Adding HDDs to WHS

[tdawg]

I'm looking to add one or two drives to my WHS machine. These drives already contain media (music, movies, photos). Can I add them to the system without destroying the data on the drives? Will they combine with the existing 1tb drive to expand the total storage capacity seen as one big volume?

Thanks in advance,
Trevor

 

[JackMDS]

Yap you just add another drive and WHS would attach it to the storage pool without any effect on the current.

http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2009/04/18/adding-a-drive-to-your-windows-home-server/

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[RebateMonger]

Jack misread the question, I'm sure. I do that, too.

When you add an additional disk to your WHS Storage Pool, it'll ask to format your new disk. There's a warning or two that all data on the new disk will be lost. You'll need to find a place to temporarily store the data on those new disks so you can add them to WHS.

Once you add them to the storage pool, their capacity will be added to your current WHS capacity.

 

[tdawg]

Thanks. I thought formatting might be the case.

 

[JackMDS]

Jack misread the question, I'm sure. I do that, too.

Wow, I am really sorry, that could be a very unpleasant mistake.

I was reading it as thought you want to add HDs and are concerned about the data that is already on the current installed drives.

On the other hand, I think that it is possible to add these drives to the WHS without adding them to the pool. Set sharing permission for them and map them on the other computers as a separate drives.

 

[Binky]

As Jack said in his second response, WHS will give you two options. One is to format and join the storage pool (i.e. data is destroyed). The other is to use them as extra drives but not format the drives. The second option (I believe) is more aimed at backup drives, etc. I see little reason to not add them to the pool once you dump the data from them to the existing pool.

Disclaimer: I have not actually done option #2, so read all prompts!

 

[tdawg]

Thanks for the answers, guys. I have a follow-up question.

Right now I have three HDDs installed in my Acer home server (4 max) for a total of 2.26tb of formatted storage space (2x1tb + 1x500gb). Say down the road I want to replace the 500gb drive with a 1 or 2tb drive (assuming all 4 bays are occupied) if I start to need the space.

Assuming the data on the 500gb drive isn't vital enough to have duplicate copies made on other drives in the pool, and if the total pool minus the 500gb drive can't temporarily store what's on the 500gb drive, how does the data get "rebuilt", or how do I keep from losing it? I know the storage pool is not a raid configuration, so there's no parity data and such to rebuild that one drive off of. My first assumption is to yank the 500gb, install the bigger drive, and then use something like a sata -> usb2 cable to hook up to the server and hit the "one touch backup" button to get the server to pull in the files on the now external drive.

 

[RebateMonger]

Although it makes a fantastic backup server, Windows Home Server isn't perfect. Planned upgrading of the System disk is a definite weak spot. The problem is that some data files are written to the "Data" partition of the System disk. If you pull the disk and data redundancy isn't enabled, you'll lose data files on that disk.

If you have enough disk space to enable Folder Redundancy for ALL your Shared Data and if you either back up your "backup database" or don't mind losing your old backups, you can basically pull the System disk, repalce it with the new disk, and rebuild the server using the built-in recovery tools.

There are other ways you could do this, but none are perfect and most are time-consuming. One option seems to be forcing all the data off the Primary Data partition (the one on the System drive) and then removing the System disk and re-installing the WHS server, following the built-in WHS system recovery process:
http://wiki.wegotserved.com/index.php?title=Force_Data_Migration_off_the_Primary_Data_Partition

This recent article in MediaSmartServer.net looks VERY promising:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/201...ssfully-clone-and-upgrade-a-whs-system-drive/

The method involves using standard disk cloning tools to clone the old System disk to a new, larger, disk. The major issue seems to be the required duplication of the unique GUID number on each partition. A mismatched number will still boot, but will give Critical errors. This article describes how to duplicate the number using recent versions of Window's Diskpart utility (sing the "uniqueid" function).

In the Comments section, there's also mention that Clonezilla may work directly.

