Setting up a file server, need equipment/raid help

daphatgrant

daphatgrant

Fi-yah!
Joined
Jun 15, 2003
Messages
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Let me start by describing what my current "file server" is, I have a 1.4ghz T-bird, w/ 512mb ram, a 320gb hdd, and a 100/1000 net card that's connected to my router that I pull and store files on.

I have been meaning to replace this for quite some time and with the cheap price of 1tb hdds I figured why not do/start it now.


Here is what I currently have:
Antec 900 case
*Abit IC7-G w/ 10/100/1000 built in lan
PV 2.8C
1GB PC3200
500GB hdd (OS)
DVD-ROM​

What I am going to start ordering:
(8) 1TB HDD's 4 for storage, 4 for backups
Corsair 1000HX PSU
1 or 2 raid cards
​


So... here are my questions:

1. do you recommend that I raid them in pairs? so it's drive A w/ backup, B w/ backup, etc

2. Or do you recommend that I raid and stripe them? so it's drives A-D striped using drives E-H as mirrors.

3. Do you recommend any specific RAID cards?

4. Is using 8 drives going to make this too complicated?, I am going to need at least 6 drives (need a min of 3TB's storage)





*The board that I am going to use has 2 different sets of SATA (150) ports that can be raided (2 different RAID controllers for a total of 4 drives between the 2 controllers). Since it is SATA I (150) I'd rather go with the newer SATA II (300).

I won't be accessing this frequently but on a 1-2 times a week basis. There is a good chance that I will install a wireless card so that I don't have to run cat5 to it.


I apologize if this is scattered but I have never looked into doing this before and at 8 drives I am not starting out easy.
 
1) RAID1 is NOT backup. It guarantees uptime and guards against hardware failure for sure but it is not backup since whatever data is deleted, infected, or corrupted is copied to the second drive automatically

Have you thought about going with Windows Home Server? I mean, Windows Home Server sounds like it's almost the perfect solution for you. Your old mobo doesn't support PCI-E anyway and there aren't any good PCI true hardware raid cards out there. So WHS is a good solution for you.
 
Yea I would reccomend WHS for you as well

1) it provides a true Backup
2) it provides uptime/redundancy for the data you chose(more powerful than any raid IMO)
3)RAID cards are a PITA and expensive, and need PCI-e (which you dont have)
4) its awesome and can do a lot of cool stuff :D

BTW there is no need for 1000w PSU way overkill you should go with like a 600w
There is no need for SATA 300 because no single drive can go above 150 ATM.
 
Given the price of the pre-built units wouldn't I be better of buying a cheaper custom system like a:

ASUS P5Q
Intel Xeon E3110 @ 3.0ghz
8GB's Corsair DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W

I can get all that for $450?
 
WHS is an Operating System that you can install just like Server2003

Yes you can buy the prebuilt units but you already have a system.
What I was suggesting was that instead of spending hundreds on RAID Cards that wont provide a true backup, you could spend $100 on this OS.
 
nitrobass24 said:
WHS is an Operating System that you can install just like Server2003

Yes you can buy the prebuilt units but you already have a system.
What I was suggesting was that instead of spending hundreds on RAID Cards that wont provide a true backup, you could spend $100 on this OS.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I guess I don't know enough about the OS :eek:

I'll look into it, I assume that it's software based archiving/backing up.
 
Again I apologize for all the questions but I am rather new to all this. Can I set the system up to have 9 drives in it, 1 OS drive (WHS) and 8 storage drives and have it automatically backup the info on drive A to drive E, and drive B to drive F, drive C to drive G and so on so that there are 2 physical drives with the data on them.

I guess the biggest thing I want to have is a backup for each drive in case one of the drives dies.

Thanks for the help so far :).
 
daphatgrant said:
Again I apologize for all the questions but I am rather new to all this. Can I set the system up to have 9 drives in it, 1 OS drive (WHS) and 8 storage drives and have it automatically backup the info on drive A to drive E, and drive B to drive F, drive C to drive G and so on so that there are 2 physical drives with the data on them.
Click to expand...

Well just turn on Duplication on all the files and folders you have, in WHS, and any of the files or folders with duplication turned on will have a copy stored on another drive. To the OS, there's only one file but in reality that file is split among two drives. So that's pretty close to what you want to do. If a drive dies, and as long as all the files on that drive had duplication turned on, your data will be relatively safe.
 
Danny Bui said:
Well just turn on Duplication on all the files and folders you have, in WHS, and any of the files or folders with duplication turned on will have a copy stored on another drive. To the OS, there's only one file but in reality that file is split among two drives. So that's pretty close to what you want to do. If a drive dies, and as long as all the files on that drive had duplication turned on, your data will be relatively safe.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's pretty much what I am looking to do. Can you set the drive that duplicated files are stored on? From what I am starting to gather it sounds a lot like a DROBO where if you have (4) 1TB drives the unit sees 4 TB's but the data is stored in a way that if a drive where to fail the data is scattered amongst the other drives to prevent you from losing data.
 
