Windows Home Server FAQ

[__Miguel_]

Now, the sys partition, C:, is only set to 20 GB, so where does WHS calculate 94 GB from?

That's weird. Mine shows only 20GB, which is the standard C:\ drive size for WHS. Did you install WHS from a non-standard ISO? Some of those expand the C:\ drive some, to make room for other stuff, like database software...

Anyway, WHS's data readout is always all over the place. DE makes Explorer completely bonkers, and that's mostly why even Microsoft tells you to only access the D:\ drive through the network shares folder, even on the WHS machine...

Also, in my data drive, D:, besides some of the folders i created, there is my shares and a DE folder. Everything i add to to server gets put into its respective share (ie TV, Movies, etc). The DE folder seems to be an exact duplicate of the share folders. I do not have duplication turned on for anything on my server, so why is there two copies of everything (one in shares, and one in DE)? Does this mean I am using twice as much space on the server?

DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ON THE D:\ DRIVE DIRECTLY!!! IT MAY RUIN YOUR DATA!!!

OK, now that's out of the way, let me clear some confusion. DE, besides having the ability to show the data drives as one single volume, (ab)uses the NTFS symbolic links capability.

A symbolic link is like a shortcut. It tells the OS "hey, this file seems to be here, but in fact it's over there, on that other drive". That's how DE can move files around drives and still manage to keep track of everything: it just needs to update the symbolic links when anything gets moved around.

If you query a symbolic link, it will appear to be the original file for all purposes, but the original file might not even be hosted on that machine (yes, theoretically NTFS allows for symbolic links over network shares, and there are even network services that make use of this capability).

That's why when browsing through the D:\ drive you "see double".

If you had duplication enabled, there would also appear file tombstones. Those are the duplicates, AFAIK, and that's what allows WHS to know where everything is in case of HDD death.

1.) My WHS's shares that are mapped on client computers always show up full, by the info shows 2.39 TB free of 911GB.

I believe that's either caused by a missing Windows update patch or a design feature. DE is really something VERY weird, and Explorer doesn't seem to like it a lot.

2.) Also, I have my server hooked up to a kill-a-watt right now and it shows 80W when idle, 82W when streaming videos, and 89 when writing. But when the demigrator gets going it uses 210-240W! What's the deal here, and is there anyway to calm that demigrator down to a normal level?

I'm assuming you have duplication enabled, right?

Also, how many HDDs do you have?

AFAIK, when you copy something over to the WHS machine, the migration service will:

1) Extensively calculate how much drive space is available;
2) Check which drive has the most available disk space (in %, I believe);
3) Move the new files to the disk resulting from 2);
4) Repeat 1) through 3) to create a duplicate file on other HDD, if duplication is enabled for the share;
5) After all is finished, redo 1) through 3) to balance drive usage and maintain the duplicates on different drives from where the originals are.

All of this is actually a rather stressing endeavor. It will power up ALL HDDs, trash them around for quite a while (high-load scenario, which might even compromise some data transfers that might be happening), and the added calculations will also stress the CPU and memory subsystems.

Hence the MAJOR jump in power consumption. 10W+ for each HDD (probably more, if they're not low-power drives...), at least 5W per memory stick, 65W+ for the CPU (even more if it's Netburst-based, or a quad), and add PSU inefficiencies and 200W+ is not at all a weird number.

I don't really know any way of pacing the migration service. You might want to check if your CPU can be undervolted, that would help load power draw.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[nitrobass24]

1.) My WHS's shares that are mapped on client computers always show up full, by the info shows 2.39 TB free of 911GB. Here is the situation, I have 4 HDDs on my WHS server, 2x1TB 1x750GB and 1x1.5TB. When I map a networked share on a client PC here is how the drive shows up in my computer.

Is there anyway to get an accurate progress meter in explorer either through addins or WHS services?
2.) Also, I have my server hooked up to a kill-a-watt right now and it shows 80W when idle, 82W when streaming videos, and 89 when writing. But when the demigrator gets going it uses 210-240W! What's the deal here, and is there anyway to calm that demigrator down to a normal level? I mean everytime I transfer data to a share with duplication on it spends like 30 minutes running demigrator and consequentially (that's a word?) eating up loads of electricity.

