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NAS Question

Currently, I have a music dedicated, networked laptop in my home office with all my FLAC files on the HDD. These files are backed-up to a NAS with mirrored HDDs (RAID 1).

I listen in (1) my home office using JRiver on the above laptop direct out to a DAC via USB to a head phone set-up; and (2) my big rig listening area using a second networked laptop that only has the OS and JRiver on its SSD - the FLAC files are accessed from the office-based, networked laptop HDD.

Well, I bought (1) a two-bay NAS with two 2TB HDDs; and (2) a 64GB SDD. I plan to move all my FLAC Files to the new NAS and install the SSD on the office-based laptop to hold only the OS and JRiver.

I will continue to back-up all FLAC files to the previously existing mirrored NAS (RAID 1).

My question: Since I do not need additional back-up, I can configure the new NAS as RAID 0 to in essence give me 4TB of storage spanning the two 2TB HDDs. Is there any downside to this arrangement either in stability, performance or sonics?

If I am asking a silly question, you can tell me that, too.

Thanks.
128x128flyfish2002
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,394 posts
 
Both, mirroring and stripping have the same problem - controller going bad (or virus) can kill both disks. Raid 0 (stripping) has additional problem. When one disk goes bad the other is automatically lost. Stripping is used for speed - not needed in audio.
flyfish2002's avatar
flyfish2002 OP
94 posts
 
OK, thanks. Reviewing the documentation, my choices are RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD, which stands for Just a Bunch of Disks. JBOD treats each HDD as a separate networked HDD on the network - which would give me two 2TB HDDs.

Choices, choices.
sufentanil's avatar
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sufentanil
782 posts
 
How big is your existing RAID 1 NAS? (The one you make your backups to.)

The reason why I ask is this: Let's say you have a 2 TB NAS that you make your backups to. So that means you can backup a maximum of 2 TB total (and that doesn't allow any versioning / differential backups).

So if your new NAS could store, say, 4TB in RAID 0, then anything that you put on it over 2 TB can't be backed up to the current backup system. Make sense?

You will get additional storage space, and possibly increased write speeds (depends on the interface, drives, and controller) with RAID 0. RAID 1 will protect you from a single hard drive failure, that's it. It will also give you half the storage space of the RAID 0 option. JBOD, in my opinion, is only useful with very specialized situations such as creating a Linux zfs filesystem, which automatically takes care of providing redundancy and volume enlargement capabilities over multiple drives. (Creating a Linux zfs filesystem is a rather advanced technique, by the way, so it's not for the computer beginner.) Otherwise, you're better off letting your NAS decide how to spread the data over the available drives.

Ultimately, I think your decision is going to be based most on realistically determining how much data you currently have and how much data you anticipate having in the next 5 or so years (and your present ability to back it up). And your choice will be essentially between RAID 0 and RAID 1.

Sorry I provided more questions than answers, but those are some of the variables involved in that decision.

Michael
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