Windows Home Server Questions?

Great answers so far; keep them coming if anybody else has more to add.

Another question: does WHS ever span a file or folder across multiple drives?
 
Great answers so far; keep them coming if anybody else has more to add.

Another question: does WHS ever span a file or folder across multiple drives?

No. This PDF explains the drive technology in great detail. http://download.microsoft.com/downl...5FB3DD/Windows_Home_Server_Drive_Extender.pdf

Power Pack 1 will enable you to backup the OS to an external USB drive.\

The "network install" is probably regarding the backup technology:
- Client PC crashes, HDD fails
- Insert PC disc
- Computer is restored across the network with WHS backup file
 
I was interested in WHS until I found out you can't specify which drives you want what data on. I like to know which physical drives hold what data, so that killed my interest. Too bad. Even with some of the data corruption problems it's having, it seems like a nice system--just a little too dumbed-down for me (not saying WHS users are dumb, but that the system is simplified to the point of restricting options for power users).


I agreed with you 2 months ago. Then I realized why the hell do I care about that. Why do I need to know and monitor all of my data? I need a box that can take my data, store it, and serve it up when and where I need. Thats what WHS does.
 
Although you can't manually specify which drive holds what data, you can get a couple of add-ins for WHS that tells you how the data is duplicated and which drive holds what data.
 
WHS does not support arrays. That's really all I can say as I know no one that has gone off-radar on this.

Also, WHS erases and takes over all available volumes during installation.

yeah it would have a different boot disk. The question is can I use that joy of an OS for backup and the like without having the array get wiped (which would annoy me greatly).
 
You can, but it's tricky.

First, the install drive will be taken over. You cannot stop that.

If you have drives you do NOT want taken over, disconnect them from the system during installation. If it can't find them, it can't steal them.

After the system is set up, reconnect your drives and boot up. They will be listed in the Storage pane, but will be listed as not part of the storage JBOD. You just add the one's you want manually and leave the rest alone.

Be aware, any drive added to the store WILL be erased!



I was interested in WHS until I found out you can't specify which drives you want what data on. I like to know which physical drives hold what data, so that killed my interest. Too bad. Even with some of the data corruption problems it's having, it seems like a nice system--just a little too dumbed-down for me (not saying WHS users are dumb, but that the system is simplified to the point of restricting options for power users).
 
Ditto :)

If one wants total controle over their drives, WHS is not for them.

WHS is designed to be a hands-off, headless server that handles everything a typical home user needs for file sharing, storage, backup and media streaming, with the absolute minimal fuss possible.

It is a superb product in that regard, but may not be for everyone.

I'm a geek to. Honestly, I was more than happy to turn these chores over to WHS. I got bigger fish to fry :)



That's why I like it. I don't want to know what drive what data is on. I don't care. I have more data in my movies folder than can fit on any single drive and having the same type of content spread across many disks that show individually would be a mess. I like the one storage pool. I turn on duplication and no worries.
 
1. You don't have to worry about it. Just right-click on the drive in the JBOD and tell WHS to release it. WHS will relocate ALL data on the drive automatically and re-balance the JBOD. After that, you can shut down and replace the drive. You then add the new drive back to the JBOD and WHS will set it up and re-balance again. I have done exactly this twice without any issues. If there happens to be a lot of data on that particular volume, it CAN take a bit of time so plan for that :)

2. Very good question about the OS drive, and Microsoft is providing a solution for that with the update that is due shortly (which will also contain other enhancements). Right now you really don't want the primary OS drive to fail :) For now I guess you could image it, but I'm just not sure how imaging programs will deal with (or if they can deal with) a drive that is part of a WHS system. A very good question...



Since everything I think I know about WHS I've learned from reading articles/reviews/etc. instead of interacting with WHS users, this is a good opportunity for me to find out more about operational details. Hopefully some of the obstacles I thought were present really aren't, because I really do want to like WHS. I'd appreciate any feedback from WHS users on these questions:

  1. A scenario where I think I'd want to know what physical drive holds what data is if I want to upgrade a particular drive. How does WHS handle this with regard to non-mirrored data stored on that drive? Do you tell it you're about to change out one of the drives and it automatically moves the data from that drive onto one of the others temporarily, so when you put in the new drive it just copies everything back onto it?
  2. Another is if you need to swap out the drive with the OS on it--say it dies on you. Does WHS automatically backup itself (the OS) onto one of the other drives in case of the OS drive dying? If not, what happens when you put in a new drive for the OS and you reinstall WHS? Does it know what data is mirrored and where it's mirrored? Doesn't seem like it would, but doesn't hurt to ask since I don't know that much about it.
Thanks for the input. Hopefully the answers will help a lot of others considering going the WHS route.
 
