What would you suggest I do?

C

Concentric

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 15, 2007
Messages
1,028
Hey people,

I can't decide what to do. I want to up my storage capacity and more importantly introduce some kind of backup scheme for my main machine which holds all my music, videos and work. I'd also like to offer space for my housemates and family to backup their files.

All my stuff is currently on one 500GB drive in the desktop in my sig. I have another identical 500GB that's unopened.
Conveniently I have a dual Opteron 240 system with a motherboard that has two PCI-X 133/64bit slots, which i'd very much like to put to use.


My idea was to add the second 500GB to my desktop and RAID1 them, giving me a little disk failure protection, then get a decent RAID controller for the Opteron machine and stick a few 500GB or TB drives in, perhaps in RAID5 w/hotspare - this would store a complete copy of the desktop's stuff as a backup, and would also be big enough for anything else and allowing me to expand.
However, all that would be pretty expensive, in particular the controller and TB drives.


I have a few hundred £££ to spend, but i could splash out a bit more if i'm convinced of a decent plan.
What would you folks suggest? Is my plan far too elaborate and should i just backup my 500GB drive to the other?

Thanks in advance.
 
How much of your current 500GB disk are you using? If you still have room, the second drive in a second box as a backup will be sufficient. I would still backup crucial files to CD or DVD, off site if possible.

 
Thanks for the reply. I'm currently using ~300gig of it but expect to add quite a bit more video and potentially other people's backups as i mentioned.
 
If you dont currently have a backup plan in place, I would go with setting up the second box and put your backup strategy in place soon. If you're going to be adding large amounts of data soon, start thinking about getting more or larger drives now.

RAID is not a backup strategy, although RAID5 with a hot spare can add another layer of protection and piece of mind to a good backup strategy. You'll have to weigh the pros/cons of using RAID and decide if it makes sense for you. The cost of extra drives and loss of storage to parity and hot spares is something to consider. A couple large drives in your main box, and a couple similar drives in the backup box is the cheapest/easiest way to go, and you can always upgrade the backup box later if you decide you want to go with RAID or go another route. With the hardware you mention as your potential backup box, you wouldn't even need a real expensive controller, theres more than enough CPU to run software RAID if the box doesnt have any other purpose.

 
Thanks alan.

Not sure whether you were just being helpful but I know RAID isn't a backup - as i mentioned, i was planning it to cover drive failure.

You're right, perhaps i don't need anything as complex as i thought. It seems like a waste of the potential of the machine though to not use the PCI-X slots, which is kinda why i got it.
I guess i'll just buy only a few more drives (maybe some of the new WD 640GB ones) and upgrade later if i need.
 
Not trying to insult your intelligence, just like to be through in my response since others may see it too.

While it may seem like a bit of a waste of the boxes potential now, you never know what your needs are going to be down the road, always good to have the head room to expand later. The board you are planning to use will give you plenty of room to grow without breaking a sweat. My server began its life in a similar pattern, solely a small usage backup box, but as time went on I've increased my family's storage needs, all of our access to it increased, and started using it to stream video to my PS3.

 
Yea sorry :p

Good thinking. I just hope PCI-X isn't outdate by the time i actually come to use it :D

My plan is to get two of the 640GBs and make those the data drives, one in the desktop and the other in the backup machine as a copy. I'll make the current 500GB into the desktop's OS drive and put the other in the server as a drive for others to access. One 250GB will be the server's OS drive and the other a copy of most of my current data, which i'll leave offsite.
Phew! :p
 
WHS is one of the "good" OS's from M$. I like Ubuntu too, haven't used the server version yet.
 
[LYL]Homer;1032233421 said:
WHS is one of the "good" OS's from M$. I like Ubuntu too, haven't used the server version yet.
Click to expand...


The data corruption issue doesn't concern you? Even though they aren't going to issue a patch until June?

 
alan2308 said:
The data corruption issue doesn't concern you? Even though they aren't going to issue a patch until June?
Click to expand...

Assuming that they don't run into any more issues while rewriting that piece of code, June is probably the earliest.

Just in case anyone is interested about the data corruption issue:
http://anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=413

With that said, Windows Home Server is a pretty decent OS. While yes many of the features and abilities that WHS has can be replicated or done with Linux, it's far easier to do, use, and setup those abilities and features with WHS. I especially like the drive pool feature.
 
I have another link with a quote from Todd Headrick, the product planning manager for WHS, talking about how the bug is triggered. The site is dedicated to WHS, I'll probably spend some time later checking the rest of it out.

http://mswhs.com/2008/02/27/more-info-on-the-whs-corruption-bug/

Its a great idea, too bad this is looming over its head. Even after MS issues the patch, I would be nervous about trusting my data on it.

I'm a linux guy myself, but I would love to try WHS out if/when they ever get this issue resolved and enough time passes that we can be sure the issue is really over.

 
I know that something that has "data corruption" linked with it doesn't sound too appealing, but I haven't had any issues. I use WHS just for storage and I don't edit any files on it.

Here's the KB article.

SYMPTOMS
When certain programs are used to edit or transfer files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive, the files may become corrupted. Microsoft is aware of only a very small percentage of users who have confirmed instances of this issue and believes that most users are unlikely to be affected. Microsoft has established that this issue may occur when one of the following programs is used to edit, transfer, and save files to the home server:
• Windows Vista Photo Gallery
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
• Microsoft Money 2007
• SyncToy 2.0 Beta
• Intuit QuickBooks
• uTorrent
Note Windows Home Server-based computers that have a single hard drive are not affected by this issue, nor are Windows Home Server Computer Backup and Restore capabilities, Health Monitoring, and Remote Access functionality. This issue is specific to Windows Home Server and does not affect other Windows Server-based products.
Click to expand...

If you do the editing with one of the above programs on the client PC, then let WHS back up your client PC then you're fine too.

I use Quickbooks and keep the data file on the client, and the in-program backup to WHS. WHS also backs up the client PC and the 'main' data file. Everything is fine. The patch will just cover all bases.
 
I agree that it sounds worse than it probably is, but in the article I linked, it mentioned that for example, WMP could be editing the metadata without you realizing it. So if I want to stream media to the PS3, I would have to move that chore to another computer and keep another copy of the media files there too. That and the whole copy file to client, edit file, copy file back to server dance kills a lot of the simplicity of WHS, which was the big appeal of it to me in the first place.

So right now we have work arounds that take away simplicity, or using a single drive which takes away a lot of potential functionality. I'll just wait and see.

 
One thing to keep in mind is power usage.

I used to run a basic file server off of an old Athlon 2000 system. It used to draw about 100 watts while running.

I recently moved to a Hammer Myshare 1TB Nas Box set up as Raid 1. It draws 20 watts while running. I back up my music and photos to an external USB drive.I also back up the Photos to my main system drive regularly too.

By my calculatilons, I am saving about 6 bux a month in electricity. A bit more in the summer with the higher rates. In 5 years, the Nas box will pay for itself just in power savings.:)

Don
 
DonDon said:
One thing to keep in mind is power usage.

I used to run a basic file server off of an old Athlon 2000 system. It used to draw about 100 watts while running.

I recently moved to a Hammer Myshare 1TB Nas Box set up as Raid 1. It draws 20 watts while running. I back up my music and photos to an external USB drive.I also back up the Photos to my main system drive regularly too.

By my calculatilons, I am saving about 6 bux a month in electricity. A bit more in the summer with the higher rates. In 5 years, the Nas box will pay for itself just in power savings.:)

Don
Click to expand...

Good point yea.

Thaks for the replies, even if we did get a little sidetracked on WHS :rolleyes:
 
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