There is really nothing you can do about that.
My question is since you are runnning Win7 why dont you just add them to one of your libraries? There is really no need to map a drive.

 

[Asposium]

just had a quick look on my windows explorer.

several of my shares are mapped as network drives. for these shares windows explorer says ...

2.92 TB free of 278 GB

a possble explaination might be....

my system drive is 320GB unformatted
the WHS console lists the drive as 298GB
IIRC the system partition is 20GB

298GB minus 20GB equals 278GB

so, does the "capacity" of your "drive" equal the formatted capacity of your system drive minus 20GB???

 

[joshmxpx]

That's weird. Mine shows only 20GB, which is the standard C:\ drive size for WHS. Did you install WHS from a non-standard ISO? Some of those expand the C:\ drive some, to make room for other stuff, like database software...

standard install, drive c only shows 20 gb in explorer and in the console, so i don't know...

this is what console shows:

Anyway, WHS's data readout is always all over the place. DE makes Explorer completely bonkers, and that's mostly why even Microsoft tells you to only access the D:\ drive through the network shares folder, even on the WHS machine...


DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ON THE D:\ DRIVE DIRECTLY!!! IT MAY RUIN YOUR DATA!!!

the way i have my system set up, (using utorrent mostly) is like this: on the d drive i added a active downloads (for currently downloading items) and completed downloads (for completed items) folder. i have metadata program that watches the completed downloads folder and moves items into the appropriate share (tv, movies, etc)

i have also manually transferred items from my main rig and htpc using windows explorer to navigate to the shares on the server, not the shared folders shortcut (although it is the same location: network/server/shares). i was not aware that data should only be moved using the network shares folder, but so far there has been no issues. i will use it from now on.

could these issues i am having be because of the way i am moving data onto the server? if so, what can i do to rectify? delete data and re-add using the shared folders shortcut.

OK, now that's out of the way, let me clear some confusion. DE, besides having the ability to show the data drives as one single volume, (ab)uses the NTFS symbolic links capability.

A symbolic link is like a shortcut. It tells the OS "hey, this file seems to be here, but in fact it's over there, on that other drive". That's how DE can move files around drives and still manage to keep track of everything: it just needs to update the symbolic links when anything gets moved around.

If you query a symbolic link, it will appear to be the original file for all purposes, but the original file might not even be hosted on that machine (yes, theoretically NTFS allows for symbolic links over network shares, and there are even network services that make use of this capability).

That's why when browsing through the D:\ drive you "see double".

thanks for the clarification, but i still don't understand why the system data is so large and why it keeps increasing as i add more items to my shared folders...

 

[joshmxpx]

just found out what my problem was, and why whs system volume was growing over time:

shadow copies.

i stumbled across this thread: http://social.microsoft.com/forums/.../thread/e61def88-773f-4387-a719-906e88e9f78f/

which was the exact same thing i have been experiencing. deleted the shadow copies and all is as it should be.

 

[aldamon]

No problems with PP3 here.

 

[-=Antimatter=-]

I had to reinstall Windows Search 4.0 after the update, I kept getting "At least one service or driver failed during system startup" errors on boot.

 

[__Miguel_]

standard install, drive c only shows 20 gb in explorer and in the console, so i don't know...

just found out what my problem was, and why whs system volume was growing over time:

shadow copies.

Since you already found the answer, no need to say anything else on this matter.

the way i have my system set up, (using utorrent mostly) is like this: on the d drive i added a active downloads (for currently downloading items) and completed downloads (for completed items) folder. i have metadata program that watches the completed downloads folder and moves items into the appropriate share (tv, movies, etc)

That doesn't seem like a very good idea in terms of DE friendliness. At least configure uTorrent to use the UNC share names (network shares) instead of physical directory references. It's safer that way.

