so for a “dummie” like me with 1 IP but 20 rpi’s with a 2T or a single rpi amd a 40TB drive it would not make much a difference? as they should be close to equal fast
If you use a “weak” pc like a RasPi, it would make a difference, because I don’t think one Pi can handle 40TB of data well (also 1 IP will never fill 40TB atm). In your case one Pi, add HDD by HDD, if the Pi cant keep up, fire up a second Pi. Traffic will be shared equally in /24 subnets.
the pi was just an example, i run on an intel i7 920
Raspi 5 and i7 920 are about equal.
920 is Bloomfield; that generation is nearing 20 years old at this time.
If you intend to stay on that platform, you should upgrade to a xeon x5650. You’d gain two cores, have 40watt lower TDP and be on a newer process node. Still archaic, but better. They’re ~70dkk on eBay