Danny Bui said:
AFAIK, no. The OS chooses where to store the duplicated file IIRC.
Click to expand...

Alright, I'm almost sold :p. If I install (1) 500GB OS drive & (8) 1TB drives will the OS see it as (1) 500GB OS drive and (1) 8TB drive or does it see them individually? and in either case after I hit 4 TB or more I'll need to upgrade to more HDD's right?
 
daphatgrant said:
Alright, I'm almost sold :p. If I install (1) 500GB OS drive & (8) 1TB drives will the OS see it as (1) 500GB OS drive and (1) 8TB drive or does it see them individually? and in either case after I hit 4 TB or more I'll need to upgrade to more HDD's right?
Click to expand...

Actually WHS will combine all of the hard drive space into a single hard drive space. So basically you'll have single 8.5GB drive. And if you turn on duplication for ALL your files, then yes once you reach around 4TB of storage, you'll need more drives. However, you can monitor each drive individually.
 
Danny Bui said:
Actually WHS will combine all of the hard drive space into a single hard drive space. So basically you'll have single 8.5GB drive. And if you turn on duplication for ALL your files, then yes once you reach around 4TB of storage, you'll need more drives. However, you can monitor each drive individually.
Click to expand...

Well you sold me :p. I'll grab WHS and a new PSU, probably another Corsair HX620 or the 750TX and start buying the drives.

I was thinking about getting the WD greens, is it worth it to get the blacks?
 
You'll be on a Gbit connection at best anyway, so buying a black over the greens isn't really worth it.
 
I don't want this to sound confrontational, but what does network speed have to do with deciding between WD Black or Green? Type of media stored on the drive is much more important. My 1TB Green drives sustain ~70MB/s which is more than enough to stream HDDVD and BluRay (~25Mbit envelopes). I agree, the Green drives should be fine for a WHS box. I've got 3 1TB Green and a 500GB Green in my WHS box right now.
 
Used in the manner described, WHS is nothing more than a VERY SLOW software Raid 1. A good dedicated raid controller card is several times faster at implementing raid, can use RAID 5 or RAID 6 which means that out of 8 drives you lose 1 or 2 drives rather than 4.

WHS does have built-in backup of ATTACHED WORKSTATIONS, but there are other backup implementations (third party software).

WHS has some very cool stuff, amd I am NOT saying do not use it, but I would question it's efficiency for very large storage requirements where you desire a "raid" solution.

If you want the functionality of WHS for the workstation backup, but you need raid file storage, my suggestion is to implement WHS on an existing RAID array. That is the "best of both worlds". You can use the backup stuff that WHS does very well, but you get RAID at the hardware level which means speeds anywhere from 2 to 10 times faster than the "software raid" that WHS provides. Pure file storage can be accomplished with simple shares.

And as is repeated over and over and over, RAID is not backup, so you STILL need to have a backup off to another location of files that may be corrupted by processes, and in particular files that cannot be pulled off of program CDs / DVDs, such as family photos, email, tax filings, work documents / spreadsheets and so forth. WHS does provide exactly this kind of backup for your workstations, and in an easy efficient manner, however you need to backup that WHS backup to a hard drive that can be dropped in a fire safe (for example).

Given a true raid (hardware Raid 5/6), backing up ripped DVDs / music is probably not efficient. If one of those files are lost you can get them back by re-ripping them, and they are so large (at least the video is) that backing them up "near line" is way more expensive than it is worth.

Just my 2c worth.
 
spazoid said:
You'll be on a Gbit connection at best anyway, so buying a black over the greens isn't really worth it.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll save the $10 then and get the greens.

Another question, does WHS play well with add on SATA cards? The board I have doesn't have enough SATA ports so I'll need to get something like this. Most likely 2 to keep them all @ 300.

If anyone has another suggestion as to how to add the drives to the system let me know, even if it includes getting a new system with more onboard SATA ports.
 
What I have is about 600 DVD's that I want backed-up and put on hard disk so I don't have a massive pile of plastic sitting in my living room. I guess the event where I would lose all the data on the drives wouldn't be life altering so an off-site backup or a 100% secure backup is not necessary. I do plan on having other things on this server but DVD backups will be the primary form of data on the drives, I am guessing right around 2.5 TB's.
 
WHS generally works with add-in controller cards. I would make sure that whatever card you get has drivers for Windows Server 2003 as that is what WHS is based on. As far as running WHS and RAID, I believe others have said that WHS does not like having RAID volumes in it's drive pool. I'm kinda speaking out of my but here as I have not tried it myself. In all honesty though, there's really no reason to. If you turn on folder duplication on the folders you want to backup, then you protected from a single hard drive failure. Additionally, you wouldn't have to deal with the RAID rebuild time and the chance of another large drive failing during rebuild. The primary use of my WHS is for media serving to an HTPC in my office and a Popcorn Hour A-110 (media streamer) in my living room.
 
