This has probably been asked since the beginning of time, well, the beginning of NAS4Free.
On an older Acer (Vista) laptop, I have successfully set up a RAID 1 with two USB 2.5" 500GB older laptop drives and all worked well booting from a Flash drive. I then decided to use a 1TB drive I had and set up a JBOD version. I have backed up the systems for both so I can swap from one to the other fairly easily.
Currently I am using the JBOD as it is all internal with the laptop as I have N4F, swap-file and data all on the single internal drive giving me a little over 800GB for data. But, since it is always running (old laptop drives) I am now pondering the wisdom of no redundancy and may go back to the RAID system.
I have pulled the laptop apart and with a little brutal surgery can fit the two 500GB drives inside and run cables to the rear USB ports. That will get me back to the RAID 1 system and still have a portable and self-contained system. The laptop is a good plan as it has it's own battery as a UPS.
The 500GB is more than adequate for our data storage needs, so the fact that the JBOD is almost double the RAID it is not an important issue.
Anyone care to chime in with opinions, theories or suggestions?
Thanks
Harry
