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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFor most home and small-office setups, start with six matched 4TB NAS hard drives. That gives 24TB of raw capacity and approximately 20TB usable in RAID 5 before filesystem formatting and reserved space. If you store large video libraries, run virtual machines, or expect several years of growth, six 8TB drives provide about 40TB usable in RAID 5; six 12TB drives provide about 60TB.
The right purchase depends on usable capacity, failure protection, expansion plans, drive noise and power, and whether you need SSD performance. The IDX6011 Pro has six SATA bays and two M.2 slots, so NVMe SSDs are an optional performance tier rather than a replacement for bulk hard-drive capacity.
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Start with usable capacity, not the number printed on the drives
Drive manufacturers advertise decimal terabytes, while a NAS also consumes space for RAID metadata, filesystem structures, snapshots and reserved system areas. Consequently, the capacity shown after setup is lower than the simple sum of the drive labels.
RAID 5 dedicates the equivalent of one drive to parity. With six equal drives, five drives’ worth of capacity remains available for data. These are planning figures; the final number reported by UGOS Pro will be lower after formatting and other overhead.
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Capacity examples for RAID 5
| Drive arrangement | Raw capacity | Approximate RAID 5 capacity before filesystem overhead | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four 4TB SATA drives | 16TB | 12TB | TechRadar reported 12TB usable with four 4TB Western Digital drives in RAID 5. |
| Six 4TB SATA drives | 24TB | 20TB | Tom’s Guide measured this result with six 4TB Seagate IronWolf drives; 4TB is used for parity. |
| Six 8TB SATA drives | 48TB | About 40TB | Planning estimate using the one-drive parity layout. |
| Six 12TB SATA drives | 72TB | About 60TB | Planning estimate using the one-drive parity layout. |
| Six 16TB SATA drives | 96TB | About 80TB | Planning estimate using the one-drive parity layout. |
The 20TB figure for six 4TB drives is the clearest real-world reference point. Your NAS may display a smaller value because of filesystem formatting and reserved space, so leave headroom rather than planning to fill the volume completely.
How much storage should you buy?
Six 4TB drives: the sensible baseline
Six 4TB NAS-rated SATA disks balance cost, redundancy and capacity for family photos, documents, computer backups and a moderate media collection. RAID 5 tolerates one drive failure while retaining roughly 20TB before overhead. This is a practical starting point when you want all six bays populated without paying for high-capacity disks you may not need yet.
Six 8TB drives: a better long-term media tier
Six 8TB drives yield 48TB raw and about 40TB in RAID 5. Choose this tier when several users will store high-bitrate video, when you keep multiple computer backups, or when your current data is growing quickly. Larger disks cost more and generally add more acoustic and power load, but buying the capacity up front avoids relying on a future expansion path that may be limited.
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Six 12TB or 16TB drives: for heavy workloads
Six 12TB drives provide about 60TB in RAID 5, while six 16TB drives provide about 80TB. These tiers suit professional photo and video libraries, surveillance archives, large project datasets and multi-year retention. They are excessive for a small document-and-photo archive unless you deliberately want substantial growth room.
Estimate your need by adding the data you will actually place on the NAS, then add working space for edits, temporary files, version history and backups. A video editor may need several times the final delivery size while a project is active; a household primarily storing documents may need far less than a household with several terabytes of original video.
Choose RAID for the protection level you need
The IDX6011 Pro supports JBOD, Basic, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10. Each mode trades usable capacity against performance and drive-failure tolerance.
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| RAID mode | Capacity behavior | Failure protection | When it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| RAID 5 | About one drive’s capacity is used for parity | Can reconstruct data after one drive fails | General home and small-office storage where capacity matters |
| RAID 6 | About two drives’ capacities are used for dual parity | Designed to tolerate two drive failures | Large arrays or data that needs more protection during rebuilds |
| RAID 1 | Mirrored copies reduce usable capacity | Protects against a drive failure in each mirror set | Smaller mirrored deployments |
| RAID 10 | Mirroring reduces usable capacity compared with RAID 5 | Combines mirrored pairs with striping | Workloads that favor predictable performance and redundancy |
| RAID 0 | Uses the combined capacity of the drives | No drive-failure protection | Only for replaceable data where speed or capacity is more important than resilience |
| JBOD or Basic | Does not provide the same array redundancy as RAID 5 or RAID 6 | Depends on the individual disk arrangement | Separate-disk workflows or data that has another complete backup |
RAID 5’s one-drive protection is an availability feature, not a backup. If a second disk fails during a rebuild, or files are deleted, encrypted by malware or overwritten, RAID alone cannot restore them. RAID 6 consumes roughly two drive capacities but provides dual-drive-failure protection, which can be valuable with a large six-disk array.
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UGREEN lists six SATA bays, two M.2 SSD slots and a maximum configured capacity of 208TB: six 32TB SATA drives plus two 8TB NVMe drives. That 208TB figure is a raw configured ceiling, not 208TB of usable space in a redundant array. A RAID layout, filesystem overhead and reserved areas all reduce the number available for files.