I'd be really interested in hearing the results of this build... I also have an IC7-G Max 3 that I plan on building into a file server as well. It has more SATA ports, (4 + 2) and I'd like to do it without getting a PCI SATA II card (Is there any real benefit?)

I'm most interested in what kind of throughput you can get over the onboard gig port. (Although you said you might go wireless).

Thanks!
 
daphatgrant said:
What I have is about 600 DVD's that I want backed-up and put on hard disk so I don't have a massive pile of plastic sitting in my living room. I guess the event where I would lose all the data on the drives wouldn't be life altering so an off-site backup or a 100% secure backup is not necessary. I do plan on having other things on this server but DVD backups will be the primary form of data on the drives, I am guessing right around 2.5 TB's.
Click to expand...

Yea I would say closer to 3.5tb depending on how you rip them.
If you rip just the main movie you can save some space.
I would rip the entire disc to to video_ts folder and use MyMovies that way you dont spend time encoding, its lossless, and way cool.
 
epimetheus said:
As far as running WHS and RAID, I believe others have said that WHS does not like having RAID volumes in it's drive pool.
Click to expand...

I have done it and it works just fine. The WHS team despises hardware RAID, but then they have an "agenda", which is the "beautiful simplicity" of their system.

In all honesty though, there's really no reason to. If you turn on folder duplication on the folders you want to backup, then you protected from a single hard drive failure.
Click to expand...

True. However...

1) It is DOG SLOW.
2) The "landing zone" can fill up causing even slower operation as WHS scrambles to move stuff out so there is room for new stuff.
3) It is "raid 1" (though it really isn't). This means that it has a 100% overhead for its raid implementation. For every gigabyte of storage there is a gigabyte of overhead.

Additionally, you wouldn't have to deal with the RAID rebuild time and the chance of another large drive failing during rebuild. The primary use of my WHS is for media serving to an HTPC in my office and a Popcorn Hour A-110 (media streamer) in my living room.
Click to expand...

First of all, if two drives fail in WHS you can lose everything as well, and you WILL lose everything if those are your only disks. WHS gives you no control over where the duplication happens.

Second, using REAL Raid 6, you can have two drive failure and not skip a beat.

Third, using a true raid implementation, raid rebuild time happens in the background. There is nothing to "deal with".

Question, what happens when the system disk goes down in a WHS? Enjoy your Christmas holidays as you struggle to get the media center back up as the rest of the family has a Christmas feast!!

I have a Media Server feeding my TV in the living room. It is talking to a HTPC server up in my office. The server is hardware RAID. All my ripped DVDs and CDs sit on shared volumes sitting on a RAID platform. If a disk were to die, I replace that disk and the system takes over and rebuilds the array. I don't have to "do anything" other than replace the disk and tell the RAID to rebuild. I can still watch my TV while the rebuild happens.

In fact, running Raid 5 with a hot backup will automatically handle a single drive failure (you don't have to do ANYTHING), and the RAID system will email you that a drive failed to boot.

Look, I am not saying that WHS doesn't have it's uses but I am saying that its "Raid" is aimed at "grandma". If you have the smarts to do real RAID, a simple RAID 5 with 7 data disks plus hot backup will cost a LOT LESS and give you a LOT MORE, including speed.
 
jcolby said:
I have done it and it works just fine. The WHS team despises hardware RAID, but then they have an "agenda", which is the "beautiful simplicity" of their system.
Click to expand...
True, RAID can be used but it is not needed, makes things more complicated and expensive, and is not supported by Microsoft


jcolby said:
1) It is DOG SLOW.
2) The "landing zone" can fill up causing even slower operation as WHS scrambles to move stuff out so there is room for new stuff.
3) It is "raid 1" (though it really isn't). This means that it has a 100% overhead for its raid implementation. For every gigabyte of storage there is a gigabyte of overhead.
Click to expand...
1) slow to duplicate..yes, but it does not affect performance
2) Landing Zone is not an issue anymore since PP1, and KB 957825

jcolby said:
First of all, if two drives fail in WHS you can lose everything as well, and you WILL lose everything if those are your only disks. WHS gives you no control over where the duplication happens.

Second, using REAL Raid 6, you can have two drive failure and not skip a beat.

Third, using a true raid implementation, raid rebuild time happens in the background. There is nothing to "deal with".
Click to expand...
If you only have two drives you cant do anything other then RAID1 so thats a moot issue.
He has 8 disk
RAID6 is slow and expensive and gives you no control over where your data is either, or what data is redundant..it automatically makes everything redundant.
With WHS you get to decided what is important. For me I have my Photos, and family videos duplicated but my DVD rips are not because they are already backed up by the original disc.
With RAID6 if you drop two disc. theoretically you should be fine but the reality is that there will be problems. First you have to get more disk, and the rebuild has to finish before another disk dies. Chances of rebuild failure on these 1tb and 1.5tb drives are extremely high.
Not to mention Insane Rebuild times like days...better not lose power.

jcolby said:
Question, what happens when the system disk goes down in a WHS? Enjoy your Christmas holidays as you struggle to get the media center back up as the rest of the family has a Christmas feast!!
Click to expand...

