WHS beginner

T

theDreamer

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
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So I have been doing some reading before I get WHS so I know a few things about it, but was hoping [H] might have some solid pointers about the OS so I can get off to a great start.
Things I already know:
~It is a pool system
~There are add-ons
~Can use it to back up

A couple of my questions I am wondering:
~Is there a way or add on to know what is stored on what drive exactly?
~Does WHS move data around to keep it spread out nicely?
~What are the must have add-ons?
~Is the OS supported heavily by Microsoft or are the updates pretty slow? What can we expect for an upgrade to WHS in the future, WHS 2?

Thanks.
 
hyt3k9 said:
I was never able to get this set up properly on my WHS. :(
Click to expand...

i have it working right now....

you install utorrent (the program) and then enable the webui.... i had to change the port to get it to work.
 
I too have been seeing an awful lot of references to WHS lately...so finally i had to look it up...

i can say i'm lost...yet impressed...

is there any helpful interwebs guide to getting started with WHS? what are most of you running for hardware...aside from MASSIVE arrays for your data...lol
 
For hardware picked up the HP MediaSmart EX470, added the Sans TR4M connected via eSATA port. Pretty cheap and extremely small form factor for the amount of drive space (essentially a 8 drive NAS in a space roughly 11" W x 10" H x 10" D) Overall, I'm extremely happy with the setup :)
 
the good thing about WHS is that it can be run on very modest hardware...

dummy SATA cards; there is a $99 8 port one, that a lot of people use that i cannt remember the name of...

also i have seen an 11TB WHS running on an atom CPU

mine is in my sig...

i am moving to a virtual WHS, with a physical vista ulitmate for media center, recording QAM cable and analog cable... so my HTPC isnt on all the time.


i'll do a post when its good and done. :)
 
I'm also looking at WHS for my storage/streaming needs...

I understand the concept of delayed duplication of selected folders.
What I'm not clear on and worry about is what exactly happens when a disk dies or is removed.

Here are some scenarios I'm curious about..

**A drive containing both duplicated files and non duped files fails**
I now have lost some files, but how do I know which ones? Could be any file from any share.. right?
Does WHS list the files that were lost?
Are the duped files automatically re-copied to other drives in the pool?

**It turns out the drive didn't fail, the power connector had just come loose**
How does WHS handle the return of this drive?
Is it automatically re-added to the pool?
Do the missing files just reappear in their folders? Are there logs/lists/dialogues informing you about the return of these files?
Assuming the duplicated files were automatically redistributed already, what happens now that there are 3 copies of those files in the pool?


I fear throwing TBs and TBs into the pool, losing a drive and then having lost a movie here, an episode there.. etc..
For space/cost reasons I probably wouldn't dupe anything I could re-rip or re-download.
At least with RAID it is all or nothing, I know what files I've lost and have to re-rip/download or restore from a backup.

Appreciate any light shed on this...
 
Neb said:
Supermicro MV-8?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009

Personally, my next step will be a Norco 4020 cased file server based on WHS. Don't currently have the need for it, but I'm planning on it eventually :)
Click to expand...

That card is what I ordered (actually two), and I already have the Norco 4020 case. Parts are arriving this week, so hopefully I will be up and running with WHS by the weekend (or end of). Thanks for all the help and suggestions, I hope if anyone else has any they will add. :)
 
Been running my WHS box since last spring. Best thing I have built in a long time.
 
paxious said:
**A drive containing both duplicated files and non duped files fails**
I now have lost some files, but how do I know which ones? Could be any file from any share.. right?
Does WHS list the files that were lost?
Are the duped files automatically re-copied to other drives in the pool?
Click to expand...
You have no idea. Yes, could be any file from any share. WHS does not list files that are lost. Duped files are not auto re-copied. WHS's Drive Extender (DE) is prevention against drive failure, it is not a backup (just as RAID is not a backup).

paxious said:
**It turns out the drive didn't fail, the power connector had just come loose**
How does WHS handle the return of this drive?
Is it automatically re-added to the pool?
Do the missing files just reappear in their folders? Are there logs/lists/dialogues informing you about the return of these files?
Assuming the duplicated files were automatically redistributed already, what happens now that there are 3 copies of those files in the pool?
Click to expand...
The pool notes the drive as something like "not present" and will pop up a warning. When reconnected everything will be as it was, no data loss. Files reappear.
Files do not auto re-distribute when a drive is "not present", when drive is reconnected you still only have your 2 copies.

Again, DE is not a backup. WHS will backup your client PC's however. There is an option when adding a drive to not make it a part of the pool and use it as a backup (obviously best if it an external drive).
 
Yes, obviously WHS's duplication and RAID's parity/mirror are not backup.
They maintain data integrity in the event of a drive failure.

