So it will be the latter, as it will run nextcloud, a couple websites i have, a pihole and possible game servers when the need comes again. For the websites i plan on using the mass storage as a backup to the sites’ data, so the actual running files will stay on the ssd running the os, currently considering proxmox actually.

for nextcloud i am not sure, since i use it to sync, and ‘backup’ (i know its not meant as a backup program), so it would need lots of random r/w, but it cant fit on the os ssd as that would get too large, currently only have a 250gb ssd on hand for the os.

Id love to get ssds instead of mass storage hdds, but theyre simply 3 times as expensive for the same storage which is out of budget for me.

That actually sounds really smart, but can that cause issues with the raid controller, since the drives will act slightly differently?

These all seem to be 7200rpm drives, would 5400rpm drives make a large difference in terms of longevity relative to that? Also seeing mixed results from seagate there, first they mention there being 0 failures of a couple seagate models, but then later in the graph of annualized failures, seagate in general has the highest failure rate