Dunno. This is not the purpose of WHS.

WHS is designed to be a headless, low-maintenance home server used for share's, backups and media streaming.

Anything else is off the radar. Might work, might not.

Can you run distributed computing applications on WHS without difficulty?
 
I think the primary concern here is the data storage partition for the JBOD that WHS creates on the OS drive. WHS takes 20GB for the OS partition, and then uses the rest as a partition used in the JBOD.

It's a valid concern, and one that MS is addressing in an update that is supposed to be released shortly.

It is also my understanding that the JBOD partition on the OS drive is the "landing zone" for data coming to the server. WHS then distributes it out as needed from there to the other drives.

I have had concerns about this as well. In a way, I wish they would have left the OS drive alone and kept it out of the JBOD.



1 - you'd connect the new drive, add it to the storage pool, and then remove the drive you want to get rid of from the storage pool and wait untill it's finnished balancing storage again... WHS will migrate the data from the old drive you are removing to the new one, but i don't know how long it takes....

2 - if the system drive dies, all you loose is the system (that is, unless you are packing the storage pool so full of data, some is bleeding over onto the os drive's secondary partition) and all you have to do is reinstall WHS and all your stuff will come back... you will need to re-create users and all that jazz, but at least the data is still there...
 
No. It would have to be one hell of a file to even need this :)



Great answers so far; keep them coming if anybody else has more to add.

Another question: does WHS ever span a file or folder across multiple drives?
 
Wow, this thread has been really informative as to how WHS actually works and what it does, sounds great I guess my only reserve against this is that it's JBOD so every little alarm bell in my head goes off saying if 1 drive dies, the whole system dies. Hence my reason to run RAID 5, but since it seems that it's a modified JBOD then it doesn't die just that drive. Makes it a little more comfortable knowing it would just be one drive, not say 10 drives losing all the data.
Thanks for all the info guys. :D:D
 
Wow, this thread has been really informative as to how WHS actually works and what it does, sounds great I guess my only reserve against this is that it's JBOD so every little alarm bell in my head goes off saying if 1 drive dies, the whole system dies. Hence my reason to run RAID 5, but since it seems that it's a modified JBOD then it doesn't die just that drive. Makes it a little more comfortable knowing it would just be one drive, not say 10 drives losing all the data.
Thanks for all the info guys. :D:D

It's not JBOD. It's more "dynamic software JBOD". If one drive dies you don't lose it all.

The official WHS forums talk about people who are using RAID5 arrays with hardware controllers successfully. I'm not sure about the which ones work and which don't, check those forums and ask questions there if you need to. Software RAID is definitely NOT supported under WHS.

On a related note, I was looking at the fragmentation of my drives last night and reading up in the WHS forums. Looks like Defrag is not suggested as it can interfere with the Shadow Copy business. Diskeeper 2007 WHS edition is suggested. Free 45 day trial in 6th post in this thread.

Diskeeper reports my drives as:

SYS (C: )
DATA (D: )
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\B)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\D)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\F)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\M)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\O)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\Q)
DATA (Mounted at C:\fs\S)

Edit: This thread reminds me that I need to sell off my Dell Perc5i setup since I didn't need it with WHS. Nice side benefit is that it made my WHS build cheaper without having a RAID5 card. I'd probably get better performance with the RAID5 but everythings seems to run fine and without much lag without the RAID5.
 
I think the primary concern here is the data storage partition for the JBOD that WHS creates on the OS drive. WHS takes 20GB for the OS partition, and then uses the rest as a partition used in the JBOD.

It's a valid concern, and one that MS is addressing in an update that is supposed to be released shortly.

It is also my understanding that the JBOD partition on the OS drive is the "landing zone" for data coming to the server. WHS then distributes it out as needed from there to the other drives.

I have had concerns about this as well. In a way, I wish they would have left the OS drive alone and kept it out of the JBOD.

