***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***
- Thread starter easyrider
- Start date
Soldato
Man, I've hit the UEFI/GPT disk issue with my new main desktop rig.
Gutted.
Basically, if you didn't know, WHS 2011 cannot currently back up disks laid out with the GPT Partition table (as opposed to MBR based partition table layout). So since I got a new motherboard/CPU I didn't notice that it would do this with the SSD used as the boot disk and so I can't actually back it up using WHS.
Not to worry though, I can still use my WHS server as a target for Acronis True Image 2011 which I have now installed to the new desktop PC. One way or another all my 4 machines are covered
Gutted.
Basically, if you didn't know, WHS 2011 cannot currently back up disks laid out with the GPT Partition table (as opposed to MBR based partition table layout). So since I got a new motherboard/CPU I didn't notice that it would do this with the SSD used as the boot disk and so I can't actually back it up using WHS.
Not to worry though, I can still use my WHS server as a target for Acronis True Image 2011 which I have now installed to the new desktop PC. One way or another all my 4 machines are covered
My server has grinded almost to a halt, I'm expecting/wondering that its because my system drive has only 1GB free (its an ssd), without much scope for freeing any of it up. Do OCZ have any optimisation/drive checking tools I can use? All I can find is firmware updates.
Domain name for DHCP?
I'm installing the DHCP role on my WHS2011 server and it's asking for a parent domain name. I realise that normally this would be my whatever.co.uk domain but I don't want external access, only across my LAN, so does it actually matter what I put in here? And what happens if I want to add DNS? I've done a fair bit of googling on this and everything seems to be about external access to the server. Has anyone set up DHCP (and DNS) for local-only access?
I'm installing the DHCP role on my WHS2011 server and it's asking for a parent domain name. I realise that normally this would be my whatever.co.uk domain but I don't want external access, only across my LAN, so does it actually matter what I put in here? And what happens if I want to add DNS? I've done a fair bit of googling on this and everything seems to be about external access to the server. Has anyone set up DHCP (and DNS) for local-only access?
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Soldato
To be honest, unless there is a real good reason to install DHCP/DNS on your Home Server I'd leave the duties of DHCP/DNS to your router.
If you do want to do it however, you can put in the name of your local workgroup as a DNS suffix if you want or just leave it blank. RE: DNS, you need to make sure you forward your DNS requests from the local WHS server to either your router IP or an internet based DNS server IP like OpenDNS etc.
Thanks for that. I'm only doing it because the router isn't doing a very good job of the DNS as visibility of the various local clients comes and goes. And because I can, of course......
Fortunately PlusNet gives two DNS servers so their addresses will be set up in WHS.
Fortunately PlusNet gives two DNS servers so their addresses will be set up in WHS.
Soldato
Folks, Some advice please!
I have a 3tb drive which i wish to put into an external enclosure to use as system backup. Just wondering what the best way of formatting it is?
Ta
I have a 3tb drive which i wish to put into an external enclosure to use as system backup. Just wondering what the best way of formatting it is?
Ta
Soldato
I'd do 1 x 2TB partition and 1 x 1TB partition or 2 x 1.5TB partitions.
All NTFS
All NTFS
Soldato
Ive tried the 2tb and 1tb portions and it still wont let me backup to the drives.
My 1TB essentials drive is fine, i can backup to that just fine!
My 1TB essentials drive is fine, i can backup to that just fine!
![[RB]](/styles/overclockers/avatars/4.png){kind=avatar}
Associate
Man, I've hit the UEFI/GPT disk issue with my new main desktop rig.
Gutted.
Basically, if you didn't know, WHS 2011 cannot currently back up disks laid out with the GPT Partition table (as opposed to MBR based partition table layout). So since I got a new motherboard/CPU I didn't notice that it would do this with the SSD used as the boot disk and so I can't actually back it up using WHS.
Not to worry though, I can still use my WHS server as a target for Acronis True Image 2011 which I have now installed to the new desktop PC. One way or another all my 4 machines are covered
Just posted in the massive HP Microserver thread as well but this is now fixed
KB Article
Soldato
[RB];23931184 said:
Sweet
Here's my WHS v1 console:
As you can see... I've not got much storage space left!
