I use StableBit Drivepool to make logical storage pools out of groups of smaller HDs. I use 3 and 4 TB drives, since they are cheap, and pool 4 or more of them together to make one pool. For redundancy, I have 4 machines with pools set up with pools big enough to store my entire 10tb media library. To keep them all synced, I use SyncbackSE.
This is the system I settled on years ago, and it works for me. I understand that not everyone has spare machines they can throw half a dozen hard drives into, but I do, so that is what I do.
I was one of those people who used Windows Home Server, which had a drive pooling option like this, so when WHS went out of support, I had to find a different way of pooling drives, like the original WHS had. DrivePool was one of two that did it, and I now have 4 paid licenses for it. :) I used it with WHS 2011, and when that went out of support I switched to Server 2016. JBOD has always been my preferred way to do storage, as messing with RAID is just too much work.
I use StableBit Drivepool to make logical storage pools out of groups of smaller HDs. I use 3 and 4 TB drives, since they are cheap, and pool 4 or more of them together to make one pool. For redundancy, I have 4 machines with pools set up with pools big enough to store my entire 10tb media library. To keep them all synced, I use SyncbackSE.
This is the system I settled on years ago, and it works for me. I understand that not everyone has spare machines they can throw half a dozen hard drives into, but I do, so that is what I do.
I was one of those people who used Windows Home Server, which had a drive pooling option like this, so when WHS went out of support, I had to find a different way of pooling drives, like the original WHS had. DrivePool was one of two that did it, and I now have 4 paid licenses for it. :) I used it with WHS 2011, and when that went out of support I switched to Server 2016. JBOD has always been my preferred way to do storage, as messing with RAID is just too much work.