***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***

[easyrider]

The release is currently cheap, Its here, It looses DE and no doubt people will eventually jump ship.Instead of getting the excellent Windows Home Server thread messed up with Version 2 2011 I thought I would start a new thread.

I am currently having issue with V1 and USB connectivity and hope the wegotserved forums will be able to help me fix the issue.

If you have installed 2011 and have any advice tips or tricks or you have any opinion's on V2 coming from V1 please post here.

My main concern with V2 is the loss of DE. My main use of WHS to stream movies to my cinema room and have no clue how I would manage my data without DE and having folders bigger than 2TB. Any advice?

Backup and duplication are also niggles I have. I want to move to the newer version but it has to be worth the effort.

Cheers

easy

 

[easyrider]

Is it worth setting up my 6 x 2 tb drives as a Raid 5 before installation using the motherboard in built raid?

 

[easyrider]

Depends on your hardware and goals I guess.

I use a WD Scorpio Black 320GB boot drive as it is fairly cheap, fast and low power. I could use a second for raid 1 redundancy via a motherboard raid chipset if I wanted a zero downtime 'boots and braces' approach.

I then have my data disks separate for a couple of reasons;
1. Any 'playing around' with the data or data disks will not affect the OS.
2. I can use software raid via Windows which is transferable to any other Windows server (WHS 2011, SBS 2011, 2008r2 and possibly backwards compatible to WS 2003), import and access my data.

The advantages of MB raid is that you can boot off it. The big disadvantage is that a bios upgrade or motherboard change may make reset your arrays. MB hardware raid is usually just software raid built in to a chip on the motherboard unless you have a server motherboard with a decent raid controller (the more expensive Adaptec, LSI or Areca chipsets).

What drives are you planning to put in a raid 5 array as I would strongly advise against using any 'Green' hard disks based on personal experience and reading reports all over of other peoples problems.

An idea of what kind of hardware and data requirements you have including would make a tailored answer much easier:

1. Hardware

• MB, case , Hard disks (makes and models).
• Ram (just amount)).

2. Data.

• Amount of 'Always live' critical data (i.e. stuff needed for work).
• Amount of 'Cannot loose but can stand a delay in retrieving' data (i.e. personal photos that you can get in an hour or so).
• Amount of 'Would rather not loose but can get back if needed' data (i.e. ripped DVDs/CDs/Blurays that could be recovered in a few days).
• Amount of 'Meh, I was thinking of deleting that anyway' data.
• The forecast growth in each category over the next 12 months.

I am currently looking at building DAS boxes with 12/16/20 or 24 drive bays (like a Dell ML1000). This is mainly for myself but also for others if there is an interest. Ideally for people, like myself, with home cinema rooms where they have a cabinet and Hp mini-server (or the like) but require expansion and are looking for something a fair bit cheaper than an 'off the shelf' Dell.

Regards
RB

Hardware

i3 540 CPU
P7H55M-USB3 mobo
Corsair 4GB DDR3

6x 2TB drives

1x 250GB WD

4 x Seagate 5900 LP
2x Samsung F3 5400

Data

HD MOVIES/MUSIC/HD HOME VIDEOS/USERS/PHOTOS ALL NEED TO BE BACKED UP

People are watching films all the time listing to music etc...all the time so the data is accessed.

My current HD Video folder is just under 4TB with duplication on

 

[easyrider]

Now I have fixed my USB issue with V1 i'm trying to figure out the pros of upgrading just now or wether it will be a royal PITA

 

[easyrider]

Ok, a couple more questions.

How much space do you have left over those 6 2TB drives (4 used, duplication on, whats left) ?. I believe the duplication works like a raid 1 array so you should have 4 GB left (2 usable if raid 1).

Just under 1TB

Do you need to backup more than once a night ?

No

I imagine you are using the 250GB as a boot drive then ?

yeah thats the boot drive but V1 also uses this for storage after its created the 20GB partiton

I would be inclined to just setup a raid 10 (1+0) array. Now the slightly dodgy bit is that you are mixing and matching drives which is not such a great idea as one manufacturers 2TB drive may not have the same space, cylinders, alignment as another so it will not be so efficient as matched drives and may even cause issues. Some insist on the same firmware rather than just matched manufacturer and size.

I have bad times with Raid in the past and is it easy to exapnd the array without removing data and copying it back?

Another option is to just creating two spanned drives where the different types will not matter as it just links one drive to another and then another and shows them as a single drive (JBOD) and sync them together which is more or less what I am doing. Using robocopy (free MS tool) you can set scheduled tasks on specific folders so they can be backed up at different time intervals (photos/docs etc every 15 minutes, movies/music every night). Robocopy can be set to keep the source and destination in perfect sync or can be set to update only with new stuff.

Sounds like an option but its not DE and duplication!

Both of these options are only to give a live snapshot of the current system and are not able to let you roll back to a previous time (ie, if someone has deleted an important file and the sync has run). For that you would need something like Windows backup with WHS and enough storage to support it.

RB

Thanks. Rolling back after a deletion is not an issue

 

[easyrider]

Anyone tested any storage pool thrid party stuff yet?

 

[easyrider]

I need and love pooling makes things so much easier. One of the reason's why I am still on WHS V1

It just works.

The windows 8 pooling looks fantastic and even includes parity not just mirroring very interesting. I have no issue with my server being a windows 8 machine.

I just want to acess my 12TB from any PC in the house and stream to my Rapberry pi's and XBMC machines

 

[easyrider]

Drive pooling looks sort of interesting but I will wait to see how that pans out.

