WHS question

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ilkhan

[H]F Junkie
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how small of a drive can it be installed to? I want to keep the storage disks seperate, and the current boot drive is all of 30GB. Big enough?

and when Im adding disks to WHS, they have to be empty, right? I can use them with WHS without adding them to the pool, and adding to the pool is when they get wiped?
 
30gb is pretty small.

I used an 80gb before and it was not a problem.

Yes when you add a disk to the pool it will be wiped.
 
GLSauron said:
how small of a drive can it be installed to? I want to keep the storage disks seperate, and the current boot drive is all of 30GB. Big enough?

and when Im adding disks to WHS, they have to be empty, right? I can use them with WHS without adding them to the pool, and adding to the pool is when they get wiped?
Click to expand...

No, it is NOT big enough. The maximum file/block transfer available is based upon the following equation

Maximum File Transfer = Primary Drive Size - OS partition = 30GB - 20GB = 10GB

Therefore, the biggest thing you can ever move is 10GB. That is it...you are done. If any data gets on that remaining 10GB...that maximum transfer gets "smaller". Also, why do you want to keep them "separate". Please explain this w/o trying to couple in how other "systems" work. Remember WHS is WHS and everything else is everything else.
 
I just mean I want data to be on the other disks. (5x750GB) And I thought PP1 removed that limitation, files going directly to their storage pool location, not landing on the OS drive.
 
pretty sure that is not the case anymore with PP1 installed, system drive is no longer landing zone for new files.


minimum is ~70gb. I could not install on a 60gb drive, but could on an 80. Ive heard people being successful on a 74gb raptor.
 
krelkor said:
pretty sure that is not the case anymore with PP1 installed, system drive is no longer landing zone for new files.


minimum is ~70gb. I could not install on a 60gb drive, but could on an 80. Ive heard people being successful on a 74gb raptor.
Click to expand...

It's different now, but still problematic. Check out the recent threads. Vista in particular seems to be part of the issue. When you try to make a file transfer, the client OS will check the server for free space, but it only sees the primary data partition, aka the space allocated on the system drive that isn't taken up by the WHS install. WHS might not have the landing zone anymore, but vista still seems to check for it and won't transfer the files if they're too large.
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
It's different now, but still problematic. Check out the recent threads. Vista in particular seems to be part of the issue. When you try to make a file transfer, the client OS will check the server for free space, but it only sees the primary data partition, aka the space allocated on the system drive that isn't taken up by the WHS install. WHS might not have the landing zone anymore, but vista still seems to check for it and won't transfer the files if they're too large.
Click to expand...
Also fixed via patch AFAIK.
 
I recently downloaded the eval of WHS and I tried loading it on a 20GB partition and it told me that WHS needed 60GB of space. I created a 61GB virtual disk and it installed fine in VirtualBox.
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
My recent experience suggests otherwise.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1033639620#post1033639620

I didn't even start piling data onto the system drive until very recently, long after the patch had been installed.
Click to expand...

I know....I agree. There is so much bad information floating around about WHS by people "in the know". This bug is still there and continues to exists. This issue is exactly why as soon as I see the potential for the OS drive to start filling, I get new drives or start replacing drives.

BTW, there is a pretty easy way to solve your problem. A while ago I used acronis to clone my WHS "main drive" and then expand the DATA partition. It worked...just not sure if what I did was smart or just lucky.

What MS needs to do is craft a "full rebalance" algorithm that people can chose to enable when they add new drives. I wouldn't care if it took a day and you didn't have access to your files, but being able effectively reset the file locations in the optimal way per the core DE algorithm would be just awesome. Right now all it does when you add new drives is keep following the same algorithm....data doesn't get moved to match the algorithm.
 
Ockie said:
Vista is sometimes quirky, sometimes you have to reboot your desktop or server and it will be fine.
Click to expand...

Good point, I didn't fiddle with the client side much.

The manual fix worked great, but it's still annoying that the data pool didn't re-balance on its own. All I want is a big button that says "balance" for when I add new drives...
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
Good point, I didn't fiddle with the client side much.

The manual fix worked great, but it's still annoying that the data pool didn't re-balance on its own. All I want is a big button that says "balance" for when I add new drives...
Click to expand...

+1

Though I wish it didn't fill one drive then move on. I liked how it used to spread the load evenly.
 
While I agree that it certainly is not very pretty as the implementation currently stands, is there any real benefit for auto balancing to equalize capacity across all drives except system? I would be worried about increased wear on drives.

I suppose an increased probability of saving some portion of a folder thats spread across multiple drives (without duplication).
 
From what I have seen that bug has been fixed. And I can verify that on my own server.
 
krelkor said:
While I agree that it certainly is not very pretty as the implementation currently stands, is there any real benefit for auto balancing to equalize capacity across all drives except system? I would be worried about increased wear on drives.

I suppose an increased probability of saving some portion of a folder thats spread across multiple drives (without duplication).
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you get what is the real issue is. Not many people have issues with WHS's storage methodology (how the data gets stored). It actually works really well. Write a simulation sometime. Fairly cool. It doesn't matter if one drive is nearly full and the rest are fairly empty. The issue people have is how the data is stored when you add more storage (or even remove). The system does not re-optimize itself to maximize the ability of duplication. So from that aspect...as long as you aren't adding or removing from the pool on a hourly basis...the extra couple dozen writes as data gets moved around for a forced balance over the life of the server should have negligible impact.
 
Ockie said:
Vista is sometimes quirky, sometimes you have to reboot your desktop or server and it will be fine.
Click to expand...

Just changed this at home. I reinstalled the "connector" software and that fixed it. Same version and everything. Go figure.
 
Trepidati0n said:
I'm not sure you get what is the real issue is. Not many people have issues with WHS's storage methodology (how the data gets stored). It actually works really well. Write a simulation sometime. Fairly cool. It doesn't matter if one drive is nearly full and the rest are fairly empty. The issue people have is how the data is stored when you add more storage (or even remove). The system does not re-optimize itself to maximize the ability of duplication. So from that aspect...as long as you aren't adding or removing from the pool on a hourly basis...the extra couple dozen writes as data gets moved around for a forced balance over the life of the server should have negligible impact.
Click to expand...

I added 2 1tb drives a couple of weeks ago. WHS loaded those drives up with data. I had enabled duplication on a share that didn't previous have it. So it didn't need to use the full space on both drives to make that happen, just some. But it went right ahead and rebalanced that share, loading up the larger drives and freeing up space on the smaller. Seems like it rebalanced fine.
 
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