Also, I've been having the Health of the drives flicker between Healthy and Unhealthy.
The 1TB boot drive is showing in PerfectDisk as having reduced performance. Plus, as it's my boot drive (and the smallest), replacing this would be difficult.
When I put the 2TB "EARS" drive in, I also didn't know about the "jumper trick" to make it work better - so its performance has been fairly lacklustre - to amend this means removing it from the pool, adjusting the jumper, and re-adding it (which will also kill all data on it)
I purchased a couple of 3TB drives, because they're now cheaper £/GB than a 2TB drive, with the aim of replacing at least one of the existing drives, and having the other as additional storage.
Unfortunately - my motherboard doesn't support AF drives (drives over 2.2TB) - and it shows the new drives as only 746GB. Guides suggest to install the latest Intel Rapid Storage drivers, but as the board is only an ICH7, it isn't supported!
I knew I was not going to get the full 3TB from them, but I was hoping that I could make use of 2.2TB of the space - but I can't even do that!
As such, I've also now purchased myself a new board (with 6x SATA ports), a copy of WHS 2011 and a licence for StableBit DrivePool.
With just the 2x 3TB drives, I'll have more storage than I had previously, with more scope for growth. Yes, it's cost me more now due to the new hardware/software costs - but it's an investment for the future, and I'd have got to a point where I'd run out of space by filling up with 2TB drives and I'd need to do it anyway - so why not now, and whilst WHS 2011 is still available.
I decided to stick with WHS, rather than utilising a desktop OS, because of the server core, as well as the client backup - the WHSv1 backup has saved my bacon a few times over the years - and it's a feature I want to keep.
Hopefully will have the new bits tomorrow - I'm debating whether to "sacrifice" a SATA port and put a smaller drive in as the boot drive - if I use a 3TB drive as a boot drive, if I ever need to reinstall the OS, it'll format the entire disk, rather than just the OS partition (which seems strange to me...) - but with the in WHS2011 to backup the system drive - should I ever need to reinstall the OS once it's set up? I'm hoping that this motherboard will last me at least 5 years - that's roughly how long I've had the current board - there's nothing "wrong" with it, it just doesn't support the bigger hard drives I've purchased - something that won't happen with the new board and running them in AHCI...
Then comes the fun task of migrating 4.2TB of data off the old system onto the new I'm away at the weekend, so it might be a case of just setting them running and let it plod on through it!
As you can see... I've not got much storage space left!
Also, I've been having the Health of the drives flicker between Healthy and Unhealthy.
The 1TB boot drive is showing in PerfectDisk as having reduced performance. Plus, as it's my boot drive (and the smallest), replacing this would be difficult.
When I put the 2TB "EARS" drive in, I also didn't know about the "jumper trick" to make it work better - so its performance has been fairly lacklustre - to amend this means removing it from the pool, adjusting the jumper, and re-adding it (which will also kill all data on it)
I purchased a couple of 3TB drives, because they're now cheaper £/GB than a 2TB drive, with the aim of replacing at least one of the existing drives, and having the other as additional storage.
Unfortunately - my motherboard doesn't support AF drives (drives over 2.2TB) - and it shows the new drives as only 746GB. Guides suggest to install the latest Intel Rapid Storage drivers, but as the board is only an ICH7, it isn't supported!
I knew I was not going to get the full 3TB from them, but I was hoping that I could make use of 2.2TB of the space - but I can't even do that!
As such, I've also now purchased myself a new board (with 6x SATA ports), a copy of WHS 2011 and a licence for StableBit DrivePool.
With just the 2x 3TB drives, I'll have more storage than I had previously, with more scope for growth. Yes, it's cost me more now due to the new hardware/software costs - but it's an investment for the future, and I'd have got to a point where I'd run out of space by filling up with 2TB drives and I'd need to do it anyway - so why not now, and whilst WHS 2011 is still available.
I decided to stick with WHS, rather than utilising a desktop OS, because of the server core, as well as the client backup - the WHSv1 backup has saved my bacon a few times over the years - and it's a feature I want to keep.
