Single HDD? Did I lose my mind? Everyone is setting up RAID, but I'm going to trust all my data to single HDD.
No, I have not lost my mind. Having RAID does not protect me against data corruption, only good backup policy does. The RAID can protect me against single HDD failure, but so the good backup copy. The only difference is that with RAID there is no down-time. This is not critical for home system at all. Most likely I will be busy restoring my HDD and I can't do anything else, except browsing the Internet, while the restore of the NAS is in progress.
Not having RAID have some additional benefits like: lower heat generation and power use; less complexity; easier upgrade of the storage and etc.
So! NO RAID!
But what HDD do I need:
- Size: 350-500GB (I'm looking for best value here $/GB)
- Interface: SATA is preferable.
- Speed: 7200rpm is probably is optimal. The 10,000rpm (and 15,000rpm) are really fast drives, but also they produce a lot of heat. I have concern that will not last as long as 7200rpm drive and the price will drive this project out of budged.
- Supports: S.M.A.R.T. This will allow me to monitor the health of the HDD and replace it before it fails. Also it will allow me to enable power management functions like shutdown after long idle time.
The TS-109Pro has single internal HDD, but supports also external HDD connected on the USB or eATA.