I had my system disk die and it was easy
I installed a new HDD I had laying around, inserted my Install CD, chose the Reinstall option. Hour later I was fully operational with ZERO data loss.

jcolby said:
I have a Media Server feeding my TV in the living room. It is talking to a HTPC server up in my office. The server is hardware RAID. All my ripped DVDs and CDs sit on shared volumes sitting on a RAID platform. If a disk were to die, I replace that disk and the system takes over and rebuilds the array. I don't have to "do anything" other than replace the disk and tell the RAID to rebuild. I can still watch my TV while the rebuild happens.

In fact, running Raid 5 with a hot backup will automatically handle a single drive failure (you don't have to do ANYTHING), and the RAID system will email you that a drive failed to boot.

Look, I am not saying that WHS doesn't have it's uses but I am saying that its "Raid" is aimed at "grandma". If you have the smarts to do real RAID, a simple RAID 5 with 7 data disks plus hot backup will cost a LOT LESS and give you a LOT MORE, including speed.
Click to expand...

Yes RAID5 you get speed
But for streaming HD content around your house you dont need more then single drive speed.
And no matter how fast your raid is, you are limited by the speed of your network connection.
RAID is great I use it on my WS, and at work, but it just is not needed for a HomeServer type application.
1) its expensive
2) if you dont know your shit you can really screw yourself up

With everything there are Pros, and Cons but for people who want to stream DVD's to there htpc's the Pros for WHS outweigh the Cons

I switched from using RAID5
Ockie...Yes the StorageKing switched. He is running around 50tb on WHS

Plus WHS offers a lot more then media Serving
Remote Access
WebServer
Backups(networked computers and Server)

I Use mine for VM's
Internet Video Streaming when I'm out of town

If you can do it on Server 2003 you can pretty much do it on WHS because after all WHS is simply a set of programs installed on Server2003.
 
jcolby said:
Look, I am not saying that WHS doesn't have it's uses but I am saying that its "Raid" is aimed at "grandma". If you have the smarts to do real RAID, a simple RAID 5 with 7 data disks plus hot backup will cost a LOT LESS and give you a LOT MORE, including speed.
Click to expand...

I've got nothing against RAID, but when speed is not an issue, as is the case in most home file servers, there is no way WHS is more expensive then RAID 5, especially 8 disk RAID 5. An 8 port RAID 5 card alone is what, 3 or 4 times the cost of WHS? And that's not even true hardware RAID. Most of this is a broken record - the WHS vs. RAID issue has been beaten to death.

It's simple - to each his own. For me WHS is exactly what I need in a home file server.
 
daphatgrant said:
Another question, does WHS play well with add on SATA cards? The board I have doesn't have enough SATA ports so I'll need to get something like this. Most likely 2 to keep them all @ 300.

If anyone has another suggestion as to how to add the drives to the system let me know, even if it includes getting a new system with more onboard SATA ports.
Click to expand...

I would not recommend getting that controller since for just $40 more, you can get this 8Port controller:
SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz (PCI Compatible) SATA Controller Card - $98

Yes it'll work in PCI and yes it can be used with WHS. In fact, if you check out Ockie's latest Galaxy builds, those are the cards he uses with WHS:
http://networkisdown.com/showthread.php?t=276&page=9
http://networkisdown.com/showthread.php?t=276&page=10
 
jcolby said:
Look, I am not saying that WHS doesn't have it's uses but I am saying that its "Raid" is aimed at "grandma". If you have the smarts to do real RAID, a simple RAID 5 with 7 data disks plus hot backup will cost a LOT LESS and give you a LOT MORE, including speed.
Click to expand...

lol, that comment right there threw your entire post credibility out the window. Hardware raid freaks are all in panic as this is the future in storage and always has been, but WHS made it home friendly and easier for the end user. I can not wait to see more enterprise grade solutions that will hit the market, particularly a windows storage server offerings with a dynamic self healing storage matrix.

Grandma? Care to compare storage systems apples for apples and then we can see who really is the grandma in this situation? ;)
 
Ockie said:
lol, that comment right there threw your entire post credibility out the window. Hardware raid freaks are all in panic as this is the future in storage and always has been, but WHS made it home friendly and easier for the end user. I can not wait to see more enterprise grade solutions that will hit the market, particularly a windows storage server offerings with a dynamic self healing storage matrix.

Grandma? Care to compare storage systems apples for apples and then we can see who really is the grandma in this situation? ;)
Click to expand...

As with everything it depends on what you need. For a terabyte of storage, hardware raid will never win because of the cost of the controller.

OTOH if you want to store hundreds of videos (as I do) and feed that video to several rooms, and do anything else, then WHS is not the solution. The RAID is not the total cost. There is the cost of the server, the cost of each box getting data, the cost of the network, the cost of POWER, the cost of maintenance etc., the cost of being out of town and all movie storage going down for the whole house.