I think only M$ knows for sure how DE behaves when you (or an application other than the DE driver, for that matter) handle files directly.

i have also manually transferred items from my main rig and htpc using windows explorer to navigate to the shares on the server, not the shared folders shortcut

If you use network addresses to access the shares, you're fine. It doesn't matter if you use the "Shared Folders" shortcut. The only thing that matters is that your file path begins with "\\*servername*\", which means you're accessing it through UNC naming, not directly, just like WHS likes it to be.

Besides, the only way, short of FTP, HTTP or Web Folders, to access a WHS machine from another computer is through UNC shares, so you're good to go there. Just don't forget RDPing to the box counts as local access, so THERE you should use the shortcut on the desktop to access the D:\ drive.

could these issues i am having be because of the way i am moving data onto the server? if so, what can i do to rectify? delete data and re-add using the shared folders shortcut.

Possibly. Not the insanely large system files, but like I said, DE doesn't like direct access to the data partition. Besides, symbolic links might sometimes be read like the real file, so your actual used space may sometimes appear as roughly twice of what it really is.

If I were you, I'd configure uTorrent to start using UNC shares, and in the meanwhile move that extraneous data off the D:\ drive to another computer, and then move it again to the correct network share. Just to make sure no odd things happen.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[__Miguel_]

I had to reinstall Windows Search 4.0 after the update, I kept getting "At least one service or driver failed during system startup" errors on boot.

I've had that one happen to me since around the time PP2 was installed... I'll check it out later today, it really bugs me.

Also, since I'm posting, any of you has experienced sudden WHS "blackouts"? Especially right after a backup run, I loose network access to my WHS machine. It's on, the system drive is spinning and being accessed by whatever service WHS uses to constantly read and write to the drives, but the Connector icon is gray, and Console, RDP and network share access isn't available.

Usually a server suspend (configured the power key to do that... hehehe) promptly followed by resume makes it OK, but I'm stumped on what the cause can be for this behavior. Any thoughts?

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[nitrobass24]

snip
If I were you, I'd configure uTorrent to start using UNC shares, and in the meanwhile move that extraneous data off the D:\ drive to another computer, and then move it again to the correct network share. Just to make sure no odd things happen.

Cheers.

Miguel

QFT

You should not access the D: Drive directly.
1. DE doesnt like it and you can easily screw something up if you are not careful.
2. Permissions do not get set properly when you do this. I did this for a while and then when I would go try to access the files from a standard (read non-admin) account it said I did not have permission to use the files.

 

[__Miguel_]

QFT

W00T! That's a first! Somebody QFT'd me! Yay! lol

TBH, the way he's doing it is probably the safest, since he hasn't touched the original folder structure, he only added a couple of folders DE probably isn't even aware of.

However, DE shouldn't be taken lightly. Even M$ doesn't completely grasp the concept (corruption bug and the insane amount of time taken to address it, anyone?), so probably a "Fragile" and "Handle With Care" should be put up on DE-enable drives.

Seriously, I am even afraid of using Explorer while RDPing to READ the folder structure of D:\. It's like watching a drunk elephant entering a fully-stocked china+crystal shop at ramming speed. Yep, my goose bumps rise that high.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[erebus720]

Any way to direct WHS where to store certain files?

 

[nitrobass24]

Any way to direct WHS where to store certain files?

That make it go to a specific disks.....no
Make it go to a specific share....yea

 

[erebus720]

I ask due to having slower and faster drives in the pool. Thats the suck.

 

[joshmxpx]

QFT

You should not access the D: Drive directly.
1. DE doesnt like it and you can easily screw something up if you are not careful.
2. Permissions do not get set properly when you do this. I did this for a while and then when I would go try to access the files from a standard (read non-admin) account it said I did not have permission to use the files.

everything i've ever read about utorrent and whs is that active downloads should not be stored in a share, because of corruption issues. only when the download is complete, should it be moved into a share.

from wegotserved wiki (http://wiki.wegotserved.com/index.php?title=UTorrent_on_Windows_Home_Server):

Downloads
First, check the "Put new downloads in:" box, uncheck "Always show dialog on manual add" and set the path to "D:\uTorrent\" or onto whatever drive you have. Having it on the "d:" drive will not cause corruption as long as it is not in d:\shares or d:\folders.
Now check "Move completed downloads to:" and set the value to "\\SERVER\Downloads\". This will move the files to the "downloads" folder when they are done, so you can sort them, and not worry about them getting corrupted.