That's my understanding as well--when you send a file to WHS it puts it on the OS drive in the primary data partition first, figures out where it can move the file to, then ships it off to another drive if available in the secondary data partition and leaves a "tombstone" in the primary data partition, which is a small ("tiny" according to the official WHS PDF) file that keeps track of where the files are actually stored physically. So when you want to read a file from WHS the system checks the corresponding tombstone to find out where the primary shadow file is stored, and if it's not available it checks the secondary shadow file (mirrored) if available.

That's what I was, and still am, concerned about regarding the OS drive failing. Apparently there's currently no failsafe for the OS drive and correspondingly no backup for the tombstones. So if your OS drive fails and you remove all your data drives, reinstall WHS on a new OS drive, and plug up all your data drives again, how would WHS know which files are mirrored and which aren't (If it sees 2 identical files on 2 separate data drives, how can it tell whether they are mirrors of each other or if you just copied 2 identical files to the system?), along with which drives the mirrored folders are stored on respectively without restoring the tombstone info? Based on your comments it seems Microsoft is aware of this issue and will address it soon. With what I've learned so far, it seems that this is the main issue that's stopping WHS from being a system with complete redundancy and recoverability from hardware failures.
 
I read in the WHS forums it stores incoming data on the secondary D: Data partition of the OS drive before it moves it to other drives, if available. I read something about the tombstones on the D: are the primary place it will look, but if the OS is reinstalled each drive has an additional copy of the tombstone for the data on that drive.

This is how a drive is recognized as a WHS data drive in the event of an OS failure and you start plugging your data drives back in - the new install of WHS sees the tombstones and copies them to the fresh (no tombstones) D: drive and then figures out how to balance the data as more drives are installed.

Someone correct me if I read that wrong.

In any case, if you have 2 free drives you can always test it out when you build your WHS server for peace of mind.
 
An important note, its not a "New Installation" that would be done after an OS HDD failure; it would be a "Reinstall".

With that, WHS accepts the additional HDDs in your box and the data already on them. (No formatting) You just resetup users and folders and it matches it all up.

AFAIK.
 
Hey guys this thread is really useful for new users like me who need more info about whs. My question is how good is the compression rate when backing up client pc's. Right now i use Acronis to back my pcs. I use the high compression settings so my 200gig hard is partitioned to 20gig for the OS. Acronis compress it from anywhere to 9~13GB. How does WHS compare?

Also I would be buying 4x500gig sata II hard drives which one is good and will deliver good performance for a system thats always going to be on.
 
Also I would be buying 4x500gig sata II hard drives which one is good and will deliver good performance for a system thats always going to be on.

It's a server. It doesn't much matter. I can stream HD video off of an old 5400rpm IDE drive.
 
Thats good but i should of been specific in terms of brand what would u recommend. Also i will be streaming backup HD-DVD's, the AMD LE 1620 2.4 should do right..
 
Hey guys this thread is really useful for new users like me who need more info about whs. My question is how good is the compression rate when backing up client pc's. Right now i use Acronis to back my pcs. I use the high compression settings so my 200gig hard is partitioned to 20gig for the OS. Acronis compress it from anywhere to 9~13GB. How does WHS compare?

I have 3 Windows Vista PC's that have been backed up for about 7 nights each; total backup size 44GB. Windows+Program Files+Users = ~20GB per PC

The backup system is pretty smart about not saving the same file from multiple PC's. Also does a great incremental backup from the original. Read the PDF, Very informative.
 
Ethernet? I'm guessing if so how long does it take..

That's another problem, but not a WHS problem really. Even gigabit is slow when dealing with massive amounts of data, but that's not WHS's fault. Having said that, according to this chart at smallnetbuilder.com, a WHS-powered HP MediaSmart Server EX475 can do 67.1 MB/s on large files over gigabit, which is quite amazing throughput. I just bought an eSATA external enclosure and only got about 58 MB/s on a 3.5GB file I copied to it through eSATA as a test, so they're doing some kind of magic to get 67.1 MB/s. Read performance is a whole lot slower though, which is strange to me. Maybe it's the whole parse point (tombstone) business slowing things down on reads.
 
Ethernet? I'm guessing if so how long does it take..


Who cares, don't you sleep for more than 2 hours at a time?

I have not watched it backup, but remember, even over wireless (my laptop is) it is only doing an incremental backup. The client software tells the PC what's changed since the last backup and only that data (that has changed) is added to the incremental backup. I can't imagine that taking too much time.
 
