Another Windows Home Server question

[BonzaiDuck]

OK. Some folks here really helped me out last week in my concerns for upgrading my home LAN's file-server -- which was running under Win 2000 Pro with a boot-array in RAID0 that had been running flawlessly since about 2003. [Yeah!! That's what I say: "Yipes!!"]

I've decided to replace the mobo with a C2D capable model -- another $100 over the $95 I spent on WHS. I have several spare memory kits -- top-end stuff, like 2x2GB Corsair DHX DDR2-800's.

I'm thinking that WHS is a 32-bit OS. And because it's a 32-bit OS, it will only recognize a maximum of about 3.5GB of the RAM.

Alternatively, I have four 512MB OCZ DDR2-800 modules that I can use, to save the 2x2GB kits for something -- more worthy. . . .

What say you? Any comments, observations, etc.?

 

[Philippart]

WHS will only "see" 3.5 GB of RAM, use the 512MB it should be enough for most file-server uses...

 

[Chiefcrowe]

agreed, the server shouldn't need all that ram. save it for another machine.

 

[imaheadcase]

Actually it is recommended to have at least 2 gigs for WHS box.

 

[Viper GTS]

Given how cheap RAM is letting 1/2 a gig go unused is "wasting" less money than you'd spend on lunch at McDonald's.

Give it the RAM. Buy more 2x2GB kits if you need more for other machines. Give the 512's away to somebody who could use them.

Viper GTS

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
Actually it is recommended to have at least 2 gigs for WHS box.

Actually, no, it isn't. It's 512MB, same as the minimum requirements.
However,

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Given how cheap RAM is letting 1/2 a gig go unused is "wasting" less money than you'd spend on lunch at McDonald's.

Give it the RAM. Buy more 2x2GB kits if you need more for other machines. Give the 512's away to somebody who could use them.

Viper GTS

I agree with Viper.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
Actually it is recommended to have at least 2 gigs for WHS box.

I have six WHS boxes at various locations and all have 512 MB and I haven't seen a need for more. Admittedly, I only use them for the built-in WHS functions (backups, web servers, and serving videos and music). If I was running 3rd-party applications, I'd probably want more memory. My personal WHS makes backups of seven PCs each night now, including my business' Small Business Server 2003.

I have lots of suitable memory laying around, so I'd add it if I felt it'd do anything for me. Nothing wrong with adding more memory, but I certainly wouldn't sweat losing 0.5 GB out of 4.0 GB.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
Actually it is recommended to have at least 2 gigs for WHS box.

Ditto to this. The core OS doesn't need it, but all that extra RAM can be used for file caching when transferring files. Since the WHS drive extender tech does encounter a performance hit, extra RAM can really improve effective write speeds with large files.

 

[RebateMonger]

I was tempted to just repeat what I just posted in another Anandtec Forum, but I'll post the link instead. I measured the data transfer rates to/from my Windows Home Server and a Windows Server 2008, using 512 MB and 2 GB of memory in the WHS box.

My measurements of data transfer rates between WHS and another PC. - 18 posts down.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I was tempted to just repeat what I just posted in another Anandtec Forum, but I'll post the link instead. I measured the data transfer rates to/from my Windows Home Server and a Windows Server 2008, using 512 MB and 2 GB of memory in the WHS box.

My measurements of data transfer rates between WHS and another PC. - 18 posts down.

Interesting. I'll probably just use the two 2x512MB OCZ kits. I'm swimming in RAM kits, with two barely-used 2x2GB kits -- a Corsair DHX CAS-4 DDR2-800 kit, and a G.SKILL DDR2-1000.

At current prices -- even in the "bro can you spare a dime" economy -- it's easy to pick up extra memory kits just to play with. I think I got those 1GB OCZ kits for about $30 each, when better kits cost more than double or triple that.

Also interesting: how we will cling to a server-duty system that works just fine with old IDE drives and a 533-P4. My biggest worry is the boot-volume -- it's RAID0, and I bought those drives in late 2002. Win 2000 Pro is . . . a bit dated. So why not design a less vulnerable setup, and replace the old hardware? To date -- I spent $100 on a C2D-capable motherboard and $25 on an SATA-DVD-burner. The rest of it comes from the parts-locker.

