Setting up new QNAP - static, thick, or thin volumes?

[tboooe]

Hi guys, I am finally making the upgrade from an old Thecus to a QNAP nas.  When setting up the QNAP I am able to create static, thick, or thin volumes.  While I understand the differences conceptually,  I am not sure which would be best in my situation.  This nas will be used in my home primarily as storage for my music, photos, movies, etc.  I am the only one that regularly streams music from it.  My intention is to set it up as a RAID 5.  In my case (single user, mainly music streaming) wouldn't a static volume make the most sense?  I am not interested in using the QNAP snapshot feature since I will be backing up this nas with another nas.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[fragoulisnaval]

Do not use RAID 5. Go to RAID 6 for increased safety

[tboooe]

10 minutes ago, fragoulisnaval said:

Do not use RAID 5. Go to RAID 6 for increased safety

Thank you for the reply.  I am comfortable with Raid 5 since I will have 2 separate backups of the Qnap nas.  

[gbb]

It depends how much headroom you need.  Thin volume can grow, but YOU watch them.  Thick volumes may be overprovsiioned at first, but the system grabs the whole space for you and watches it and will trigger at a set % full.

 

 

[cjf]

Go thick..Thin volumes in home use are not really needed for most people. Thin VOL is like a credit card, you can create the VOL larger than the actual space you have on the NAS which can get you into trouble later if your not paying attention.

 

Thick VOL, you take the hit right away and then don't have to worry about it afterwards. The VOL is the size you make it..full stop (unless you extend it of course). Ideally you wouldn't make the VOL at MAX size of RAW disk capacity.  You leave yourself a small sliver of un-allocated space to expand in case usage sneaks up on you and this by yourself some time to purchase more disk. If you allocate all RAW space and it fills, your screwed just the same whether Thin or Thick.

 

Some may even say thick is better in terms of performance and this is probably true in home usage. Not so much true in the enterprise world these days though. Enterprise typically use Thin on the storage array side and thick on the server side. Double Thin = Bad