I currently have 247 videos in my collection. Within a year or two I will have close to a thousand. Each video is averaging 5.75 gigs.

Given an 8 drive RAID 5 array that is an overhead of 1/8 = 12%. Total storage 7 tb
Given raid 1 (WHS) that is an overhead of 4/8 = 50%. Total storage 4 tbyte.

I am not a "hardware raid freak", nor am I in a panic. I am in fact a programmer / analyst that understands computers. I get my hardware raid "for free" by purchasing the card with the money saved on drives. You pay the same or more for a software raid system (assuming a large system) because of all the disks you dump into redundancy, plus you pay more / megabyte of actual storage for the electricity to feed them. This is the HardForum and my assumption was that if you were here reading this, setting up a RAID is not so tough (it really isn't). Even setting up WHS directly on a RAID platform (what I did originally) is dead simple.

I currently have a server, very similar to a WHS server except that it is not WHS (though it is Server 2003). It sits up in my home office. It runs the MyMovies database and stores all of my videos. I do have a RAID controller running the disks.

The raid controller is wicked fast, I don't understand where the idea that any (hardware) raid is slow comes from. Streaming reads are about 400 mbytes / second, streaming writes about 70 mbytes / sec. Streaming reads are always faster than single disk reads because the data is coming off of multiple physical disks. Writes are about the speed of the single disk write. I can assure you (from experience) that a hardware raid will ALWAYS be anywhere from 2 to 10 times faster than WHS file transfers.

I have WHS running in a VM running on this server. To the network it appears to be another machine. It does nothing but PC boot drive backup for the three laptops and five workstations in my home / home office. My RAID has been running for years, with never a hiccup. Actually, on my two raid systems, over the last 6 years (running 24/7) I have had exactly one disk failure, and it was brain dead simple to replace the disk. The controller took over and rebuilt the array. Nothing died, no crisis, no "get out the boot disk and reinstall windows".

Look, there is a place for every solution. If you live in an apartment, with one or two computers and an xbox serving video, and in particular if you just want to store a handful of videos, then WHS is hands down the winner. If you want to serve up a huge library of videos to multiple TVs, plus do critical file storage, all without ever thinking about disk failure, then WHS is not such a great solution.

I bought WHS back in Nov of last year, just BEFORE MS acknowledged an "issue". I originally ran my WHS on a raid platform with a single large volume for WHS storage. No issues with the boot drive failing, no issues with all the crapola that was the problem. Why? Because no files ever "moved" (no redundancy copying) on my system, and the underlying hardware supplied the storage redundancy. I watched in amusement (on the WHS forums) as the posters sweat bullets over whether their system was going to munch files.

SP1 fixing their problems did not convince me to move back to their "file duplication" solution. Why would I do that? Eventually I did move WHS into a virtual machine, simply so that I could move it at will to another (RAID) server. Copy the whole darned virtual machine and bring it up. I moved back to doing raw file storage out in shares, and left WHS doing what it does so well, backup.

I LOVE WHS. For computer backup. I LOVE WHS even more running on a raid platform. I love WHS even more as a VM doing JUST my computer backup! It is awesome for that task, and when it is sitting on a stable raid volume where I can be on a business trip and if the raid "fails" I don't have to worry about it, well... I love it even more.

Nope, no panic here.
 
jcolby said:
As with everything it depends on what you need. For a terabyte of storage, hardware raid will never win because of the cost of the controller.

OTOH if you want to store hundreds of videos (as I do) and feed that video to several rooms, and do anything else, then WHS is not the solution. The RAID is not the total cost. There is the cost of the server, the cost of each box getting data, the cost of the network, the cost of POWER, the cost of maintenance etc., the cost of being out of town and all movie storage going down for the whole house.
Click to expand...
Well thats exactly what I do and I currently have 6.4tb of data and it grows by about 1tb a month and feed HD video to several rooms without a hiccup.
Cost of the Server is less without RAID
Cost of the network is erroneous because you have to have it whether you use raid or not
Cost of each box getting data...WTF does that mean?
Cost of power is almost the same regardless of setup....drive consumes ~10w :eek:
Cost of Maintenance????Hello time spend rebuilding arrays is called maintenance
Cost of being out of town when a Drive dies OMG Media Servers are not what I would consider Mission Critical
And regardless of RAID or WHS your still not there to replace the dead drive.

jcolby said:
Given an 8 drive RAID 5 array that is an overhead of 1/8 = 12%. Total storage 7 tb
Given raid 1 (WHS) that is an overhead of 4/8 = 50%. Total storage 4 tbyte.

