Re: WHS Reliable Hardware?

["keyvan2r" <k1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I switched to unRaid for my storage as I had severe issues with data
streaming speeds, this proved to be particularly annoying when viewing
bluray movies. I was also not too impressed by the way storage pooling
& management is setup on WHS - I still kept WHS as a database server
for MyMovies and also for backup of lan pc's and other services. and
because I already paid for the OS!
I moved it to an old pentium box with 2x 500Gb sata drives. I know many
(here and on other forums) have been using WHS with no issues like mine,
but it was just not worth the effort (lazy :-))to try and sort out my
issues on WHS.
I am very happy unRaid - main advantages (for me)are:
Some level of protection without too much space sacrifice (1 parity drive)
- OS on USB is good too
Disks spin down to conserve power/keep cool and only disks needed spin up
when viewing.
Good hardware support - big choice of sata/esata controllers
Easy addition & replacement of drives
Simple but effective browser based management
Good control of how files/folders are spanned across drives/shares.
I now have a midi-tower box with 13 slots with 6x 2Tb (Hitachi) and 1x
1.5Tb (WD) which gives me 11.5Tb of usable space for ripped DVDs &
BD's. With 6 free bays, I can add another 12Tb which should keep me going
for a while.
The OS support 20 drives so 38Tb is the limted per box. I am also thinking
this gives some degree of future flexibilty to have my 600 plus ripped
DVD/BD available on a simple storage appliance to use with various
client/front end devices
K
--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Phil Harris <phil@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> I have the same mobo as you and the nForce controllers on there are
very badly supported under MS server OSs of any flavour. I currently use
Silicon Image controllers for all my drives (both internal and external)
and have had minimal problems with drives 'failing' since then - in fact I
did have one drive which persistently failed but eventually turned out to
be a dodgy SATA cable. Since replacing that I've had no troubles at all.
>
> Currently looking at 'Vail' (the new version of WHS due out Q1 2011)
and that has some 'interesting' functionality including that they are
trying to encourage you to duplicate everything (so effectively you need
twice the storage capacity) but on top of that you also have a roughly 12%
CRC overhead as well!!!! So basically for 14Tb of usable space you need
32Tb of disc space.
>
> If you don't duplicate shares ... Well it seems that Vail splits large
files into 1Gb chunks and stripes them across multiple drives so if you
don't have shares duplicated then it looks like it exposes your data to
being even more vulnerable as a 5Gb DVD ISO could be split across up to 5
drives any of which could fail!
>
> Have to say I'm in a bit of a quandary what to use next ... Need
something that supports pooling of drives and on the fly expansion of
storage it has to support 30 or so drives (so that's FlexRAID out of the
running).
>
> :-(
>
> Phi
>
> Sent from another bloody fruit-based portable device...
>
> On 30 Aug 2010, at 08:12, "mwgardner2000" <groups@...>
wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have a home built Windows Home Server V1 box. I'm very happy
with the functionality of WHS (the PC backup feature has saved the day on
more than one occasion!), but I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the
reliability of the system and the hardware in particular. WHS often reports
disk failures, but when I go in and have a look, everything seems fine. By
often, I mean several times a day.....
> >
> > The box has an 8.2TB storage pool and comprises:
> > - Asus M2N32 WS Professional mobo
> > - 2.40 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
> > - 4 GB RAM,
> > - Highpoint 1820 PCI disk controller
> > - Highpoint 2320 PCI disk controller
> > - WD 500 GB disks (4 WD5000YS)
> > - WD 1TB disks (3 x WD10EACS)
> > - WD 2TB disks (2 x WD20EADS)
> >
> > The reliability problem has been over an extended period
(including when the box was previously running Windows 2003 SBS), and over
time changes have been made to improve things. I have had at least 3 disks
exchanged by WD (can't fault their service on that) but my suspicions as to
the root cause of the problems have for a long time centred on the
controllers. The controllers on the mobo in particular seem to be flakey
(NVIDIA nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controller and Marvell 614x SATA2
Controller) and installing the Highpoint controllers seems to have helped.
> >
> > However, the latest problems being reported by the system relate
to the 1TB drives which are all on the Highpoint 1820 controller. WHS
reports a disk failure; the console show the disks as missing, but without
intervention the console updates and everything looks normal again.
> >
> > There have been some postings on here about enormous WHS servers
(Phil!) and I'm wondering if anyone else sees reliability issues? What
hardware do others use in their WHS home built boxes?
> >
> > Whilst I like the functionality, I'm reluctant to invest in new
PC hardware and am thinking of going for a large NAS instead. I will keep a
WHS in some form for the PC backup functionality if nothing else.
> >
> > Any ideas / comments / suggestions welcome!
> >
> > Cheers
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>




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