The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Cindy-Moon on 2025-04-19 06:37:12.
Hi there!
Right now we have a repurposed Dell workstation operating as our home media and file server. We access it as a network drive with SMB, have Plex running on it for media, as well as some other services that we run on it whenever I want to host something online. It's running Ubuntu 24.02 LTS off of a small SSD and has mounted a 10TB hard drive that I've been using as the network drive that's just about full.
I've been putting money back every month to save up for expanding the server and its soon coming time for me to make the purchases, but I lost my plans for it and am feeling a bit lost trying to create new ones. Here's where I'm at so far:
I want to significantly expand the storage available, so I was looking into Direct Attached Storage to add several drive bays. I've got one 16TB drive in waiting and want to purchase and fill it with more 16TB drives.
I know that RAID is something that I should look into? I've been nervous about data corruption becoming a thing someday and it seems like when we're getting into these high amounts of data that a level of redundancy so that I can swap out and repair dying drives would be important. I'm struggling finding answers about this here.
When I try googling it I get a lot of unrelated information and advice all over the place. "If you're using it as a network drive you should get a NAS instead of a DAS." Should I be using a NAS if I already have a dedicated Linux PC for this?
There's RAID and non-RAID enclosures. Do I need a RAID enclosure to use RAID? I've seen some conversations where others have said they actually needed a DAS that didn't have a RAID controller. Can I set up RAID via the Ubuntu PC itself?
What "version" of RAID should I be using? I've been planning to order all 16TB drives since I read RAID requires your drives to all be the same capacity, is this true? Because obviously if so I'll need to move pretty much everything from 10TB over to them.
I feel like there's a lot of factors that go into this that I'm having a hard time of unraveling and turning into actionable steps. Can someone help clear up what would be the best idea for my use case and current position?