I'm prepared with backup copies of the data lost when the drive drops from the pool.
It appears however, I will have no clue as to what random files in my multi TB pool need to be restored.
As my backups would be spanned across multiple drives and types of media, cross checking for missing files would not be fun.
I had hoped WHS would at least list the files on the missing drive.

Thanks for the info.
I guess one way to avoid this would be to duplicated everything.
It just seems like such a waste of one of WHS's nice features. Selective redundancy.
 
paxious said:
Yes, obviously WHS's duplication and RAID's parity/mirror are not backup.
They maintain data integrity in the event of a drive failure.

I'm prepared with backup copies of the data lost when the drive drops from the pool.
It appears however, I will have no clue as to what random files in my multi TB pool need to be restored.
As my backups would be spanned across multiple drives and types of media, cross checking for missing files would not be fun.
I had hoped WHS would at least list the files on the missing drive.

Thanks for the info.
I guess one way to avoid this would be to duplicated everything.
It just seems like such a waste of one of WHS's nice features. Selective redundancy.
Click to expand...

Create a share for each of your directories, if you have lost a drive, you will know which shares are missing. My files are like kids to a mother, if one goes missing I'll know exactly which ones.

You can use drive info tools to show which drives contains which files and you can use drive printer to print a list of all the files in each drive and run a report on it, that should be as close as you are going to get.
 
what about running raid under WHS. i has been done before... it defeats the dupication and drive extender but if you have a good raid card it will do online aray expansion.


just to think about....

i had one drive fail on my WHS and i did not like finding which files were gone.... i found that i wanted every file to have some protection....and didnt want to have to rerip movies.

i am curently seting up my media server with vista ultimate so it can record tv and having a virtual WHS running vmware server 2.

and my 4 750gb drives in raid 5 with WHS using a virtual disk in the raid 5 array.


i will only be using whs for backups and remote access.
 
Adidas4275 said:
what about running raid under WHS. i has been done before... it defeats the dupication and drive extender but if you have a good raid card it will do online aray expansion.


just to think about....

i had one drive fail on my WHS and i did not like finding which files were gone.... i found that i wanted every file to have some protection....and didnt want to have to rerip movies.

i am curently seting up my media server with vista ultimate so it can record tv and having a virtual WHS running vmware server 2.

and my 4 750gb drives in raid 5 with WHS using a virtual disk in the raid 5 array.


i will only be using whs for backups and remote access.
Click to expand...

RAID is not supported. It's been done, but you'll get no support from microsoft should something go wrong. Just something to be aware of.

You can back up the server, it has an option for that built in. I have most of my shares backed up to an external and can easily restore them should the server have a problem. Very handy to have that feature and it came in handy just a couple of weeks ago when the wife got alittle too free with the delete button.

If something does go missing the shares will be flagged with the missing data and you can see what exactly in the console where it show the warnings, you select a warning and click details and it says exactly what's missing.
 
Adidas4275 said:
yeah i know you can back it up and there is the addin WHS BDBB that i use to an external
http://forum.wegotserved.co.uk/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=90

and about no microsoft support..... i have never used microsofts official support

and raid works fine with WHS
Click to expand...

Yes, while you may not need support from microsoft as in call them on the phone to fix it, it's not supported by WHS meaning there could be "issues". The OS certainly supports it but WHS does not. I just wouldn't trust my data to it. WHS likes to do it's own thing. I'm just saying.
 
you just dont add it to the storage pool.... then its just Server 2003 SBS

nothing can happen to your data. there are many people over at We got Served running RAID 5
 
Adidas4275 said:
what about running raid under WHS. i has been done before... it defeats the dupication and drive extender but if you have a good raid card it will do online aray expansion.


just to think about....

i had one drive fail on my WHS and i did not like finding which files were gone.... i found that i wanted every file to have some protection....and didnt want to have to rerip movies.

i am curently seting up my media server with vista ultimate so it can record tv and having a virtual WHS running vmware server 2.

and my 4 750gb drives in raid 5 with WHS using a virtual disk in the raid 5 array.


i will only be using whs for backups and remote access.
Click to expand...

Yes you can run RAID5 underneath WHS, and it works fine I know plenty of people that do it.

However IMO I think that it really takes away some of the benefit from WHS.
At any time I can go pull a drive from my server and hook it up to any box and see what is on it.
Or say I wan to do clean install, not a reinstall because I F*d something up, or I want to make my system drive a different disk?
With a RAID setup you cant do that as easily.
Where as with native jbod access I can move all the data off my system drive, pull all the data drives, and have all my data intact that can be read on any box independently of each other.

I definately do see the benefits derived from using RAID5, I'm just not sure that its worth what you give up in exchange. Also for me personally im not concerned with uptime. If I cant stream some blurays to my htpc's I'm not gonna lose any sleep.
 
nitro...an i reading your sig right?

