What actually counts as a copy under the 3-2-1 rule, why a RAID mirror or a snapshot only protects against one kind of failure, and the one-page inventory that exposes the gaps.
Free weekly email with the week’s posts, videos and one tip: https://chartmann1590.github.io/homelab-the-right-way/newsletter/
Disclosure: this is my own article (Charles Hartmann, Homelab the Right Way). Written with AI help and edited by me; the setup described is mine.
Ha, it absolutely feels like one, right up until a bad sync or a fat-fingered rm hits every disk at once. With 2x8 TB plus a 14 TB, one layout people often land on is mirroring the two 8s (ZFS mirror) for live data and using the 14 TB as a separate backup target (snapshots replicated to it), plus something offsite for the stuff you can’t lose. That gets you redundancy and an actual backup out of the same three drives.