Edit: I read a bit deeper and see the PP3 of WHS requires an extra step or two. Those are explained in ymboc's post on MediaSmartServer.net:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6826

Also, note that the author was able to use the "Home" version of Acronis on "server" drives because he was making a clone to the the new disk, rather than making an image backup. He suggests that the "free" versions of Acronis offered by Seagate and WD should also work, as long as you have the appropriate make of hard drive.

 

[tdawg]

Thanks, RebateMonger. So that's if I want to replace the HDD with the server OS on it, right? In my case, the 500gb drive is purely a data disc, with the OS living on one of the 1tb drives. Does that change anything? I don't plan to ever pull/replace the 1tb drive that the OS lives on, except if the HDD starts going bad and I have to replace it.

 

[RebateMonger]

In my case, the 500gb drive is purely a data disc, with the OS living on one of the 1tb drives. Does that change anything? I don't plan to ever pull/replace the 1tb drive that the OS lives on, except if the HDD starts going bad and I have to replace it.

Your job should be easy. Add the new data disk to WHS. Then "remove" the old data disk from WHS (using the WHS Mangement Console). After WHS reports it's safe, you can physically remove the old 500 GB disk.

Whoops. I see you mentioned, "all four bays full". That does complicate it a bit more. You should be able to temporarily add the new disk via a USB or eSATA connection, and then move it to a SATA bay on the server. I haven't tested this one. I certainly wouldn't expect an eSATA connection change to result in a new Disk ID. I doubt that moving it from USB to a direct SATA connection would change the Disk ID, either. But I can't 100% guarantee this.

You could also temporarily add one or more other USB or eSATA disks to the server, "remove" the old 500 GB disk, "add" the new large disk, and then "remove" the temporay disk(s).

Or temporarily copy off across the network enough data so that you can "remove" the 500 GB disk. "Add" the new large disk and then copy the data back to your server across the network.

If you plan ahead while you still have 500 GB of free space on your other installed disks, you can "remove" the 500 GB disk first and then "add" the new large disk. If you have Folder Duplication enabled, you can also temporarily disable it to give you space for "removing" the 500 GB disk. After everything's migrated, you can re-enable Folder Duplicaiton.

All of these steps will take a while to finish, but they are automated, so you don't have to nurse them.

 

[tdawg]

Hopefully I won't run into this issue, as a lot of the data is media that I won't really care if I lose. Just music, photos and documents are important and I just mirror those folders.

So, I'm still trying to understand the file structure. The system doesn't span files or folders across physical discs, right? If I pull a drive and plug it into another pc (for some reason), the files and folders stored on the drive would be complete?

Also, regarding the system backups, is it possible to extract specific files from the system backups? I can mount them as virtual hard drives with the right software and extract files, right? Is there an easier way or should I duplicate backups of files that would be included in the system image?

 

[RebateMonger]

The system doesn't span files or folders across physical discs, right? If I pull a drive and plug it into another pc (for some reason), the files and folders stored on the drive would be complete?

All files are complete and in NTFS format. You can attach the disk to another PC and grab the files. Note that WHS' Drive Extender chooses which disk contains which files. Files from a particular folder may or may not be together on the same disk. If the files were all copied at roughly the same time, they'll likely be together. But files added months later MAY be on a different disk.

Some of the decision-rules have been published by MS. Once files are in place, WHS isn't very agressive about moving stuff from disk-to-disk unless absolutely necessary. Obviously, not everything can be in one place when you are trying to have many disks appear as a single storage pool.

Also, regarding the system backups, is it possible to extract specific files from the system backups? I can mount them as virtual hard drives with the right software and extract files, right? Is there an easier way or should I duplicate backups of files that would be included in the system image?

You can extract any file you want.

The backups themselves are in a WHS-specific database. It's a bunch of .DAT files and some index files. WHS doesn't use VHD format. WHS does some stuff that couldn't easily be done with the current Vista/Win7 backups and VHD format.

If you want to keep a second set of the backups, there's a procedure for doing this. A third-party Add-in (free) will do it for you, or you can follow a simple MS-documented process for copying the backup database. I've copied and restored a backup database a couple of times without incident.