L&LD
Part of the Furniture
Ok then i understand. So just to be sure, i could just put in 4 x 3TB and run Raid 10 and have everything on this array?
Later i'm thinking adding additional 2 x 3TB when the need for more space arises. OR is it better to have a 2x TB as Raid 1 as a standalone array for playing with VM and other stuff. This was i dont wear out the other disks when playing with VM, running backup programs and such. Am i thinking correctly even ?
I been using Drobo FS which is pretty dumb and dont let me play with these fun stuff so i'm a bit noob in this area. Actually started reading the QNAP manual now but so far it don't give me much of the answers, just showing how the QNAP works in general.
Yes, you can use just part of the drive bays and expand that as you need.
I do think it is better to have the NAS os on a 2x RAID1 array though. Separate from data and drive redundant too (if either drive fails, you will still have a working NAS. Many, many customers have thanked me for talking them into this for their 4 bay or larger NAS'). You can also store your VM's that you're just 'playing' with (so that they don't get copied to your backups, unnecessarily).
The hdd's will wear out whether you use them or not.
Go ahead and use them. But I would suggest they sleep/spin down only once or twice a day or alternately, run continuously instead rather than spin up/down dozens of times during a normal day as or when they get accessed. This is the 'parameter' that eventually kills drives (stop/start), not the fact that they are spinning or kept spinning.