How many disk failures can RAID-Z2 tolerate in this setup?
This setup can tolerate 2 drives. Real-world survivability depends on mirror placement, rebuild stress, and drive health.
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.
Should I optimize this 10-drive plan for available space 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.
Is RAID-Z2 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.