 

[nitrobass24]

Read that carefully.

Its not saying that using a share will cause corruption.
Its saying that using D:\Shares or D:\Folders can cause corruption.

I have downloaded TB's of distros on my WHS using the method above and I can tell you with 100% certainty that doing it that way wont cause corruption.

 

[__Miguel_]

everything i've ever read about utorrent and whs is that active downloads should not be stored in a share, because of corruption issues.

That guide recommends against pointing uTorrent directly to the D:\shares folder. That is completely different of saying "do not use UNC names as uTorrent shares". UNC names are going to be something like "\\127.0.0.1\shares\videos". That method uses the loopback network address to point to the folder, tunneling all the HDD access through the TCP/IP stack (the data never leaves your PC, btw), which is what DE expects you to do when using the storage pool.

That is a safe method, and uTorrent shouldn't corrupt data when using network shares as download folders, especially because unless something REALLY weird happens with the network services, since PCs can actually access the loopback address even through network outages...

If you're worried about corruption issues, which I believe have been ironed out since PP1 (unless that page is actually referring to direct access to the shares folder, in which case it's exactly what me and nitro have been saying all along), then I'd advise you to use the C:\ drive to handle your downloads.

Make a special WHS installer to get 100GB or more on the C:\ drive if you must (there is a guide somewhere on this subject), or use a small non-pool drive, but I still think you should back away from accessing the D:\ drive directly.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[Archer75]

I made a folder on the D drive and have all my downloads go there.(not a D:\share). When they complete they auto par, auto extract and they are moved off to a share such as \\SERVER\downloads

Works great.

 

[nitrobass24]

I made a folder on the D drive and have all my downloads go there.(not a D:\share). When they complete they auto par, auto extract and they are moved off to a share such as \\SERVER\downloads

Works great.

What is auto par?
How do you do the auto extract?

 

[Archer75]

What is auto par?
How do you do the auto extract?

My newsgroup downloading app, alt.binz, will run the pars(which can rebuild missing or corrupt data) and then it will automatically unrar everything(as along as all the data is present). And then it will also automatically move it to where I want(utorrent does that too, the moving, not the auto par/unrar). I haven't looked too much into torrent apps that will do that. I probably should. I use newsgroups mostly.

 

[__Miguel_]

My newsgroup downloading app, alt.binz, will run the pars(which can rebuild missing or corrupt data) and then it will automatically unrar everything(as along as all the data is present).

That is actually a very nifty feature.

Maybe someone could drop a line to the uTorrent developers and tell them about that... *hint**hint*

I'd love auto-unraring on my torrents. However, I guess unless the software kept the original rar files at the same time, there would be a MASSIVE data increase on a busy server. Newsgroups downloads can be auto-deleted too to save space, but if you tamper with a torrent output, you'll need to re-download that data... There are ways to go around this one, but my guess is it's too much extra coding, and there would probably be angry people in the end... (by not being able to reseed some things...)

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[dydx]

Thanks for pointing out the directories for uTorrent. All along, Ive had these uTorrent settings:

put new downloads >>> d:\shares\public\completed downloads
automatically load .torrents from >>> d:\shares\public\autoload torrents

Ive now changed the d:\shares to //SERVER.

It's been running fine this way for over half a year though and I havent noticed any issues. Maybe someone could point out where I should look for in terms of corruption? What could have went wrong by having my uTorrent configured incorrectly like this?

 

[__Miguel_]

Thanks for pointing out the directories for uTorrent.

No problem.

Ive now changed the d:\shares to //SERVER.

That tells me the elephant is not in the china store anymore. My goose bumps appreciate it... lol

It's been running fine this way for over half a year though and I havent noticed any issues. Maybe someone could point out where I should look for in terms of corruption? What could have went wrong by having my uTorrent configured incorrectly like this?

