• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Solution for Media server?

J

jnick

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 25, 2004
Messages
2,888
I have a WHS V1 running as a media server for my dad at his house. It stores all of his movies (rips) and he streams them through Apple TV. It works GREAT!

However, this weekend I was finally hit with a problem...he purchased a 3TB drive during black friday as it was on sale. Upon installation I quickly found out that WHS v1 does not support 3TB drives. It's max is 2TB and even with that, I was still only seeing 746GB from the drive.

The server was built back in 2008 using AM2. From all the research I've done, WHS 2011 does not support Drive Extender, which is why I got WHS in the first place. What are my options here?

Looking at Window 8, it appears they have a version of Drive Extender and was contemplating using my old Q6600 system to run it. This will allow me to have one volume with as many drives as I need.

Another option I was thinking about was buying a NAS enclosure from Newegg and just going that route. Doing this will allow me 4 drives and even support RAID 5, for better integrity. I would then de-commission the server and manage everything from the NAS. I was looking at the drobo, but oddly enough there is no Ethernet on it...I'd be forced to use USB and create shares which seems rather...lame.

What would be my best option?
 
You have two options as I see it given hat you've said.

1. WHS 2011 and Stablebit Drivepool (gives you drive poling again.

2. Windows 8, and use Storage Spaces for pooling.
 
That seems like a VERY good, CHEAP solution! How many of you are using Folder Duplication? Does it actually work or do you not worry about it?

Also, will WHS 2011 using Drivepool accept the 3TB drive as a 3TB drive? Or will it separate it to a 2TB partition and a 1TB partition? From my understanding, natively, WHS 2011 will chop a 3TB drive into two partitions. Either way, I'd assume with Drivepool it doesn't really matter as it's one big pool no matter how you slice it...just curious though!
 
Last edited:
I personally use un-raid, but you could use server 2012 to get drive pools and enable parity.

I havent tested server 2012 ablity to restore a failed drive from a pool though. That would be the first thing I did before I trusted any real data to it.
 
jnick said:
That seems like a VERY good, CHEAP solution! How many of you are using Folder Duplication? Does it actually work or do you not worry about it?
QUOTE]

I use folder duplication for my photos and haven't had any problems with it.
Click to expand...
 
Just figured I should give an update! I setup WHS 2011 for my parents yesterday. Everything went fairly smoothly! The configuration and setup was easy, yet time consuming. Drive pool is great! The 3TB drive was recognized with no issue and now they are sporting 5TB of storage and I was able to finally enable Folder Duplication for them as well, as an extra layer of security.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and opening my eyes to this add-in! Now I'm gonna be looking to see what other add-ins I'm missing!
 
Yea, I did a bit of searching for add-in's after my WHS 2011 install. It took a while to go thru the various add-ins out there, but I ended up using DrivePool, Lights Out and the Advanced Admin Console. I've been happy with just those 3 add-in's.
 
Hi,

Does somebofy knows if there is a sort of "Folder/file" cache with DrivePool?
Let's me explain:
Each time I run my mediaplayer software (xbmc), it makes a library upgrade, scanning for new or modified files in some folders (typicaly movies, music and pictures).
With a 8 HDD pooling solution, this upgrade will wake and spin-up my 8 drives!
I'd prefer them to stay spindowned, so I need a mechanism to scan the library foldes without plysically scan drives.

Do you think it's possible?
Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top