Storinator Buying Guide (Part 1)

Determining what storage application works best for you can be a difficult task. Luckily, we have an amazing support team and plenty of great resources to help you get the right 45Drives storage solution for your specific needs.  

If you are out of storage or running out of storage but are not sure what you need – this guide will help you decide which Storinator storage server and configuration is best for your data needs.

The Storinator storage server’s configuration is flexible, this gives you an advantage an enables you to get exactly the right system for your use case. However, it can be slightly intimidating when you’re making the purchasing decisions. That’s why we designate a specific account manager for you. They are there to help you every step of the way and to make sure you’re getting the exact storage solution you require. If you’re ready to talk to an account manager click here. If you want to learn more keep reading!

Storinator Buying Guide

The first step in choosing a Storinator storage server is asking these questions:

 How much storage space do I need?

This seems like an obvious question, but it can be a little more difficult to determine. First, think about your current storage capacity. At what rate is your storage server filling now and how much is that rate increasing?

Think about the timeframe you want to purchase storage for. With all this information you should be able to determine what useable capacity you’ll need over the lifetime of your NAS.

Please note: When we talk about raw capacity we mean the capacity of the Network Attached Storage (NAS) plus the number of drives, multiplied by the size of the drive. For example, if you have a Storinator S45 populated with 10TB drives that gives you 450TB of raw storage.

It’s important to remember that the useable capacity of the NAS is less than the raw capacity. The useable capacity is affected by things like RAID level and which operating system (OS) you use. Which leads to another question you will want to ask yourself.

What RAID level do I need? 

• RAID 0 – Has no effect on useable capacity and the highest performance of any RAID level. But if one drive is lost the entire RAID will fail.
• RAID 1 – 50% of raw capacity is lost to redundancy. You won’t lose any data unless you lose both drives from a mirrored pair.
• RAID 10 – 50% of raw capacity lost to redundancy. Faster than just a RAID 1 but if you lose two drives from the same mirror then the entire pool is lost instead of just the contents of one drive.
• RAID 5 or 50 – 1 drive worth of raw capacity is lost to redundancy per RAID 5 array. The pool will still be able to rebuild if you lose one drive but is very vulnerable during rebuild. RAID 5 is slower than RAID 0.
• RAID 6 or 60 – 2 drives worth of raw capacity is lost to redundancy per RAID 6. You can withstand two drive failures per array. Slower but considered by many to be a good trade-off with a RAID 10 for the increased space efficiency and strong redundancy.   

The decision between different RAID levels will be a choice between these attributes:

• Storage efficiency
• Performance
• Redundancy
• Rebuild times/safety
• Cost-effectiveness

For more information on the tradeoffs between raid levels check out our blog, article, or video on the subject.

The equations for how each of these levels affects space efficiency are:

RAID 0	RAID 1/10	RAID 5/50	RAID 6/60
(n)	(n/2)	(n-1 * drive size)	(n-2 * drive size)

Where (n = number of drives * drive size)

Once you have determined your required size is you can figure out which model of Storinator you will require.  We have a RAID calculator for both RAID and RAIDZ that is free to use. If you just want to take a quick glance, in the table below are useable capacities for each RAID level.

AV15	1TB	2TB	3TB	4TB	6TB	8TB	10TB	12TB
RAID0	15	30	45	60	90	120	150	180
RAID1	7.5	15	22.5	30	45	60	75	90
RAID5	14	28	42	56	84	112	140	168
RAID6	13	26	39	52	78	104	130	156

Q30	1TB	2TB	3TB	4TB	6TB	8TB	10TB	12TB
RAID0	30	60	90	120	180	240	300	360
RAID1	15	30	45	60	90	120	150	180
RAID5	29	58	87	116	174	232	290	348
RAID6	28	56	84	112	168	224	280	336

S45	1TB	2TB	3TB	4TB	6TB	8TB	10TB	12TB
RAID0	45	90	135	180	270	360	450	540
RAID1	22.5	45	67.5	90	135	180	225	270
RAID5	44	88	132	176	264	352	440	528
RAID6	43	86	129	172	258	344	430	516

XL60	1TB	2TB	3TB	4TB	6TB	8TB	10TB	12TB
RAID0	60	120	180	240	360	480	600	720
RAID1	30	60	90	120	180	240	300	360
RAID5	59	118	177	236	354	472	590	708
RAID6	58	116	174	232	348	468	580	696

*16TB drives are now available

A certain amount of open space is required for performance overhead from the OS, sometimes as much as 20%. The numbers above show the actual useable capacity for your Storinator storage server.

As always, if you have any questions reach out to us! Our account managers are here to help you with all your questions, concerns, planning and to simplify the purchasing process for you. You can contact us here or by using our online chat tool found on our website.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the buying guide where we talk about features and use cases. As always, we welcome your feedback and question, leave a comment below!