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The original was posted on /r/datahoarder by /u/tuxon64 on 2024-11-05 22:58:09+00:00.

My external storage needs are probably around 6-8 TB. I initially thought of a NAS and liked the idea of running a plex server on that. However my home is not network friendly. I tried those powerline ethernet adapters and transfer rates were pathetic.

I’m leaning towards a DAS and I like the offerings from OWC, mainly because the enclosures have extra USB-A ports and a SD card reader, things Apple keeps eliminating, and these enclosures are about the same price as the ones from Terramaster and QNAP. I’m thinking of getting recertified EXOS drives from serverpartdeals for a little over $10/TB.

My use case is photos/videos, time machine backup, and movies to stream via Plex to an AppleTV. I’m currently using a 5TB external drive, USB3.0 and I can edit 4k videos off that. Data transfer rates are around 100 MB/s. With a 7200 drive and thunderbolt 3 connection I’m thinking I would get around 200 MB/s.

And if you come this far, a total newbie question. I haven’t decided to just start with JBOD or go RAID1. Everyone says RAID is not a backup. Is that because of the chance the enclosure itself fails? I can’t see both drives failing at the same time and I understand for a true backup you need offsite storage. But life comes with risk and I’m willing to risk a fire or some rando robs my house and takes my hard drives. I will periodically backup the real important stuff with my loose external drives.