Internal RAID, NAS or 1 large external drive?

[ImaNihilist]

Don't know if it helps, but here's what I did when I ran into this problem:

I have three drives, all USB (2.0 or 3.0). They are all 5400 RPM external drives. I like these because you don't need external power.

The first drive is just a media drive. It's basically just an extension of the iTunes Media folder for TV and Movies. I usually plug this guy in whenever my computer is at home. The drive is asleep most of the time. It only wakes up when I want to watch something, and it wakes up pretty damn fast. Usually I actually request the file from my iPad, and it just streams over the wifi. There's no special set up here at all.

The second drive is my "regular backup" drive. It backs up everything on the internal SSD AND the external media drive. The only folder that is excluded is Steam. No real point in backing up Steam.

The third drive is my archival backup. I do this about once a month. It's the same as the regular backup, only I do it less frequently and keep it in a safe deposit box.

There is actually a 4th drive, which is just a backup of the media drive, but I haven't touched that in months.

Might seem like a lot, but I got caught with my pants down once and realized I never wanted to go through that again. Took weeks to reconstruct my system, re-download everything, repurchase any lost media, etc. HDDs are so inexpensive now it's just worth it to me. A good USB 3.0 1TB 5400 RPM drive is like $100.