Windows Home Server

Messiah Khan · 23 Oct 2008 at 13:15

Could someone clarify the whole largest drive for the OS thing. What happens if you have say a 160Gb drive for the system, and 8x500Gb drives for storage(like im going to have)? Surely this means that you can only copy 140Gb (160Gb-20Gb for the OS) at a time? Or does it have more serious conequences than that?

Col_M · 23 Oct 2008 at 14:09

^ I'd like to know this too!

From what I understand WHS uses the data partition of the OS drive as a "landing zone" for your files copied to the server, once on the server they are then distributed to your "pool" of storage drives, nothing is ever stored permanently on the "landing zone".

Microsoft and others say that the OS drive should be the largest drive so you have a large landing zone for large files, makes sense.

I've also seen people say the OS drive should be a reasonable size so that the OS fits on it and you have a good sized landing zone but don't use your largest drive. The reasoning they give is that the landing zone is never used for storage unless your pool drives become full, because it's unlikely to be used for storage you've got a large amount of empty drive space that's being wasted. Which to me makes sense a little more sense.

To answer your question, as far as I understand yes you'll only be able to copy 140Gb at a time. I'd like clarification too though.

PhillyDee · 23 Oct 2008 at 15:21

As far as I understand, thats pretty much correct. But it also stores Tombstones on that drive. This is a dummy file which points to the location of the real file. I dont know how much space these take up. But a quick check of my D: drive (The data partition) says it has 124Gb in use. I have just copied over 65Gb of my ripped DVD's prior to processing them, and copied 140gb yesterday. I dont know when it will transfer the files into the pool. Eventually I guess. Of course, if you have 3 disks (1 system, 2 others) and one disk fails, then it must copy data onto the first drive to keep a duplicate as specified (Assuming you have!).

Having a deeper look, it looks as though it stores my PC backups in there too, but these could just be placeholder files.

LeperousDust · 23 Oct 2008 at 16:42

Messiah Khan said:
Could someone clarify the whole largest drive for the OS thing. What happens if you have say a 160Gb drive for the system, and 8x500Gb drives for storage(like im going to have)? Surely this means that you can only copy 140Gb (160Gb-20Gb for the OS) at a time? Or does it have more serious conequences than that?

No AFAIK thats the only problem, the largest amount of data it can process in one lump is set to the size of the main partition.

Slinwagh · 23 Oct 2008 at 18:18

I am just about to start again !!!

LeperousDust · 23 Oct 2008 at 18:46

Haha well if i'd saw this earlier i wouldn't have told you to reinstall or re image etc... Sorry!

Messiah Khan · 24 Oct 2008 at 09:04

LeperousDust said:
No AFAIK thats the only problem, the largest amount of data it can process in one lump is set to the size of the main partition.

Thanks guys. That's all well then. My main problem now is I need more ram as I thought the mobo I am going to use supported DDR, but it seems it is actually 168-pin SDRAM.

So the question is do Itry and find another 256Mb SDRAM from somewhere, or go all ouit and get a new cheap mobo/ram/cpu. Hmm.

On another more positive note, my server case finally turned up;

It's a bit big, lol. But it will form the core of my new network and will allow me to keep expanding the storage. Im starting off with 8x500Gb drives much of which will be for duplication.

LeperousDust · 24 Oct 2008 at 11:17

Wow, awesome, whats the name of that case?

Personally i'd probably bite the bullet on a new cheap motherboard as its ironically probably cheaper than tacking down SDRAM, DDR is getting a little more expensive now days too though due to the same affect! Just load it up with a load of RAM when you find some cheap thats what i'm gonna do, i've got mine ticking away with 512mb atm and i know for a fact its not enough, major slowdowns and timeouts occasionally.

cavemanoc · 24 Oct 2008 at 11:44

Just put in a wanted in the wanted section - loads of us have bits and bobs 'in the shed' - I think I've still got a couple of 512mb sdram modules kicking around - you'd be surprised what gets forgotten at the bottom of the box

(In fact I might even have a couple of 256mb modules as well which you can have for the cost of postage if I can find them!)

Messiah Khan · 24 Oct 2008 at 12:18

LeperousDust said:
Wow, awesome, whats the name of that case?

Just google RM 420 and you'll find it.

cavemanoc said:
Just put in a wanted in the wanted section - loads of us have bits and bobs 'in the shed' - I think I've still got a couple of 512mb sdram modules kicking around - you'd be surprised what gets forgotten at the bottom of the box (In fact I might even have a couple of 256mb modules as well which you can have for the cost of postage if I can find them!)

Thanks for the offer. I have found some 512Mb chips on the bay for £5.50 each with free p&p, so I might just go for them.

suitcase · 24 Oct 2008 at 12:55

Messiah Khan said:
Thanks guys. That's all well then. My main problem now is I need more ram as I thought the mobo I am going to use supported DDR, but it seems it is actually 168-pin SDRAM. So the question is do Itry and find another 256Mb SDRAM from somewhere, or go all ouit and get a new cheap mobo/ram/cpu. Hmm.

On another more positive note, my server case finally turned up;

It's a bit big, lol. But it will form the core of my new network and will allow me to keep expanding the storage. Im starting off with 8x500Gb drives much of which will be for duplication.

What on earth are you storing that you need that much space for?? :confused:

LeperousDust · 24 Oct 2008 at 15:06

suitcase said:
What on earth are you storing that you need that much space for??