Workstation - 2x Quad Core Intel Xeon E5320 @ 1.86Ghz\\22Gb DDR2 667Mhz FBDimm\\2x146Gb Seagate Cheetah 15k SAS RAID0 Boot\\8x73gb 10k SAS RAID0 Data\\Windows Vista Ultimate x64
Click to expand...
 
fubar569 said:
nitro...an i reading your sig right?
Click to expand...

Now its right...hadnt updated in a while

I dumped the 73gb 10k drives, cause I ran out of workspace too fast. so I grabbed 2x 300gb VR's which surprisingly do almost as well. And I got 2 640's for Temp storage before it goes to the server.
 
one thing many people fail to realize is the "backups" are only accesible via whs. they are also only available if you restore a system from the whs console. you ant simply restore files as needed. whs does not backup files that can be read by xp or vista. as far as im concerned the whole "backup" system of whs is crapola. and if they really needed to use the special file system for backups they could include a friggin utility to acces the files as needed.
 
Rogue71 said:
one thing many people fail to realize is the "backups" are only accesible via whs. they are also only available if you restore a system from the whs console. you ant simply restore files as needed. whs does not backup files that can be read by xp or vista. as far as im concerned the whole "backup" system of whs is crapola. and if they really needed to use the special file system for backups they could include a friggin utility to acces the files as needed.
Click to expand...

No, the backups are standard files readable by any OS.

You can connect the drive and copy and paste files off as needed or use the console to do a complete restore.

I did this just the other day. I needed to restore some photo files so I connected my external and navigated to the folder and just did a copy and paste.

In fact any drive in a WHS machine could be removed and plugged into any computer and any OS capable of reading NTFS can copy files from it.
 
Archer75 said:
No, the backups are standard files readable by any OS.

You can connect the drive and copy and paste files off as needed or use the console to do a complete restore.

I did this just the other day. I needed to restore some photo files so I connected my external and navigated to the folder and just did a copy and paste.

In fact any drive in a WHS machine could be removed and plugged into any computer and any OS capable of reading NTFS can copy files from it.
Click to expand...

I think he is referring to the PC backups.
 
nitrobass24 said:
I think he is referring to the PC backups.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see.

In that case you can restore individual files. Open the Console, go to Computers & Backups tab, select the computer that you deleted the file from then click View Backups. Then click the Open button to view all of the volumes/folders/files in that backup.
 
Rogue71 said:
one thing many people fail to realize is the "backups" are only accesible via whs. they are also only available if you restore a system from the whs console. you ant simply restore files as needed. whs does not backup files that can be read by xp or vista. as far as im concerned the whole "backup" system of whs is crapola. and if they really needed to use the special file system for backups they could include a friggin utility to acces the files as needed.
Click to expand...

Show me some true backup imaging solutions like WHS that can be readable on any machine without the vendor software or programs?
 
Rogue71 said:
that was kinda my point. it SHOULD be that way.
Click to expand...

No it shouldn't. that would be a foolish waste of space. Most "good" backup programs do block based backups which allow you to backup much more data with smaller space. If you really want a "file based backup", just xcopy from one drive to another with a cron type job...and TADDA!
 
I have a WHS with a 500gb OS drive and 2 400gb and one 400gb not pooled. Any reason that one of the pooled 400s is 93% and the other is 45% and the main is 45%. Its like it never evens the load.

I like having the unpooled drive as i was using this pc to record with gbpvr with two tuners untill it crapped out and i had to restore it.
 
paxious said:
I'm also looking at WHS for my storage/streaming needs...
**A drive containing both duplicated files and non duped files fails**
I now have lost some files, but how do I know which ones? Could be any file from any share.. right?
Does WHS list the files that were lost?
Are the duped files automatically re-copied to other drives in the pool?

**It turns out the drive didn't fail, the power connector had just come loose**
How does WHS handle the return of this drive?
Is it automatically re-added to the pool?
Do the missing files just reappear in their folders? Are there logs/lists/dialogues informing you about the return of these files?
Assuming the duplicated files were automatically redistributed already, what happens now that there are 3 copies of those files in the pool?
.
Click to expand...

**A drive containing both duplicated files and non duped files fails**
- I was under the impression that WHS duplicates files on a per drive basis, at least from what I remember reading and what I've seen with addins, so unless two drives fail, only data that was not duplicated is lost. I've also read from wegotserved (a whs website) that WHS will reduplicate once the drive is replaced. I could be wrong though.

**It turns out the drive didn't fail, the power connector had just come loose**
I've had this happen with loose SATA connections and once I figured out the problem, all files showed up back into their respective folders. WHS Console informed me of a drive problem and showed the problematic drive under my data storage, but I was still able to access other files not on that drive/duplicated files.

