Windows Home Server question

[Sengar]

I'm putting together a home file server and am trying to decide between Server 2008 & hardware RAID-6 and Windows Home Server.

I've been reading about the WHS storage pool, and everything I've read mentions folder duplication, but I'm not clear how the O/S handles drive failure in the event that folder duplication is disabled on most/all of the folders on the drive in question.

Basically, there is a reasonable amount of personal data that I would back up, but also a lot of media that I would not - it would be a hassle to re-rip media, but it also wouldn't make much sense to back something up when I already have the original copy safely stored. The way I understand the storage pool is that it's basically glorified drive spanning, so my question is, would the failure of one drive that is not backed up, have any impact on the overall storage pool, or would it just take the files on the bad drive out of circulation and leave the rest intact?

 

[RebateMonger]

In WHS, folder duplication is enabled on a folder-by-folder basis. Any files in the "protected" folders are stored on two different hard drives in the WHS. If one drive fails, those files can be found on another drive. WHS will take care of the file and disk management automatically.

If folder duplication is NOT enabled, then you'll lose any data that's on a failed disk. Any data that's on the other (non-failed) disks is "safe".

If you lose the Primary disk, you'll lose the OS and you will lose any (unprotected) data that happens to be on the Primary disk. If you replace the Primary disk and do a repair installation of WHS, WHS will read the other disks and re-index what it finds to update its file listings.

 

[Sengar]

Thanks for the heads-up. From the sounds of it, it's a pretty good alternative to RAID, given that you can specify exactly what you want backed up, and a single drive failure doesn't effect the rest of the pool. No drives lost to parity, and no expensive controller needed.

What happens in the event of a hardware failure or upgrade? For instance, a motherboard replacement - can you just plug the drives into the new board in any particular order, reinstall the o/s, and have WHS re-index the original storage pool more or less intact?

 

[RebateMonger]

Forgetting that Windows Home Server is OEM software, which means its license says you can't move it to a new motherboard unless the original motherboard fails and the new one meets Microsoft's definition of a suitable replacement.....

You should be able to perform a server re-install. You insert the drives onto the new motherboard with the Primary drive as the first drive in the new BIOS' boot order. Then boot from the WHS Install DVD. Tell it you want to do a Server Reinstallation. You shouldn't lose your client backups, nor your data shares. You'll lose some basic configuration settings (like remote access) which are easy to re-do.

The repair operation is well documented and not a big deal.

 

[Sengar]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Forgetting that Windows Home Server is OEM software, which means its license says you can't move it to a new motherboard unless the original motherboard fails and the new one meets Microsoft's definition of a suitable replacement.....

You should be able to perform a server re-install. You insert the drives onto the new motherboard with the Primary drive as the first drive in the new BIOS' boot order. Then boot from the WHS Install DVD. Tell it you want to do a Server Reinstallation. You shouldn't lose your client backups, nor your data shares. You'll lose some basic configuration settings (like remote access) which are easy to re-do.

The repair operation is well documented and not a big deal.

So, aside from maintaining the original primary drive as first in boot order, the order in which the other drives were connected wouldn't impact the O/S' ability to reconstruct the storage pool?

I'm mostly sold on giving WHS a try, but I am leaning toward installing the trial on my current server, then purchasing an OEM copy along with a new motherboard & CPU once I've established that it will work for my needs.

Right now I'm using the onboard SATA ports on the motherboard, in addition to an 8-port Supermicro card. My main concern was that migrating to a new motherboard, combined with using a separate drive controller, could cause issues - or that, aside from the primary drive remaining the boot drive, the order in which the drives were installed would make some difference.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Sengar
So, aside from maintaining the original primary drive as first in boot order, the order in which the other drives were connected wouldn't impact the O/S' ability to reconstruct the storage pool?

I'm not 100% sure how that works, other than the requirement that the WHS Install DVD see the original Primary disk as the first disk in the boot order. I doubt that the order of the other disks is important, but I can't say for sure.

Microsoft has a public WHS Forum, as well as http://wegotserved.co.uk, where you might find someone with an answer to that question.

 

[Dari]

For me it seems like WHS doesn't utilize my four HDDs evenly. One drive is 98% full while another is only 21% full. I really hope this folder duplication is working (I have it enabled).

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Dari
For me it seems like WHS doesn't utilize my four HDDs evenly. One drive is 98% full while another is only 21% full. I really hope this folder duplication is working (I have it enabled).

There's no reason why it shouldn't be working, but there are add-ins that can tell you exactly what drives files are on.

As for even use of drives, Windows doesn't always do a great job picking. It'll be a bit unbalanced at times, but with a ratio like that, fresh files are virtually guaranteed to go to the emptier drive. It'll move things around as necessary to keep folders replicated.

 

[gpgofast]

I added a warranty replacement 500 GB drive to my WHS last Friday. I had a 1.0 TB WD Green Drive and a 1.5 TB Seagate existing before adding the 500GB. Over the weekend WHS has moved files over to the 500 GB drive to balance out the storage. YMMV of course.