NAS setup for a first timer.

[Michael.W]

Hi guys. 
I'm looking at setting up a nas for my family and for my work I am now doing. 
I currently have 6tb of data and growing quite fast and of course in this day and age a lot of family photo's to that I would like to keep safe. 

I would like to do two units in two different locations one at my parents place so they can sort photo's and then one at mine with full access from both ends though I will only be buying one for now due to money restrictions.
being able to run a Plex server on them would be great but is not a requirement. 

I have thus far been looking at the Synology nas systems but seeing as how I know nothing about nas systems at all I need a little help with what I should be getting. 
The four bay nas is the ones I have been looking at so far they seem like the ideal option at the moment but I'm not sure. 

I do have one question. What is the storage rate with raid arrays like this. Say if I use 3 10tb drives how much is useable space?

[Chionele]

I have an old 2-bay ZyXel myself, but if I was looking for a standalone option now I'd probably go for Synology. They seem to be rather decent and straightforward to use.

Quote

Say if I use 3 10tb drives how much is useable space?

Depends on how you set it all up. Synology has this convenient calculator you can use to see possible combinations: https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator

[Michael.W]

43 minutes ago, Chionele said:

I have an old 2-bay ZyXel myself, but if I was looking for a standalone option now I'd probably go for Synology. They seem to be rather decent and straightforward to use.

Depends on how you set it all up. Synology has this convenient calculator you can use to see possible combinations: https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator

Thanks for the link. The math is actually exactly what I thought it was going to be as I was thinking of 3 10tb drives and that does end up exactly where I thought it would.

[Michael.W]

I'm trying to see the differences between the DS418, DS420 and DS920 and I am struggling a bit as to what the advantages are as you go to the higher models of the 4 bay nas.