best raid option, ram needed

[ixidor]

ok first let me say, i am not a total noob to hardware, oss, raid etc...
i have some questions, and i have been reading, but am unsure, thought i might reach out. first, a general idea of the hardware i am considering:
a norco 16bay case NORCO RPC-4216
2x Intel RAID Controller Card SATA/SAS PCI-E x8 8internal ports (SASUC8I) i have read that these work infreenas8, no link handy.
and to start, 8 2TB drives. later on, fill in with 8 more.

question1: is RAIDZ preferable to raid5 in a home user environment?
question2: i read somewhere raidz gobbles ram, how much ram would i need for 16x 2tb drives?

 

[SnorreSelmer]

Q1: Is RAIDZ preferable to RAID5 in a home user environment?

My personal opinion: yes. The Intel RAID-controllers might be an issue when setting up a RAIDZ. Drives you attach to the Intel controllers are probably best left as hardware RAID.

Q2: i read somewhere raidz gobbles ram, how much ram would i need for 16x 2tb drives?

RAIDZ with deduplication eats RAM (~2GB RAM per 1TB of HDD space). I run a FreeNAS server with six 2TB drives and 8GB RAM, and it's working just fine. with 16 drives I woulds prabably recommend 16GB RAM just to be safe.