Hopefully will have the new bits tomorrow - I'm debating whether to "sacrifice" a SATA port and put a smaller drive in as the boot drive - if I use a 3TB drive as a boot drive, if I ever need to reinstall the OS, it'll format the entire disk, rather than just the OS partition (which seems strange to me...) - but with the in WHS2011 to backup the system drive - should I ever need to reinstall the OS once it's set up? I'm hoping that this motherboard will last me at least 5 years - that's roughly how long I've had the current board - there's nothing "wrong" with it, it just doesn't support the bigger hard drives I've purchased - something that won't happen with the new board and running them in AHCI...
Then comes the fun task of migrating 4.2TB of data off the old system onto the new
I'm away at the weekend, so it might be a case of just setting them running and let it plod on through it!
Soldato
I've hit a point where i need to start doing more backups. At the moment i use the built in backup function of WHS2011.
However this seems to create a system file that only WHS2011 restore can read. Can i set up automated backups where it just copies folders over in a regular file structure which can be read by anything?
However this seems to create a system file that only WHS2011 restore can read. Can i set up automated backups where it just copies folders over in a regular file structure which can be read by anything?
You can exclude certain folders from the inbuilt WHS Backup and instead use a number of synchronisation tools to back these up to a shared folder on the server.
However, what you'd lose here is some form of "versioning". For example, by storing a week's worth of backups in this way, you can open up a backup from 6 days ago and retrieve a file.
Even if you excluded your other data folders, I'd still recommend keeping the WHS backups in place, they are "bare metal" backups, so you can restore your client machines to the point in time - for example if you install a new application and it really screws up your installation, it's a few clicks and a few minutes of restoration to get you back to your previous state.
However, what you'd lose here is some form of "versioning". For example, by storing a week's worth of backups in this way, you can open up a backup from 6 days ago and retrieve a file.
Even if you excluded your other data folders, I'd still recommend keeping the WHS backups in place, they are "bare metal" backups, so you can restore your client machines to the point in time - for example if you install a new application and it really screws up your installation, it's a few clicks and a few minutes of restoration to get you back to your previous state.
Soldato
I run crashplan to do secondary backups and then also use always sync to create a third copy to a NAS in another part of the house.
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.
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.
Just stuck a 3tb WD Red into my v2011 box to add to the pool. Other than the (unlikely) situation that its DOA, I shouldn't need to do anything special should I? Can't get Windows to detect it.
Bearing in mind I've got WD 3TB Greens in there already, so it's not going to be an issue with the bios.
Bearing in mind I've got WD 3TB Greens in there already, so it's not going to be an issue with the bios.
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Well, my home server appears to be totally ******.
It all started when I put this DOA hard drive in to increase the storage pool, sent that disk back, got a replacement which works fine, but now my drivepool is messed up, two disks have seemingly formatted themselves (or at least re-initialised themselves) - am running a data recovery program but because the files were all in the drivepool they have no path information, so sorting is going to take weeks if not months, but worse than that, they've all been renamed numerically, so I have a mixture of photos, music, videos, starting at 000000001.jpg and so on.
Now all the important stuff was duplicated three times, and is backed up elsewhere; I'm at least hopeful that I'll be able to pull it out of the pool, but the server is just having major issues. Disk management, Server Dashboard, sometimes just won't load. Explorer crashes regularly, RDP sessions disconnect frequently. I've installed onto a brand new hard drive.
Really just hacked off.
It all started when I put this DOA hard drive in to increase the storage pool, sent that disk back, got a replacement which works fine, but now my drivepool is messed up, two disks have seemingly formatted themselves (or at least re-initialised themselves) - am running a data recovery program but because the files were all in the drivepool they have no path information, so sorting is going to take weeks if not months, but worse than that, they've all been renamed numerically, so I have a mixture of photos, music, videos, starting at 000000001.jpg and so on.
Now all the important stuff was duplicated three times, and is backed up elsewhere; I'm at least hopeful that I'll be able to pull it out of the pool, but the server is just having major issues. Disk management, Server Dashboard, sometimes just won't load. Explorer crashes regularly, RDP sessions disconnect frequently. I've installed onto a brand new hard drive.
Really just hacked off.