#Raid nas for mac Offline#

So my conundrum: I would love to a) have all my media (and I suppose the old documents and Steam games) backed up, b) have all of the media redundant so a drive failure doesn't take part or most of my iTunes library offline (which a backup would do in my case rather quickly, just unplug the bad disk and rename the backup to the original and iTunes is good to go), and c) if possible have the entire iTunes library back on one disk so iTunes can manage it automatically. To consolidate the library would require a 5TB HDD, which doesn't exist. I'm also growing tired of the 'have everything slowly sprawl over several disks as I add them.' iTunes no longer automatically manages my Library as I've had to move pieces of it across the HDDs. Some of the HDDs are getting long-in-the-tooth (4+ years), and I realize the folly of not having all my hard work in converting media backed up (we no longer have DVD players for the TVs, and the idea of having to reconvert everything is a nightmare).

And while the music, photos, and all the Mac HDs and iOS devices are backed up via Time Capsule, NONE of the other media (converted TV/movies from DVD mainly, but also old data from the past 10 years that is non-critical and Steam games I no longer play) is. RIght now, I've got a variety of 6 USB 2 and 3 external HDDs attached in various sizes totaling about 8TB, with 6TB used. The Mac also acts as the family's encoding station for our slowly shrinking collection of unconverted DVDs, along with the central hub all of our photos and videos taken with all the iOS devices. Over the Internet, I use Plex to share that same media when away from home. I've got 4 USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.0 hub with 7 ports, and an always-on Mac that serves up iTunes media to an Apple TV, MacBook Pro, an iPad, and 2 iPhones locally. I'm looking for comment on what's the best way to go, or if my thinking has any fatal flaws. So I'm debating what to do for my HTPC/Server Mac, and I'm basically going to lay out my thought process here.