That really depends. If you have only one or two drives on the server, you could probably get away with it without much hassle, since you're specifically saying "I want my documents on this drive", and DE then duplicates it to the other disk. If you're not using duplication for those shares, then you might actually get away with it, since DE wouldn't need to keep track of file placement and balancing both the data and the security copy.

But who knows, really? Even M$ treats DE like a very good beta piece of software, instead of RTM. My guess is Veil will become what WHS was intended to be in the first place... lol, this seems like W7 vs Vista...

What could have gone wrong: file permission issues, as already pointed out by nitro, as well as garbled data if DE wasn't aware of new directly-added files and started jumbling around files and security copies.

While file permissions are not that problematic, garbled data might at least require a re-download of the data.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[dydx]

^Yea, I have a 640GB WD Blue system drive and a 1TB WD Green drive. Duplication is enabled for all my shares. This would explain why I wasnt able to get permission to delete or move my uTorrent downloaded files a while back (I had to do some tweaks in the windows security settings). My downloaded files are put into a share that has duplication enabled. But as for corruption, I never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

There's no chance that this mistake would corrupt other files, right? Just checking =)

 

[__Miguel_]

There's no chance that this mistake would corrupt other files, right? Just checking =)

Not really sure, but my guess is, if you haven't had problems until now, you are probably off the hook. You might want to check on a per-file basis, though, just to be extra sure.

As I said, with only two drives, file storage and duplication is a vary straightforward thing, especially if you're "manually" telling WHS you want some files in a specific drive. WHS probably (and I can't stress that enough) assumed those files on the D:\ drive (the rest of the system drive) were to stay put and then simply duplicated them to the GP drive. More drives would probably cause more havoc.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[Mathemabeat]

Anyone found a way to cleanly hide some of the default WHS shares?

I don't need that Recorded TV or even the Users shares.


I am hesitant to go in there and just rename them with a $ on the end of them to hide them. Sounds like a good way to screw something thats not apparent up.

 

[nitrobass24]

Browse to D;\Shares
Right click on folder and unshare

 

[jadawgis732]

I believe that's either caused by a missing Windows update patch or a design feature. DE is really something VERY weird, and Explorer doesn't seem to like it a lot.


I'm assuming you have duplication enabled, right?

Also, how many HDDs do you have?

AFAIK, when you copy something over to the WHS machine, the migration service will:

1) Extensively calculate how much drive space is available;
2) Check which drive has the most available disk space (in %, I believe);
3) Move the new files to the disk resulting from 2);
4) Repeat 1) through 3) to create a duplicate file on other HDD, if duplication is enabled for the share;
5) After all is finished, redo 1) through 3) to balance drive usage and maintain the duplicates on different drives from where the originals are.

All of this is actually a rather stressing endeavor. It will power up ALL HDDs, trash them around for quite a while (high-load scenario, which might even compromise some data transfers that might be happening), and the added calculations will also stress the CPU and memory subsystems.

Hence the MAJOR jump in power consumption. 10W+ for each HDD (probably more, if they're not low-power drives...), at least 5W per memory stick, 65W+ for the CPU (even more if it's Netburst-based, or a quad), and add PSU inefficiencies and 200W+ is not at all a weird number.

I don't really know any way of pacing the migration service. You might want to check if your CPU can be undervolted, that would help load power draw.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Miguel

Thanks for the reply, I'll check BIOS, but it's a Dell PC so I really doubt I can mess with it, but good idea. To answer your question I have 4 HDDs. The OS is on a 1TB WD Black, Then I have 750GB and 1TB WD Greens as well as a 1.5 TB Samsung Spinpoint F2 (Microcenter had this a week ago for $103.50 with tax in case anyone is interested).

The CPU is a Pentium 4 Conroe?? maybe but its a LGA 775 P4 3.0 Ghz I believe.

I was not considering 200W a weird number; I can believe it, its just that it spends almost 1/4 of its time up there....I just wondered if there was a way to put a stop to this liberal usage other than turning off duplication.