It depends on loads of factors. Personally i've almost run out of physical space for hard drives because i just but whatever is cheapest at the time which when i last batch bought hard drives was 400/500GB. It gives you the opportunity to fill the spaces with whatever drives you can get your hands on and keep it more fluid. WHS can handle lots of different drives so why not?

Also i've found no matter how much space you have you will ALWAYS fill it one way or another...

//Edit: And that case costs a fortune!

I'd be better off buying another Xion Stacker and sitting it next to my original! Although nice otherwise...

PhillyDee · 24 Oct 2008 at 16:07

Ive got a Thermaltake VI1000BWS for mine. Currently has 1x5 bay icydock and one 3 bay. I was going to get a cheaper version of the above case, but it doesnt fit in my cabinet. Waay too depp.

Messiah Khan · 25 Oct 2008 at 11:22

suitcase said:
What on earth are you storing that you need that much space for??

Well I came across a load of 500Gb WD drives for cheap, so I thought why not. Im also planning on ripping all my music in FLAC and eventually rip all my DVDs which is going to require some significant space. Its going to form the core of my network so I need room for expansion over several years.

LeperousDust said:
//Edit: And that case costs a fortune! I'd be better off buying another Xion Stacker and sitting it next to my original! Although nice otherwise...

Yeah, unfortunately rackmount cases like this arn't cheap. A lot of the cost of this case comes from the hotswapable bays. All of the front bays include back SATA panels so I can just slide new drives in.

PhillyDee said:
I was going to get a cheaper version of the above case, but it doesnt fit in my cabinet. Waay too depp.

Yeah its a bit deeper than I would have liked tbh. Not quite sure where its going to live yet, but I could do with a 9-12U cabinet eventually.

PhillyDee · 25 Oct 2008 at 21:05

Yeah, I bought a 12U cabinet from someone on here aaaaages ago. Just a Patch cabinet really, doesnt fit full size server cases unfortunately.

dave-lew99 · 25 Oct 2008 at 22:08

I'm seriously considering that particular case - it's price has risen actually it used to be £250 but now it's £275 i think.

At 4U it's convinient as i can use the components from my current fileserver - including a standard ATX PSU. I was looking at 2U cases but the extra cost required to get a 2U PSU and low profile heatsink/fan brings it to around the same.

I'm using Solaris with Z-RAID/ZFS so i also get the pooled storage model that WHS has. I can also just replace disks once the bays are full an once the system can tolerate failure of a large disk the storage pool size will automatically increase.

It's a sound investment really - you'll never have to replace that case, ever.

As for somewhere to put it, i have a 24U full depth rack for it to go in...

Messiah Khan · 26 Oct 2008 at 09:29

dave-lew99 said:
I'm seriously considering that particular case - it's price has risen actually it used to be £250 but now it's £275 i think.

At 4U it's convinient as i can use the components from my current fileserver - including a standard ATX PSU. I was looking at 2U cases but the extra cost required to get a 2U PSU and low profile heatsink/fan brings it to around the same.

I'm using Solaris with Z-RAID/ZFS so i also get the pooled storage model that WHS has. I can also just replace disks once the bays are full an once the system can tolerate failure of a large disk the storage pool size will automatically increase.

It's a sound investment really - you'll never have to replace that case, ever.

As for somewhere to put it, i have a 24U full depth rack for it to go in...

Yeah it has gone up in price a bit unfortunately. Note that price is also excluding VAT. One of the main reason I went for that one was due to it being ATX compatible, allowing me to use full height cards etc. Hust a shame its so deep, but then it does support EATX as well. Don't think i'll need a 24U cabinet, that would be slight overkill, hehe.

Ive now got my box set up and running. Decided to go with a A64 3200/1Gb/K8N Diamond/Nvidia 6200 setup I had been saving for a HTPC instead as I would have had to wait for more ram for the old machine. Glad I did as it makes the server a much more expandable and robust machine. Just need to go into down today and pick up some molex extenders as my PSU has mostly SATA power connectors. Also need some longer SATA cables.

Are there any 'essential' addins that I should look at? Ive seen a drive label one that I need to help me identify which drivebay each drive is in. Also is there any way to remove the default 'movies', 'photos' 'music' etc folders? Id rather create and manage my own music, films and photo folders without having the default ones cluttering everything up.

LeperousDust · 26 Oct 2008 at 12:12

Advanced admin panel is good for doing quick little things through the WHS console, you can also see your uptime from it too

I don't really use the console very often at all. I've got a fair few addins installed but they're like firefox extensions, you soon stop using them

suitcase · 26 Oct 2008 at 18:30

Messiah Khan said:
Well I came across a load of 500Gb WD drives for cheap, so I thought why not. Im also planning on ripping all my music in FLAC and eventually rip all my DVDs which is going to require some significant space.

so you're planning on eventually having 20 500GB hard drives- ~ 10TB storage.

At 8.5GB a dvd (worst case) and say a FLAC album around 400MB....

8.5 x 500 dvds= 4,250 GB & 400MB x 500 albums= 2,000GB.

Using an average price of £8 for an album, and £10 a dvd - that'll give a cost of £9,000 to get enough media to fill that space.....erm, have you really spent that much on films and music?? Or is it stolen?

dave-lew99 · 26 Oct 2008 at 19:38

It's not unreasonable over a lifetime, we have over 1,500 original CDs and at least if not more the same again in Vinyl plus around 400-500 DVDs and VHS.

Don't forget there's recorded TV too which may even be HD. The point is that it will never need to be replaced.

Oh and depending on configuration (assuming RAID-5) you'd probably lose around 1/3 of that storage in RAID tolerance and another 10-20% in formatting overheads.