I am not a "hardware raid freak", nor am I in a panic. I am in fact a programmer / analyst that understands computers. I get my hardware raid "for free" by purchasing the card with the money saved on drives. You pay the same or more for a software raid system (assuming a large system) because of all the disks you dump into redundancy, plus you pay more / megabyte of actual storage for the electricity to feed them. This is the HardForum and my assumption was that if you were here reading this, setting up a RAID is not so tough (it really isn't). Even setting up WHS directly on a RAID platform (what I did originally) is dead simple.
Click to expand...
Free...d00d you have to get some new jokes
Seriously 8 port hardware RAID card say Areca 1222 ~$500 well if you dont waste your money on RAID controllers then you could have 5 more 1TB Hard drives
For me I have a 20hot swap case so I would need a 24 port card...those are like $1500
With RAID everything is redundant even if it is not needed.
WHS you chose what is important.

jcolby said:
I currently have a server, very similar to a WHS server except that it is not WHS (though it is Server 2003). It sits up in my home office. It runs the MyMovies database and stores all of my videos. I do have a RAID controller running the disks.

The raid controller is wicked fast, I don't understand where the idea that any (hardware) raid is slow comes from. Streaming reads are about 400 mbytes / second, streaming writes about 70 mbytes / sec. Streaming reads are always faster than single disk reads because the data is coming off of multiple physical disks. Writes are about the speed of the single disk write. I can assure you (from experience) that a hardware raid will ALWAYS be anywhere from 2 to 10 times faster than WHS file transfers.
Click to expand...
Rebuild is slow
and the speed is for what absolutely nothing because you are limited to 125MB/s if you are on wired Gbe
With RAID you are garunteed to have disk contention if you are say playing 4 different movies...where with WHS they quite possibly are located on different spindles.
I can assure you (from experience) that a hardware raid is more expensive, and while it is faster, for this application there is no benefit.
 
The OP asked about RAID and as an alternative WHS was suggested and it looks like the OP is going to give it a try. I think RAID was dismissed at this point.

jcolby -
It looks like to me you've managed to undo everything that makes WHS such a good platform except the part you LOVE, the backups. Folder duplication, one large volume for storage (that is easily expandable), and best of all is the lack of personal mental overhead. I guess this is "granny mode". I LOVE granny mode, I was tired of managing files and drives. And your last post continues with the assumption that everything must be duped 100%. I understand that's how you want things, what about the OP?

Nothing wrong with running WHS with RAID or as a VM, but consider the cost and complexity to the OP too.
 
Why do you keep saying rebuild is slow? It is a dedicated controller doing it. It happens in the background, and takes an hour or two. It has absolutely NO effect on operation. Where does that equate to slow?

Now replace a failed drive in WHS that contained duplicated files. Hmm... the main processor has to do that. There is no "background", no dedicated controller.

OK, so you have a 20 hot swap case? How much is that? How much are the 20 drives? If you are going to duplicate everything (and you may not I suppose) then 10 of those drives are "lost" to file duplication. If these are 1 gig drives, that is a THOUSAND dollars for "lost drives". You just "bought" a 24 port controller but got a 10 drive "array". Hmmmm...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816121019

$899 for a 24 port card. This is by the sister company to Areca.

I actually just bought a 16 port ARECA controller "open box" on Newegg for $646. Works a treat!

Have you actually ever done RAID? I was not joking when I said "dead simple" (for you and I), it is!

I sense a bit of hostility, but am not quite sure why. I have stated that WHS is a good solution to certain problems, it is just not a good RAID solution. It is NOT RAID, it is file duplication and workstation backup. IF you do not use WHS file duplication, then it is a dead simple JBOD raid (which isn't really RAID either), and at THAT it excels!

Let's simply agree that WHS and RAID solve different problems. I use WHS, just not as a RAID solution.
 
Lyle,

I want redundancy. WHS is a poor redundancy solution. I love the WHS backup, so I use that. WHS absolutely SHINES as a "drive extender" UNTIL you turn on file duplication, then you have just bought a very expensive software RAID 1 array (kinda, sorta, but not really).
 
I don't see the "very expensive" part of WHS. Whole point behind it is that it's inexpensive and easy to maintain. I personally have an HP EX470 server on the way to play with. It's not replacing my primary file server any time soon however.
 
Blue Fox said:
I don't see the "very expensive" part of WHS. Whole point behind it is that it's inexpensive and easy to maintain. I personally have an HP EX470 server on the way to play with. It's not replacing my primary file server any time soon however.
Click to expand...

It is inexpensive, until you want it to be "big". The expense grows faster than the value. It is somewhat inexpensive, though if you have parts you can build one for the price of the software, then it is REALLY inexpensive. And as long as you are not using it for terabytes of redundancy it is a wonderful solution.

Of course I just have to ask, if it is so wonderful, why is it not replacing your server any time soon? That is a rhetorical question, we both know why, because they perform very different functions. If you have a server already, you could have just dumped the WHS software in a VM and played to your hearts content, for the cost of a WHS license.

As I said elsewhere, personally I want redundancy. Each terabyte drive holds about 180 videos. It takes a looooong time to rip that many DVDs, believe me I know. WHS redundancy works just fine, but it costs $2 for every dollar of storage. Using the controllers available now it costs about $1.50 for every dollar of storage. It certainly isn't free, but it is cheaper (for big redundant storage).

