RAID newbie needing help

[feygan]

I'm in the process of building a new system and finally going to setup a RAID array so that I no longer simply rely on my storage drives never failing. Currently I keep all video, music & books on a single 2tb drive.

Originally I had thought of using a RAID 5 array but have now changed my mind to a RAID 10 setup for better failsafe features. The main problem I have is to do with drive sizes. I know the array will only make use of the smallest drive size in the array so stick a 1tb, 2tb, 3tb 4tb, setup together is totally pointless. But If I start the array with 4x1tb drives I will have a RAID drive with 2tb storage and the other 2tb going drive failure safetys yes?

After doing some reasearch I know that to expand this setup will normally mean adding a further 2x 1tb drives each time I gain an additional 1tb of storage space. But can I add 4 x 2tb drives for example and remove the 1tb drives so I now have 4tb storage over 4 drives and in future increase size again in pairs?

I have seen numerous prebuilt NAS boxes that allow you to simply slot in new drives and remove older small ones to slowly increase your size which is my aim, but without the added cost of the NAS box.

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

 

[popatim]

What you plan is certainly do-able but you still havent addressed your main issue which is the lack of a backup plan. Just imagine a nearby lightning strike takes out all the electronics in your house, including all your drives. Now what?

Or how about something way more common, you just click OK to permanently delete a file and then realized it was the wrong file and you desperately need it back. Raid1 won't save you there; deleted from 1 drive and its gone from both.

Backups! I can't stress this enough. Anything you dont want to lose you need a backup of. preferrable more than 1 backup so you can keep one 'off-site'. Why? -because you also need to plan for when the whole house burns down.