NAS & RAID Calculator

NAS pSEO Landing

12x 20TB RAID 5 NAS Calculator | Usable TB

Estimate usable TB, parity overhead, and fault tolerance for 12x 20TB in RAID 5. Includes reserve planning for NAS and homelab arrays.

Capacity Snapshot

Raw Capacity

240.00 TB

Usable Capacity

198.00 TB

Fault Tolerance

1 drive

Efficiency

91.7%

Balanced capacity and redundancy, but rebuild stress can be high on large disks. This scenario applies a 10% filesystem reserve.

Run Interactive Calculator

Alternative Mode Comparison

Mode Usable Tolerance Efficiency
RAID 5 198.00 TB 1 drive 91.7%
RAID 6 180.00 TB 2 drives 83.3%
RAID 10 108.00 TB 1 drive per mirror pair* 50.0%
RAID-Z1 198.00 TB 1 drive 91.7%
RAID-Z2 180.00 TB 2 drives 83.3%

NAS Cluster Guides

Related Long-Tail Calculators

Sequential Long-Tail Navigation

FAQ

Should I optimize this 12-drive plan for capacity or resiliency first?

For long-lived NAS pools, resiliency first is usually safer. Capacity can be expanded later, while a risky parity choice can force migration sooner.

Can this calculator replace real-world benchmark and rebuild testing?

No. Use this page for pre-purchase sizing, then validate with workload benchmarks, SMART health policy, and a tested restore plan.

How many disk failures can RAID 5 tolerate in this setup?

This setup can tolerate 1 drive. Real-world survivability depends on mirror placement, rebuild stress, and drive health.

Why include a 10% reserve when planning NAS capacity?

Keeping free space improves filesystem behavior for snapshots, metadata, and write performance. Full arrays often perform worse and rebuild more slowly.