Someone said "so what, a drive is only 10 watts". Yep. Times 20 EXTRA drives to get a 20 tbyte redundant solution. That is 200 watts / hour MORE than the true raid solution. 200 * 24 = 2.4 kw hours per day. At my location I pay 10c / kw hour = $.24 / day. * 356 = 87 dollars a year. Plus more drive bays, plus more (or at least bigger / more expensive) power supplies etc.

As everyone knows, the more disks, the more failures. 40 disks for 20 gigs instead of 22 disks for 20 gigs is almost twice the failure rate for any given time period.

There is no free lunch. WHS is wonderful for a small system but I PERSONALLY would not consider it for a large one, given my requirements. And yes, I know that there are a couple of people here who do. Good for them! From the rather vitriolic responses to my post, I would say they have a lot tied up in being right about their decision.

:D
 
jcolby said:
Why do you keep saying rebuild is slow? It is a dedicated controller doing it. It happens in the background, and takes an hour or two. It has absolutely NO effect on operation. Where does that equate to slow?

Now replace a failed drive in WHS that contained duplicated files. Hmm... the main processor has to do that. There is no "background", no dedicated controller.
Click to expand...
Hour or two? yea if your using 73gb SCSI drives maybe but when you have 8x1TB it takes a while go look at some of Ockies or gjvrieze's build logs where they talk about their rebuilds.
The main processor has to do it. So its faster then any IOP proc on a RAID card and in a plain jane file server the processor isnt really doing anything to begin with.

jcolby said:
Have you actually ever done RAID? I was not joking when I said "dead simple" (for you and I), it is!
Click to expand...
Yes ive done RAID....I sold one of my RAID cards when i switched to WHS to build a new HTPC.
jcolby said:
I sense a bit of hostility, but am not quite sure why. I have stated that WHS is a good solution to certain problems, it is just not a good RAID solution. It is NOT RAID, it is file duplication and workstation backup. IF you do not use WHS file duplication, then it is a dead simple JBOD raid (which isn't really RAID either), and at THAT it excels!
Click to expand...
Not sure why you sense hostility either I'm not mad simply discussing the issues at hand and presenting my opinions as you have yours
No body ever said WHS duplication was RAID1

jcolby said:
Let's simply agree that WHS and RAID solve different problems. I use WHS, just not as a RAID solution.
Click to expand...

You are completely Right
They Do solve different problems
If you look at the OP's problem WHS fits the Bill quite nicely.

I still use RAID on a daily basis
But for a Media Server its OverKill
 
jcolby said:
I bought WHS back in Nov of last year, just BEFORE MS acknowledged an "issue". I originally ran my WHS on a raid platform with a single large volume for WHS storage. No issues with the boot drive failing, no issues with all the crapola that was the problem. Why? Because no files ever "moved" (no redundancy copying) on my system, and the underlying hardware supplied the storage redundancy. I watched in amusement (on the WHS forums) as the posters sweat bullets over whether their system was going to munch files.

SP1 fixing their problems did not convince me to move back to their "file duplication" solution. Why would I do that? Eventually I did move WHS into a virtual machine, simply so that I could move it at will to another (RAID) server. Copy the whole darned virtual machine and bring it up. I moved back to doing raw file storage out in shares, and left WHS doing what it does so well, backup.
Click to expand...

I think other people in the thread missed this part of this post.

It's simple - he got burned by WHS. He just forgot the golden rule of Windows OS deployment. Until Service Pack One, it's not done. Anyone who tested every scenario in which you were going to actually use the system, would've discovered the file corruption bug and put WHS away without even putting any real data on it.

What's that saying - once burned, twice shy? It's an understandable reaction. There's no point in even 'arguing' with him, but on the same note he should've just said that in the first post he made. It would've avoided a lot of headache.

nitrobass24 said:
You are completely Right
They Do solve different problems
If you look at the OP's problem WHS fits the Bill quite nicely.

I still use RAID on a daily basis
But for a Media Server its OverKill
Click to expand...

Truth. The reason WHS gets a lot of love for strictly a file server box is it's set it and forget it. I want easy expandability - to be able to add two drives every 3-6 months without taking the hit to my bank account of buying that many drives that I may not use up front or having to deal with a chance of failure when expanding a RAID array that often. I want to be able to pull a single drive from the machine at any time and see what's on it. WHS and RAID6 end up being the same up front price for the same amount of data. Only one offers the features I want in a file server.

I also love RAID. My current four drive RAID 5 that I use for data will be switched to RAID 10 and be used for virtual machines. I consider RAID 10 an indispensible partner in servers. I consider RAID 5 and 6 a pain in the ass.
 
MrMike said:
I also love RAID. My current four drive RAID 5 that I use for data will be switched to RAID 10 and be used for virtual machines. I consider RAID 10 an indispensible partner in servers. I consider RAID 5 and 6 a pain in the ass.
Click to expand...

