Should I optimize this 6-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.
Why include a 10% reserve when planning NAS storage headroom?
Keeping free space improves filesystem behavior for snapshots, metadata, and write performance. Full arrays often perform worse and rebuild more slowly.
How many disk failures can RAID 10 tolerate in this setup?
This setup can tolerate 1 drive per mirror pair*. Real-world survivability depends on mirror placement, rebuild stress, and drive health.
Is RAID 10 still worth deploying with 20TB drives?
It can be practical, but larger drives increase rebuild windows. Validate parity choice and backup policy before committing to the final layout.