Yeah, I just sold the boot drive for my XP based fileserver and was considering switching to WHS, but as I asked earlier, there seems to be no way to install it on a sub 160GB drive, and I can NOT have my raid wiped. So WHS goes off the list. Maybe grab a HP WHS box and use its drives as backups. But then Id have to sell MY drives, PITA.
 
Yeah, I just sold the boot drive for my XP based fileserver and was considering switching to WHS, but as I asked earlier, there seems to be no way to install it on a sub 160GB drive, and I can NOT have my raid wiped. So WHS goes off the list. Maybe grab a HP WHS box and use its drives as backups. But then Id have to sell MY drives, PITA.

Yep, no way for you to transfer all that data without building a blank 3TB server then moving files over.

I am using a 160GB OS HDD, BTW.
 
Yep, no way for you to transfer all that data without building a blank 3TB server then moving files over.

I am using a 160GB OS HDD, BTW.
The only drives I have available are an old 30GB IDE and my 4x750 r5 array. :eek:
 
Can you run distributed computing applications on WHS without difficulty?

You have to log into the server via RDC to do it. I'm running non-SMP FAH and WCG on mine.

I have not noticed any impact to the performance of the functions that WHS provides. My box is running a Pentium 2160, Gigabyte P35-DS3R, 2GB of memory and 8TB of drives.
 
maybe for you it's not but my linux server requires zero maintenance.

WHS is a waste. before some ass calls me a linux fanboy let me just say I use windows xp (pro sp2) and will recommend it because it doesn't hog resources and is stable if you use it wisely.

with a little common sense anyone can set up a simple linux home server that works very well for them. In whs you can't even delete the pre-made pre-named shares. There is idiot proof then there is just plain idiotic.

And what Linux distro out of the box provides that automated back-up functionality for each client that WHS also includes + a bare metal restore of a backed-up machine?

The key point of WHS is that it provides simple functionality for little setup overhead. How much time did you spend tweaking your linux server to get it where you wanted it?

My WHS box was up and running after about 5 minutes of input from me and I can add a new machine in about 2 minutes.
 
Who cares, don't you sleep for more than 2 hours at a time?

I have not watched it backup, but remember, even over wireless (my laptop is) it is only doing an incremental backup. The client software tells the PC what's changed since the last backup and only that data (that has changed) is added to the incremental backup. I can't imagine that taking too much time.

I kinda care.. I use acronis right now to do differential images to a linux raid 5 array and they can take forever just to do differential.
 
I kinda care.. I use acronis right now to do differential images to a linux raid 5 array and they can take forever just to do differential.

I forgot that you can check the duration of every backup in the console. Just checked all three PCs, every backup was between 2 minutes to 48 minutes. (Wired and wireless) 48 minutes was an anomoly, most were between 12-20 minutes, seriously.
 
I kinda care.. I use acronis right now to do differential images to a linux raid 5 array and they can take forever just to do differential.

After the first backup, if nothing changes it takes no time at all. If it does it's still pretty fast. It runs while I sleep so it's never been an issue. But i'd guess it doesn't take more than 30 minutes. It would only backup any shows my HTPC has recorded.
 
Using the few select programs that can do it.

Hah, I think Microsoft needs to admit this issue could be a little more widespread than announced. I had MP3s that were corrupted after adding them to playlists. :eek:

Good thing my music collection is backed up, to every other PC in the house.
 
I think I'm going to hold off on using WHS for a little while, even though I bought my copy already. Between the corruption bug that would probably hit my wife's data, and the lack of x64 support for the backup app, I'm waiting for PowerPack 1 and then installing it.
 
Hah, I think Microsoft needs to admit this issue could be a little more widespread than announced. I had MP3s that were corrupted after adding them to playlists. :eek:

Good thing my music collection is backed up, to every other PC in the house.

Wait, MP3s got corrupted by reading them, not writing them? What?
 
Wait, MP3s got corrupted by reading them, not writing them? What?

As far as I can tell, the handful of files (about 10 MP3s) were corrupted during a few hours. Very random songs, the only common denominator was that I recently added them to a new playlist (80s hits) and they then added themselves to my laptops WMP library. I believe I was uploading DVDs to the server share (which would mean heavy load).

I had just setup up WHS and thought this would be a good time to better organize my music and build some playlists; instead of useless shuffle play. I had already read the KB; which DID NOT give the impression that this could very well effect any file type, by any means.
 
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