File Server Build Opinions

[lcdguy]

Ok so i am looking at building a new WHSv2 Here is what i am planning on installing in it.

Supermicro Atom Board -Owned
4GB DDR3 Ram - Owned
Slim-Line DVD-ROM
8x 1TB WD RE4 SATA HDD
1x 250GB Sata Boot Drive - Owned
LSI/IBM SAS/SATA Raid Card (0, 1, 1e) - Owned
WHS v1 (will upgrade to v2 when available) - Owned
Supermicro CSE-825TQ-560LPB Chassis

I will be buying the Chassis, ODD, Storage HDD.

Primary use will be for storage of backups. Planning trying or Raid 1e.

[ZZLEE]

shopRBC.com :: WD Black 2TB 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" SATA Hard Drive

25 $ More twice the capacity ? WD Black 2 TB

[Wi-Fuzzy]

I have a WHS 16 tb server. Works well. If the V2 means you are waiting for the new from M$ ...don't. It does not support drive pooling. Also from what I have read WHS and raid do not play well together...it does it's own version of raid..data duplication. It does work,,I have had drive failures and not lost any data. It is also a friendly piece of software. Install it and add the drives and walk away. There are also quite a few usefull 3rd party plugins for WHS, some free...some not. One nice feature is you can select which catagories are backed up. you might use the software folder as a temp file...so just do not check it and WHS will not back up the data. It saves you HD space. A word to the wise...take out the dust filters on your case and just blow out the case every (pick your time period). I had a dust filter plug up, which does not take very long and it toasted 3 1TB drives. You might want to increase the size of the os disk...all the data is written there first and moved to the storeage drives...but 250 GB might be allright also, not sure.

edit: crap, I just read the part about you allready having WHS V1...so you know this stuff...

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by ZZLEE

shopRBC.com :: WD Black 2TB 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" SATA Hard Drive

25 $ More twice the capacity ? WD Black 2 TB

I am using a hardware raid controller so the drives need to be Enterprise grade drives otherwise i will run into issues with TLER. Otherwise i would be jumping all other the 2TB ones.

Originally Posted by Wi-Fuzzy

I have a WHS 16 tb server. Works well. If the V2 means you are waiting for the new from M$ ...don't. It does not support drive pooling. Also from what I have read WHS and raid do not play well together...it does it's own version of raid..data duplication. It does work,,I have had drive failures and not lost any data. It is also a friendly piece of software. Install it and add the drives and walk away. There are also quite a few usefull 3rd party plugins for WHS, some free...some not. One nice feature is you can select which catagories are backed up. you might use the software folder as a temp file...so just do not check it and WHS will not back up the data. It saves you HD space. A word to the wise...take out the dust filters on your case and just blow out the case every (pick your time period). I had a dust filter plug up, which does not take very long and it toasted 3 1TB drives. You might want to increase the size of the os disk...all the data is written there first and moved to the storage drives...but 250 GB might be all right also, not sure.

edit: crap, I just read the part about you already having WHS V1...so you know this stuff...

Yes i am aware of this but since i am not going to be using DE in the future but rather a hardware raid controller the loss of DE while regrettable is not the end of the world. Besides the new version of WHS is more geared towards the SMB segment and less of the home user market. Plus it's based on Server 2008 .

Since i am looking at a Server grade chassis it does not use dust filters. Supermicro prefers to stuff jet engines in it's case which does a pretty good job of remove the dust all by it self.

[Rison]

The problem with using the 250 gig + RAID, is that WHS will store the first 220 gig or so on your first hard drive, then the rest on your RAID - which can lead to data loss if your first drive dies.
I'd look at mirroring your OS drive, as it's going to store data. I haven't found a way to make WHS stop using the OS drive to store data.
Or try to setup your raid to to boot your OS, and have one huge volume. Good luck with that one.

I hate WHS + RAID, nothing but problems for me. I ended up pulling out my LSI controller and just using the native WHS data duplication after much frustration. The WHS data duplication is terribly inefficient for large volumes, but i'm also terribly lazy when it comes to working on my network at home.
Hopefully you have better luck with the RAID setup.

I sold off my RAID controller + RE drives and bought 4x WD 32M 2TB drives and already had 4x 1.5TB Seagates. Way cheaper and less problems.

As for the dust comment - you're going to have dust in your case.. even though they have fast fans, it means the dust will be embedded in the corners of the system/case. Way harder to clean out if you don't maintain your setup every [1-3 months]

[lcdguy]

I know i am going to have dust i was jsut being silly. on the topic of WHS while i agree that v1 does do that whole save stuff to the os drive first i can't imagine vail will since they targeting more towards the SMB segment and less towards the home user.

[botat29]

Originally Posted by Rison

...... I haven't found a way to make WHS stop using the OS drive to store data.

it's very simple Disk Management for Microsoft Windows Home Serve
http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/products/whs/diskmanagement


I use it, just check the WHS forum

Windows Home Server Software Forum



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