Anyway thanks for the reply. It's been very informative.

 

[jadawgis732]

There is really nothing you can do about that.
My question is since you are runnning Win7 why dont you just add them to one of your libraries? There is really no need to map a drive.

I did. I need it mapped because I use Rainlendar on my desktop on 2 PC's in order to use the same calendar (i.e. the networked one) it requires any networked file to be held on a mapped drive

 

[jadawgis732]

just had a quick look on my windows explorer.

several of my shares are mapped as network drives. for these shares windows explorer says ...

2.92 TB free of 278 GB

a possble explaination might be....

my system drive is 320GB unformatted
the WHS console lists the drive as 298GB
IIRC the system partition is 20GB

298GB minus 20GB equals 278GB

so, does the "capacity" of your "drive" equal the formatted capacity of your system drive minus 20GB???

Yes, I know where the 2.78TB of 911Gb comes from. A 1TB drive comes out to 931 after you divide by 1.024 three times. (Once to go to gb, once for mb and once for kb) 931Gb - the 20Gb for the WHS OS is 911.

 

[jadawgis732]

That guide recommends against pointing uTorrent directly to the D:\shares folder. That is completely different of saying "do not use UNC names as uTorrent shares". UNC names are going to be something like "\\127.0.0.1\shares\videos". That method uses the loopback network address to point to the folder, tunneling all the HDD access through the TCP/IP stack (the data never leaves your PC, btw), which is what DE expects you to do when using the storage pool.

That is a safe method, and uTorrent shouldn't corrupt data when using network shares as download folders, especially because unless something REALLY weird happens with the network services, since PCs can actually access the loopback address even through network outages...

If you're worried about corruption issues, which I believe have been ironed out since PP1 (unless that page is actually referring to direct access to the shares folder, in which case it's exactly what me and nitro have been saying all along), then I'd advise you to use the C:\ drive to handle your downloads.

Make a special WHS installer to get 100GB or more on the C:\ drive if you must (there is a guide somewhere on this subject), or use a small non-pool drive, but I still think you should back away from accessing the D:\ drive directly.

Cheers.

Miguel

I've noticed alot of corruption ever since I began pointing utorrent to the network shares. I've tried using the dl folder \\XXX-SERVER\Downloads\ as well as mapping the downloads share to a drive. What I've settled on is just stopping the transfer as soon as the download is done and forcing a recheck. This is only with files that are in RAR format. I've never had a problem with a MP4 file even at 2Gb. Is there still corruption on those files?

 

[__Miguel_]

Thanks for the reply, I'll check BIOS, but it's a Dell PC so I really doubt I can mess with it, but good idea.

If your BIOS is uncooperative, then you can try RMClock. It's outdated, but it handles any pre-1333MHz FSB CPU just fine, provided, of course, the CPU supports EIST and C1E (this one is essential for voltage changes). You just have to install it as a service and it will start up with the OS.

The CPU is a Pentium 4 Conroe?? maybe but its a LGA 775 P4 3.0 Ghz I believe.

I was wondering why the jump in power consumption was so high... There is no such thing as a Pentium 4 Conroe. There are Pentium 4s (including Pentium Ds), Conroes, and Pentium CPUs.

P4s are Netburst-based, veritable power hogs of the old days. Conroes were the first-gen Core2Duo-based CPUs; Pentium is the current mid-low end Intel CPU line (mostly the E5xxx series, and some notebook ranges).

If you have a P4, the reason for prolonged high CPU usage is abundantly clear. Those are not only single-core CPUs (even with HyperThreading enabled), but they also are slower clock-for-clock as a similar Core-based CPU, even with just one core. Which means migration will take longer.

I just wondered if there was a way to put a stop to this liberal usage other than turning off duplication.

Well, there is. Change the CPU to a dual-core offering Provided the motherboard handles it, of course...

Short of that, I don't know any other ways.

Anyway thanks for the reply. It's been very informative.

No problem.

