NAS and RAID

[mattymoomoo]

Hello everybody

I've just bourght a NAS (Synology DS215j) in which I plan on putting 2 x 2tb WD Red disks. It will be used to store and stream video and music in the house and also to centralise all my other stuff which at present is spread out all over the place.

95% of my stuff is just video. Yes, it would be a pain to lose but not the end of the world. If a disk fails I'll live with it. The really important files (mainly photos and work stuff) only amounts to a few gigabytes (if that) and I'll periodically copy them to memory sticks/disks or schedule the NAS to squirrel them away in various places.

So my question is can I forget about RAID completely in order to take advantage of the maximum storage space or is there another benefit I'm not aware of?

Many thanks.

Matt

 

[jsmithepa]

I agree, skip RAID.

 

[zeke15]

You should be fine to forget about RAID. it shouldn't really cause any major issues, so you can just forgo it.

 

[MattNA]

I just got a Qnap TS-251 and I was thinking the same thing. What do I need raid for. It's mostly a media server for me.
I already have backups. The original HD, external HD and a cloud. I think I'm good. ha ha
Should I even mention I have all the CD's and DVD's.
I'm running one 3TB HD. Enough space for me right now.

The only other thing I *thought* I may want raid for is the conveyance.

Also, I got three NAS's. I sent back the other two one HD bay NAS's mostly because of the features.
A WD my cloud had a 800 Mhz pro and 256 MB of RAM. A Synology DS115 8oo pro and 512 of ram.

I'm starting to have a little buyer's remorse. The Synology DS115 would have been fine. I don't need two HD bays and I'm finding out all the network features the Qnap has is for business. It does have a 1.5 Celeron pro and is maxed out at 8 GB of ram. It is the better performer but it's just under 2x the price though.

Now, back to the extra bay I have. keep it blank till I need more space?

 

[jsmithepa]

Now, back to the extra bay I have. keep it blank till I need more space?

My spare slots are for backup drives as I don't have a separate enclosure plus my media drive that needs backing up is fairly static, needs to be backed up maybe a few times/year that's it.