through the house): What transfer speeds (roughly) can I expect with a NAS? 50% compared to USB-3?