Fascinating, why? I normally use Raid 6 because of something I read somewhere about the failings of RAID 5. I have never found RAID of any sort to be a PITA, so I am curious as to why you find these two modes to be so? It has always "just worked" for me. I am using Raid 5 on one of my servers only until I can get another disk to bring it up to RAID 6 (next month probably). I bought 6 drives, using them raid 5 ATM, and will add two more to make them Raid 6 and a hot spare.

True RAID with hot spare is truly "set and forget" though of course at the expense of additional drives. My controller even sends me an email if there are any problems. That has only ever happened once however. One drive died, the RAID 6 continued on (I did not have a hot spare), and I ordered another drive. Two days later I popped it in, the controller rebuilt the array and I went back to work. Total time to fix about 30 minutes to order the drive and another 30 minutes to remove the dead / insert the new.

I have had my two RAID servers for almost 6 years and spent a total of 1 hour on maintenance of the RAID itself. Works for me.
 
jcolby said:
Of course I just have to ask, if it is so wonderful, why is it not replacing your server any time soon? That is a rhetorical question, we both know why, because they perform very different functions. If you have a server already, you could have just dumped the WHS software in a VM and played to your hearts content, for the cost of a WHS license.
Click to expand...
My main server has a 24 port Areca card and 22 hard drives. It is centralized storage for my network. WHS and RAID cards don't play well together. The HP EX470 will be a backup solution for my desktop and laptop.
 
Just a couple of notes:

1. Not all of us can afford $500 or $900 controllers in addition to the now seemingly within reach TB drives. We are hearing about $100 1TB drives and want one or a few . But when you look at the up-front costs of a 16 or 24 port RAID controller plus at least 3 drives to get going on a serious RAID setup it all suddenly starts looking expensive. Keep in mind that some of us are more hobbyists here. We have to start small and slowly grow our systems, or cycle through and upgrade them. Advantage WHS.

2. Many of us have an old AMD or P4 system laying around we can throw WHS on, plug a few SATA drives in and get running. We can get some experience, even download the 120 day trial, and see if WHS is worth it. Difficult to know whether a hardware RAID 5/6 setup will perform to my needs or be overkill, as nice as the bragging rights may be.

3. At $100 WHS is an easy way to get a real server product in our house. Some probably have never dealt with more than a peer to peer type of network to another WinXP or Vista box acting as a "file server". We all don't know the intricacies of setting up a $900 RAID 6 card on Server 2008 - "but HP has a WHS product for consumers so maybe I can handle this new OS". The "H" in the middle of WHS is for Home after all.

4. The Norco RPC-4020 case at $290 for 20 bays. I'll make this jump sometime in the next few months myself. This is great for all of us. It makes adding more drives an easy thing as prices drop even more.
 
Heh, jcolby, you are onbsessed with raid but you forget the most important fact, raid can corrupt.

And since when do you have a multi terrabyte array with 2 hour rebuild time?! I want the cheap stuff you're smokin.
 
jcolby said:
It is inexpensive, until you want it to be "big". The expense grows faster than the value. It is somewhat inexpensive, though if you have parts you can build one for the price of the software, then it is REALLY inexpensive. And as long as you are not using it for terabytes of redundancy it is a wonderful solution.

Of course I just have to ask, if it is so wonderful, why is it not replacing your server any time soon? That is a rhetorical question, we both know why, because they perform very different functions. If you have a server already, you could have just dumped the WHS software in a VM and played to your hearts content, for the cost of a WHS license.

As I said elsewhere, personally I want redundancy. Each terabyte drive holds about 180 videos. It takes a looooong time to rip that many DVDs, believe me I know. WHS redundancy works just fine, but it costs $2 for every dollar of storage. Using the controllers available now it costs about $1.50 for every dollar of storage. It certainly isn't free, but it is cheaper (for big redundant storage).

Someone said "so what, a drive is only 10 watts". Yep. Times 20 EXTRA drives to get a 20 tbyte redundant solution. That is 200 watts / hour MORE than the true raid solution. 200 * 24 = 2.4 kw hours per day. At my location I pay 10c / kw hour = $.24 / day. * 356 = 87 dollars a year. Plus more drive bays, plus more (or at least bigger / more expensive) power supplies etc.

As everyone knows, the more disks, the more failures. 40 disks for 20 gigs instead of 22 disks for 20 gigs is almost twice the failure rate for any given time period.

There is no free lunch. WHS is wonderful for a small system but I PERSONALLY would not consider it for a large one, given my requirements. And yes, I know that there are a couple of people here who do. Good for them! From the rather vitriolic responses to my post, I would say they have a lot tied up in being right about their decision.

:D
Click to expand...

You keep barking at your "impressive" collections of movies and your vast storage and then you go and balk at WHS as puny users.


How about we compare hardware and specs. For the record, I got your movie colleciton beat by nearly 10 fold.


... yes, im waiving my epenis around...hi
 
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