[LYL]Homer;1033547117 said:
You have no idea. Yes, could be any file from any share. WHS does not list files that are lost. Duped files are not auto re-copied. WHS's Drive Extender (DE) is prevention against drive failure, it is not a backup (just as RAID is not a backup).
.
Click to expand...

I was under the assumption it does recopy from duped files...this is what I read from the technical brief.
". If the tombstone had an alternate shadow on the missing hard drive, that link is removed from the reparse point on the tombstone. The Migrator service attempts to make an extra copy, so the file is duplicated again. If the master shadow was on the missing hard drive, the most recent alternate shadow is promoted to become the master shadow. If a file was not duplicated and the only shadow copy of the data was on the missing hard drive, that data is lost"
 
Thanks for all the input everyone.
I got my WHS up and running last night, just waiting on the controller cards, but WHS is installed and running. Now just a few more questions:

~How do I add hard drives from a Windows machine to the pool in WHS?
~How do I take out the OS hard drive from the pool? Do I just need another hard drive in the pool?
~If I boot the system, I do not have to log into WHS to access the media correct? So if I turn the system off every night, I just need to boot the system up and do not have to worry about logging in?

I am sure I have more, but I just got the system online, added my main desktop so I can access it from here, and now stopping.
 
theDreamer said:
Thanks for all the input everyone.
I got my WHS up and running last night, just waiting on the controller cards, but WHS is installed and running. Now just a few more questions:

~How do I add hard drives from a Windows machine to the pool in WHS?
~How do I take out the OS hard drive from the pool? Do I just need another hard drive in the pool?
~If I boot the system, I do not have to log into WHS to access the media correct? So if I turn the system off every night, I just need to boot the system up and do not have to worry about logging in?

I am sure I have more, but I just got the system online, added my main desktop so I can access it from here, and now stopping.
Click to expand...

1. The drive will show up in the console once you install it under server storage, click the drive and then click add. It will format the drive and add it to the pool.
2. you don't. All the tombstones are stored there, they are what point to the location of all your files. I'm sure there's addons for backing up the tombstones.
3. You do not have to log in.
 
Archer75 said:
1. The drive will show up in the console once you install it under server storage, click the drive and then click add. It will format the drive and add it to the pool.
2. you don't. All the tombstones are stored there, they are what point to the location of all your files. I'm sure there's addons for backing up the tombstones.
3. You do not have to log in.
Click to expand...

1) What if I have the hard drive under Windows Vista with 90% full already, can I easily add it to WHS, keep it installed (plugged in) to the Vista machine?
2) Do I have to worry about files being dropped on to this hard drive? Can I keep it in the pool, but not have files added to it that I am storing?
3) Excellent.
 
theDreamer said:
1) What if I have the hard drive under Windows Vista with 90% full already, can I easily add it to WHS, keep it installed (plugged in) to the Vista machine?
2) Do I have to worry about files being dropped on to this hard drive? Can I keep it in the pool, but not have files added to it that I am storing?
3) Excellent.
Click to expand...

1) No. You need to remove the drive and physically add it to WHS. You can't add network drives to the pool. But you can add external drives.
2) you don't need to worry about it. WHS will put files where they need to go. The more your pool files up with data the more that goes on your OS drive. It makes no difference though.
 
1) Sounds good.
2) Well I only bought a 160GB drive to just run the OS on so if I needed to reinstall WHS at any point I can just pull all the drives out and not worry about losing any data on the 160GB drive.
 
While we are asking questions about basic setup:

If I have 4 1TB hard drives in the pool, and all of the files are duplicated, how much total storage can I keep? I know the pool system is not RAID, but I am trying to figure our if the math adds up like RAID 5 or just a simple mirror (i.e., is there 3TB available or 2TB available).
 
I believe if you back up the entire WHS, it will be a 1:1, so if you have 2TB of data you will need 2TB to back it up.
 
slidez said:
**A drive containing both duplicated files and non duped files fails**
- I was under the impression that WHS duplicates files on a per drive basis, at least from what I remember reading and what I've seen with addins, so unless two drives fail, only data that was not duplicated is lost. I've also read from wegotserved (a whs website) that WHS will reduplicate once the drive is replaced. I could be wrong though.
Click to expand...

Can anybody further confirm this? Ockie?
 
I found an answer to my own question (number two from my previous post).

~Keeping files off the OS drive?
Not weird at all. One of the major changes to the Drive Extender in Power Pack 1 is that it fills up one disk at a time, keeping the system disk empty as possible. Once it has filled up all the other disks, *then* it will move to the system disk. There are a number of reasons why it does this, but the main is probably that it will keep your system disk alive longer
 
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