The NAS includes a 128GB system SSD, so the operating system does not occupy one of the six front drive bays. You can therefore devote all six bays to the storage array and treat the M.2 slots as an optional SSD tier.
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Match the drives before you buy
Use equal-capacity, compatible SATA drives whenever possible. Dong Knows Tech reports that a RAID array using different capacities is constrained by the smallest drive: larger disks contribute only the capacity that matches the smallest member. For example, adding a larger disk to a set containing a smaller one does not let the array use the larger disk’s full size.
Plan the complete initial set instead of assuming that you can replace disks with larger models one at a time later. The same report says UGOS Pro does not provide a safe in-place expansion path by replacing drives with larger ones. If you expect your library to grow, buying six 8TB or 12TB drives now may be less disruptive than starting with six 4TB drives and discovering that the array cannot be enlarged in the way you expected.
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- Pick one capacity for all six bays unless you have a specific reason to accept unused space.
- Choose NAS-rated SATA hard drives designed for continuous operation.
- Keep the model, capacity and workload rating consistent across the array where possible.
- Leave free capacity for filesystem overhead, snapshots and temporary work.
- Confirm current compatibility and availability before ordering; drive models and firmware support can change.
Do you need NVMe SSDs as well as hard drives?
No. The six SATA bays provide the bulk storage. The two M.2 slots can hold NVMe SSDs for cache or an SSD storage pool, so they are an optional performance purchase rather than part of the minimum capacity calculation.
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TechRadar used two 1TB NVMe sticks as cache while four hard drives supplied the main storage. A similar setup can accelerate metadata-heavy tasks and frequently accessed files without moving the entire archive to SSD.
When NVMe cache is worthwhile
- Large numbers of small files and metadata operations.
- Virtual machines and containers that repeatedly read and write working data.
- Databases or active project folders with frequent random access.
- Shared workspaces where several users repeatedly open the same files.
Cache does not increase the RAID 5 capacity of the SATA array. Budget NVMe separately, and do not treat a cache device as the only copy of important data.
Installation and setup sequence
- Define the target. Write down your current data size, annual growth and the space needed for active projects, versions and backups. Select a six-drive capacity that leaves room for that growth.
- Install matched SATA drives. Populate the bays with equal-capacity, compatible NAS disks. Mixing capacities can reduce the usable size to the smallest drive.
- Decide on protection. Select RAID 5 when one-drive failure protection and capacity are the priority; choose RAID 6 when sacrificing a second drive’s capacity for dual-failure protection is worthwhile.
- Use the guided UGOS Pro setup. TechRadar’s four-drive example was configured in RAID 5 through the guided UGOS Pro setup. Select the intended disks and RAID level carefully because creating the array normally prepares the drives for use.
- Install NVMe only for a defined workload. Add one or two M.2 SSDs for cache or an SSD pool when virtual machines, databases, metadata or active projects justify the cost.
- Copy data only after protection is ready. Create a separate backup before treating the NAS as the primary home for irreplaceable files.
RAID rebuilds, noise and growth trade-offs
A six-drive array offers more capacity than a four-drive array at the same disk size, but it also means more spinning disks, vibration, heat and potential noise. Larger-capacity disks can reduce the number of disks needed for a target capacity in other enclosures, but the IDX6011 Pro has six bays and RAID calculations are tied to the drives you install. Compare options using the same RAID level and drive count, then weigh the extra capacity against acoustic and power costs in your room.
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Rebuilds after a failed disk can take substantial time, especially with high-capacity drives and a busy array. During a RAID 5 rebuild, the array has no second-disk protection, which is one reason to consider RAID 6 for a large or business-critical dataset. Regardless of RAID level, monitor disk health and keep a tested backup.
RAID is not a backup
RAID 5 can keep services running while the NAS reconstructs data after one disk fails. Tom’s Guide’s six-drive configuration reserved 4TB of the 24TB raw total for parity and left 20TB usable for that reason. It does not protect against accidental deletion, ransomware, theft, fire, filesystem corruption or a failed rebuild.
Keep at least one independent copy of irreplaceable photos, documents and project files. A second NAS, external disks rotated away from the NAS, or encrypted cloud storage can provide that separate copy. Test restoration periodically; a backup that cannot be read is not a recovery plan.
Quick Recap
Bottom-line selection guide
- Choose six 4TB drives if you need a balanced home or small-office array and expect roughly 20TB before overhead in RAID 5.
- Choose six 8TB drives if your media library, backups or shared files are growing and you want about 40TB before overhead.
- Choose six 12TB drives for roughly 60TB before overhead when several years of growth or large video projects are expected.
- Choose six 16TB drives for roughly 80TB before overhead when you have genuinely heavy storage requirements.
- Add NVMe SSDs only when cache or an SSD pool addresses a specific performance problem; they are not required to obtain the SATA array’s capacity.
- Use RAID 6 instead of RAID 5 when dual-drive-failure tolerance is more important than the capacity of a second disk.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
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