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WHS vs Server2008+Raid

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PigLover

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 11, 2009
Messages
1,190
Opening the hornets nest (maybe). I've got the itch to upgrade and thought I'd toss this loaded question out there once again.

I do video editing of youth sport videos as a hobby. My main editing workstation is a pretty fair beast. Dual Xeon x5550, 24GB ECC ram, 8x2TB Hitachi in Raid6 using an Areca 1261 SATA Raid controller, 4x6GB OCZ Vertex Raid-0 for system drive, dual 30 inch monitors, etc., etc all stuffed into a big Chieftec case. Its a wondrous thing that I had a great time building (small brag). I'm also somewhat anal about backing it up (daily images of the small 'C' drive and automated syncs of the user drive and video array).

I back it up using a WHS machine that is somewhat Ghetto. I have 8x1.5TB Seagates and the system in an iStarUSA 4U case (I actually love the trayless hot-swap bays...). I have 8x2TB Hitachi's in separate 4-in-one cages sitting outside the box, all running under an AOC-SASLP-MV8 HBA and an HP SAS expander. It also serves as a media server for three TVs in my house (all running Dune 3.0 media players) and as a WHS backup for my kids PCs and a couple of laptops.

I've built a couple of Norco-based builds for other people, so I know that box. I was waiting for the 4224 release, but I went ahead and ordered a 4220 last week when Newegg dropped the price and included free shipping. Probably a bad decision based on impatience...but it is what it is.

Now I'm trying to decide: move the WHS machine as as into the new box, clean it up and build it right. Or start over and move to a Server2008/Raid approach. Since I build for a small group of "customers" already, I have enough parts in the bin that I won't have to buy anything except a raid card and maybe some new drives. I've ordered a Chenbro SAS expander for grins already (curiosity, mainly, to compare it with the HP).

I don't really want to discuss Linux, UnRaid, zfs, etc., etc. All the stuff that this silly question always trips over. Those are interesting discussions - just not the one I want to explore. So have at it.

WHS:
  • Simple. simple, simple. Almost everything you could want made too easy.
  • Mix/match drives, add drives at will, great for a guy like me with a 'parts drawer'
  • Horribly inefficient drive utilization. Starting to feel it at 16 drives.
  • Just not sure I completely trust drive-extender...don't know why
  • Can't quite get enough performance to drive my LAN. 50MB/s writes from workstation to WHS, 70MB/s reads from WHS to workstation. Tested 9 ways to Sunday, limited by single-drive writes and DE. Don't really need more - but i want it.

2008/Raid:
  • Performance. See above. Want 95+MB/s reads and writes over the LAN. Don't really need it, but I want it.
  • Drive space efficiency. N+2 vs 2*N is getting painful.
  • Not nearly as simple to administrate as WHS
  • Lose WHS backup of laptops, etc (but I could always run WHS in a VM on the server to get this back)
  • Raid hassles (expansion, rebuilds, etc)
  • I trust Raid more than DE (not entirely sure why...)

Of course, I could always wait a few months for Vail and have both...Nah - too impatient.
 
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Hmmm.... I am in a similar situation to you; I just came from a WHS environment and am moving to 2008 R2 in a few days. If you can stand the learning curve, you will be much better off with Server 2008 R2; in my experience it is much more stable than the current version of WHS.
 
If your only getting 50mb/s writes to your WHS its not the drive setup. Might want to invest in some intel nics and a decent switch.

Also you said that WHS is drive inefficient, but why does redundancy matter if your just using it for backups and not a primary source of storage?

I run a 10x 2tb RAID6 on 2008R2 and pass the volume to WHS vm on Hyper-V.
This way i get the stability and performance of 2008R2, WHS, and Hyper-v for my other VMs.
 
Already running Intel NICs on both ends. I've tested 95MBs+ reads/writes using Samba shares to/from the very same WHS system using an artificial drive on both ends (SSDs temp'd up in small software raid-0's and shared outside of the DE shares). The performance problem is unquestionably DE writing to single drives. I'm positive that if I did what you did and put a fast RAID array underneath it I'd have no performance problems.

Just not sure I want to run it that way...if I'm going to run Server2008 anyway why not just share the raid directly?
 
Nice setup, PigLover. Now that's what I'm talking about! :cool:

Interesting discussion, too. Seems like Server 2008 + WHS in a VM would give you the best of both worlds, and would appear to solve some of your issues with the current setup. The only real downsides are cost (which doesn't appear to be a factor) and complexity, but I think it would be worth it in the end based on your posts. Consider it an experiment, or a learning experience. :)
 
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