Question Hardware raid JBOD box vs. Windows Storage Spaces-Simple

[dwd999]

I have three spare 3.5 inch sata HDDs 8TB, 4TB and 2TB. I'm trying to figure out the best way to use them for backup storage. I'm trying to decide if I should get a 4 bay external box that has hardware RAID JBOD (aka SPAN) support or whether a simpler box or separate boxes that can be used with the Windows Storage Spaces Simple option would be less costly and easier to maintain. I know that setting up a Windows Storage Space requires that the drives all be blank when its created and I'm not too happy about that since I would have to move a lot of stuff around before creating a Simple Storage Space. I don't know if that's true with JBOD boxes.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated, as well as any recommendations for JBOD boxes!

 

[USAFRet]

A RAID 0 or spanning in Storage Spaces is the antithesis of what a backup volume should be.

In addition, RAID 0 with different size drives is a no no.