I've noticed alot of corruption ever since I began pointing utorrent to the network shares. I've tried using the dl folder \\XXX-SERVER\Downloads\ as well as mapping the downloads share to a drive. What I've settled on is just stopping the transfer as soon as the download is done and forcing a recheck. This is only with files that are in RAR format. I've never had a problem with a MP4 file even at 2Gb. Is there still corruption on those files?

That is a weird thing...

From my experience, when I get that much corruption, the memory is to blame. It happened to me a couple of years ago on a server. I had eMule downloading too many corrupt parts, and having trouble processing files. Windows was fine, though (the defective memory parts were outside the range usually used by Windows, so there were no BSODs or the likes).

After a couple of months, I tested the memory, and there it was: complete ranges of bad memory. A 2-week RMA process later, and BAM, all was fine (except there WERE some errors that passed on to Windows. Some things simply don't work too well to this day - I've been too lazy to reinstall it... )

If memory is not the problem, then I guess the uTorrent forums are probably the best option for you. UNC naming should NOT cause data corruption per se. I've never had anything like that happen to me (though truth be told, I've never used uTorrent with UNC naming...).

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[user3657]

i just want to get whs for the backup role. does whs allow the backups to be stored on a nas server? or does the drive have to be local?

 

[nitrobass24]

local

 

[Adidas4275]

I am excited:
my Norco 4020 WHS with a crappy Biostar G31 motherboard is getting a much needed update...

just bought a Foxconn P55 motherboard with 3 PCIe 16x slots.... soon to be filled with supermicro SAS 8 port dummy cards....

 

[user3657]

local

can it be a usb drive?

 

[__Miguel_]

can it be a usb drive?

As long as the drive is added to the storage pool, WHS doesn't care which bus it sits on.

It can handle SCSI, SATA, IDE, Firewire, USB, or any other bus that presents the OS with HDD storage devices. Throughput might not be too good, since USB 2.0 tops out at around 35MBps (reads, usually slightly less in writes).

If memory serves me right, you can also backup the backup database to a separate drive, not added to the pool.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[erebus720]

Got my rebuilt WHS up and running.

Have questions mainly regarding uTorrent / ftp transfers

1. Id rather not keep a small drive in the WHS out of the storage pool for uTorrent, Is it safe to download into a share? I have done large multi-gigabyte transfers via FTP into a share and haven't had a problem. Id like to do the same with uTorrent. Its a hassle trying to sort a massive amount of data.

2. I have uTorrent installed, and the webGUI active, I can connect to it.. However I don't see the toolbar in the browser. I want to have webgui access to add torrents. How can I fix that?

3. Computer backups.. Is there a limit on the amount of machines I can backup? I know that only 10 machines can connect to the WHS at a time(I think). I have machines that are rarely on.

Thanks.

 

[Archer75]

Got my rebuilt WHS up and running.

Have questions mainly regarding uTorrent / ftp transfers

1. Id rather not keep a small drive in the WHS out of the storage pool for uTorrent, Is it safe to download into a share? I have done large multi-gigabyte transfers via FTP into a share and haven't had a problem. Id like to do the same with uTorrent. Its a hassle trying to sort a massive amount of data.

2. I have uTorrent installed, and the webGUI active, I can connect to it.. However I don't see the toolbar in the browser. I want to have webgui access to add torrents. How can I fix that?

3. Computer backups.. Is there a limit on the amount of machines I can backup? I know that only 10 machines can connect to the WHS at a time(I think). I have machines that are rarely on.

Thanks.

I download to a folder I created on the D: partition. NOT SHARES. And then when the torrent completes it auto moves it to my Download share I created.

To add torrents I have utorrents monitor a folder and auto add torrents placed into it. So if I download the torrent file on my desktop I just cut and paste it to an automatic load share in my downloads share and off it goes.

If you installed utorrent and the webgui you should see it in the browser. I had to set my to auto refresh every second so I get up to date info.

 

[erebus720]

I see it, I just don't see the toolbar. I can click on stuff, but not do anything.

Yeah I think that's what I'm going to do. I was doing it before at one point. What about the ftp transfers?