Making my home server a HTPC is not what I would want from a server. Doing that would be making it a HTPC with shared storage surely.

Shiney, shiney, new toy to play with..... ok fair point but not as a replacement for my WHS 2011.

I would imagine WHS 2011 will stay with me for a while yet. Server 2012 Essentials is too much (both power and financially) for a home server for my requirements. Windows 8 I will wait to see if MS are still following the love-it/Lemon cycle before commiting. Win7 does me for home and I have no wish to have Metro in my life.

RB

Why would you have to make your windows 8 machine a HTPC?

You could create a pool create folders and share them over the network just like in WHS v1 but this time not only duplication but with parity

 

[easyrider]

I'm looking at WHS 2011 64 bit.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-144-MS&groupid=33&catid=1555&subcat=

Do the client machines have to be 64 bit ?

No

But there is no point in buying it. Its getting ditched in favour of WHS 2012 or if you are smart a windows 8 based machine

http://www.wegotserved.com/2012/07/03/building-windows-8-home-server-introduction/

 

[easyrider]

There is no WHS 2012.

It'll be Server Essentials....which will cost a bomb

Thats what I meant

 

[easyrider]

Disagree. If you don't need/want Storage Spaces it's much easier to control user access and shares, and there's also centralised backup, Remote Web Access and streaming with WHS.

Yes it can all be done on Windows 8, but not as easily. That article is terrible as well (not aiming this at Easyrider ). When all said and done it talks about how to create users, shares and homegroups, but where is the advice on centralised backup alternatives, streaming, remote access? It spends most of it's time talking about a generic PC build and Windows 8. I was really disappointed...

I'm trialling WSE2012 right now, and in the main it's WHS2011 with Storage Spaces - so simplifies much of the missing "features" you'd have to work around in a Win8 build - obviously the $400 cost is going to be prohibitive to many.

But DE or staorage spaces are essential on a media server no?

Thats one of the reason I haven't gone to WHS 2011

 

[easyrider]

Agree really with the above. I'll be sticking with WHSv2011 for a long time now.

How do you manage with directories bigger than the size of your physical drives?

 

[easyrider]

I have 6TB of MKV files duplicated across the pool.

I would have to spilt this directory into 3 drives in WHS 2011 meaning it would be a Royal pain in the ass to manage ....

Then point to three \\server\videos 1 then \\server\videos 2 and then \\server\videos 3 in XBMC in the client machines...

I feel sick

 

[easyrider]

Hmmm....

How is it presented in XBMC? Is it as separate folders or does it consolidate all the MKV's from various sources into one view? If the former, then it would be a deal breaker for me. I really do keep meaning to give XBMC a go

From various sources into one view...This is not the issue...Its the management of the files on the drives

I use MyMovies on WMC and it basically handles the shares, and then serves up to the HTPCs all my movies, regardless of share, in one view. Maybe there's something similar for XBMC? But yet you would need to give each client access to all the shares.

XBMC does this

It's easy to split into either alpha or by genre. Keep enough space for your estimated growth on each share. But what other requirements do you have? 6TB of data, what drives is that over, does it need parity or duplication, what's your growth estimates?

Is it though? What if my T collection is over 2TB? How do I estimate growth? I just want to copy to one directory end of. I use Duplication...Although in win8 it suggests using Parity in the Storage spaces for performance when reading...although you take a speed hit when copying the files to the server.

 

[easyrider]

I use Stablebit drivepool. My largest physical disk is 2TB (2 of them), the rest are 1TB. I have a 4TB "films" share.

So you still use a 3rd party DE then

 

[easyrider]

This bit from easyrider confuses me. I'm pretty sure you can consolidate multiple paths into your Film library, which is then browseable through the one "Movies" menu option.

In addition to which multiple computers running xbmc is quite easy to set up. Just copy the XBMC folder from %appdata% to clients after you've installed and run the skin you want once.

You can....But its the back end that worries me....I don't want to manage my files into Alpha or Genre...I just want to dump them in \\server\Videos and be done with it.

My setup is 8 x 2TB drives not including Boot

 

[easyrider]

Split it by genre, split it into T-Tm and Tn-Tz or something, there's loads of ways. You estimate growth by having 6TB collected over x number of years, and whether you think that pace will increase or decrease. All it takes is a bit of planning.

Sorry, but think you want your cake and eat it, which is fine, but I did say there were compromises with whichever route you go. I'm only trying to give you some suggestions as to how you can make it work for you...

I know mate...Thanks for the discourse

This is why I think that windows 8 is going to be my only upgrade path. WHS 2011 would mean using a 3rd party DE or massive amounts of planning.

I could create a 16TB storage space or even a 12GB storage space with Parity using 6 x 2TB drive for music videos and Photos then create a 4TB storage space for documents etc...with duplication. All the client PC document areas point to server\user\docs anyway no one saves to the local PC's

 

[easyrider]

Bugger, had my first drive failure. Can't mount the disk due to an "I/O device error".

I'll pull the disk this weekend and try to rescue stuff off it, first issue with the drivepool as I'm not 100% sure what data is on the disk!

If you had dupliaction enabled then it doesn't matter...

 

[easyrider]

WHS v1 is no longer supported is it?

I ditched it and there are backups in built into windows 8 that you can use....also you can use stablebit drive pool if you want to pool the drives.

For the share backup I use sync back free

http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncbackfree.html


Works brilliantly.... I also backup the shares with important family stuff like photos and home movies to crash plan.