Looking for some advice or other things to think about from the learned community 
I am currently running an Iomega/LenovoEMC StorCentre ix2-dl with two WD Red 3TB drives in RAID 1 (3TB of storage), with what was a 3TB external USB backup of the NAS -- backup drive has died. I have about 25% of space remaining, and am looking to expand storage and access space. The device is primarily used as multimedia repository for music and videos, and it then streams to a variety of DLNA and Airplay devices in the home. Secondary use has been to back up some photos in an archive mode so they are not taking up room on my laptop, which I use for more current photo editing. I use a directly connected external 1TB USB drive to back up the laptop weekly. I would like to consider the potential of using the NAS to backup home computers. I would also like to option to be able to view media remotely over the Internet. My videos are currently encoded as MP4 and are all 720p or 1080p, mostly 5-channel audio. I would assume I would need a box that could stream in a more bandwidth-friendly manner to make that activity usable in terms of bandwidth for smooth streaming, as well as to minimize any data caps or throttling from my provider.
My current thought was to expand space by either buying a new 2-bay unit, such as the Synology DS415play/DS416play or Qnap TS-251 populated with two WD Red 6TB drives in RAID 1 or a 4-bay unit such as the Qnap TS-451 populated with three WD Red 3TB drives in RAID 5, and then convert over the ix2-dl to RAID 0, and use it to backup the new NAS boxes. I can get either the 2-bay RAID 1 6TB or 4-bay RAID 5 6TB solutions within about $100 of each other, so not a big expense difference.
I would see the 4-bay solution as having more room for later expansion to 9TB at a lower cost (just adding another 3TB drive in RAID 5) accounting for the extra initial $100. Are there other things to consider in my scenario that might definitively point to one solution over the other, or to another approach to expanding the NAS ? Thank-you for your considerations.
I am currently running an Iomega/LenovoEMC StorCentre ix2-dl with two WD Red 3TB drives in RAID 1 (3TB of storage), with what was a 3TB external USB backup of the NAS -- backup drive has died. I have about 25% of space remaining, and am looking to expand storage and access space. The device is primarily used as multimedia repository for music and videos, and it then streams to a variety of DLNA and Airplay devices in the home. Secondary use has been to back up some photos in an archive mode so they are not taking up room on my laptop, which I use for more current photo editing. I use a directly connected external 1TB USB drive to back up the laptop weekly. I would like to consider the potential of using the NAS to backup home computers. I would also like to option to be able to view media remotely over the Internet. My videos are currently encoded as MP4 and are all 720p or 1080p, mostly 5-channel audio. I would assume I would need a box that could stream in a more bandwidth-friendly manner to make that activity usable in terms of bandwidth for smooth streaming, as well as to minimize any data caps or throttling from my provider. My current thought was to expand space by either buying a new 2-bay unit, such as the Synology DS415play/DS416play or Qnap TS-251 populated with two WD Red 6TB drives in RAID 1 or a 4-bay unit such as the Qnap TS-451 populated with three WD Red 3TB drives in RAID 5, and then convert over the ix2-dl to RAID 0, and use it to backup the new NAS boxes. I can get either the 2-bay RAID 1 6TB or 4-bay RAID 5 6TB solutions within about $100 of each other, so not a big expense difference.
I would see the 4-bay solution as having more room for later expansion to 9TB at a lower cost (just adding another 3TB drive in RAID 5) accounting for the extra initial $100. Are there other things to consider in my scenario that might definitively point to one solution over the other, or to another approach to expanding the NAS ? Thank-you for your considerations.