 

[ljames]

Just to throw in my 2 cents worth.... I rebuilt my oldest computer into a WHS box. Pentium 4 2.26 Ghz on an Intel mobo, 768 Mb rambus memory, added a PCI SATA controller card with 8 ports. Started with 4 X 500Gb Western Digital internal SATA drives and 3 external USB drives, 1 WD MyBook 500GB and 2 Maxtor drives, 1 300Gb & 1 500Gb. This in a PC Power & Cooling full tower case with 10 drive bays. Supposedly WHS will use any size any make of drive. I had constant trouble with the Maxtor drives becoming unhealthy or missing!! I finally removed them and connected them to my NAS drive. When I removed them I lost all my backups. WHS does not create duplicates of backups, only of data files. I recently added 2 WD 1Tb drives and Disk Management add-in software, which shows two of the 500Gb drives almost full. The system runs good, for about eight months now, but I am hedging my bets by backing up my client computers to directly-connected external drives or to the network drive. I plan to replace the mobo with a newer one using a Core2 Duo CPU and 2Gb of ram. (Rambus memory chips are expensive!!) BTW, this system is connected to monitor, keyboard, & mouse thru a KVM switch; every time you restart the WHS from a client WHS console you loose the connection to WHS & you have to log in with a password so you need to see what is happening on the WHS box. I am currently trying to find a way to back up the system files & one copy of the data files to an external drive. Would like to hear from anybody who is having any problems with this OS.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: ljames
Just to throw in my 2 cents worth.... I rebuilt my oldest computer into a WHS box. Pentium 4 2.26 Ghz on an Intel mobo, 768 Mb rambus memory, added a PCI SATA controller card with 8 ports. Started with 4 X 500Gb Western Digital internal SATA drives and 3 external USB drives, 1 WD MyBook 500GB and 2 Maxtor drives, 1 300Gb & 1 500Gb. This in a PC Power & Cooling full tower case with 10 drive bays. Supposedly WHS will use any size any make of drive. I had constant trouble with the Maxtor drives becoming unhealthy or missing!! I finally removed them and connected them to my NAS drive. When I removed them I lost all my backups. WHS does not create duplicates of backups, only of data files. I recently added 2 WD 1Tb drives and Disk Management add-in software, which shows two of the 500Gb drives almost full. The system runs good, for about eight months now, but I am hedging my bets by backing up my client computers to directly-connected external drives or to the network drive. I plan to replace the mobo with a newer one using a Core2 Duo CPU and 2Gb of ram. (Rambus memory chips are expensive!!) BTW, this system is connected to monitor, keyboard, & mouse thru a KVM switch; every time you restart the WHS from a client WHS console you loose the connection to WHS & you have to log in with a password so you need to see what is happening on the WHS box. I am currently trying to find a way to back up the system files & one copy of the data files to an external drive. Would like to hear from anybody who is having any problems with this OS.

WHS doesnt create backups of the backups because....backups are backups. The original system its backing up still exists. The WHS backups arent file backups, theyre system backups, so as long as the system is running, its all redundant.

But file backups are indeed a different story and have their use, and I use a program called syncback to back individual files up for easy access. You can run it on the server itself, or the clients, or both.

 

[heymrdj]

If i may be so rude as to hijack a bit, I'm converting my Windows XP Pro file server into a WHS box. (Just got my copy of WHS 2 days ago). I'm wondering, with the file server starting to get older and not much expansion left, what happens at hardware upgrade time if all your files are managed my WHS in this...JBOD like system. What if the mobo fails and must be replaced. Normally a repair install is required...but you can't just wipe out the OS...you'd never be able to get your data back....or would you?

 

[boomhower]

I only have 1GB in mine and that was taken out of my son's Dell I upgrades to 2GB. It maxes out my gigabyte connection on writes so I don't see the point of adding more.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: heymrdj
If i may be so rude as to hijack a bit, I'm converting my Windows XP Pro file server into a WHS box. (Just got my copy of WHS 2 days ago). I'm wondering, with the file server starting to get older and not much expansion left, what happens at hardware upgrade time if all your files are managed my WHS in this...JBOD like system. What if the mobo fails and must be replaced. Normally a repair install is required...but you can't just wipe out the OS...you'd never be able to get your data back....or would you?

You have two ways to get your data back:

You can do a server reinstall, which will just restore the system OS partition, while keeping all the data and backups intact.

If you just need the data and dont want to restore the server, just pull the drives and put them in another system. The directory structure will be a bit wacky (the files are stored in D:/de/shares/), but all the files will be there, each individual file on at least one of the drives. If you have a lot of drives you might have some fun trying to figure out which drive has the exact file you need.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: heymrdj
If i may be so rude as to hijack a bit, I'm converting my Windows XP Pro file server into a WHS box. (Just got my copy of WHS 2 days ago). I'm wondering, with the file server starting to get older and not much expansion left, what happens at hardware upgrade time if all your files are managed my WHS in this...JBOD like system. What if the mobo fails and must be replaced. Normally a repair install is required...but you can't just wipe out the OS...you'd never be able to get your data back....or would you?

You have two ways to get your data back:

You can do a server reinstall, which will just restore the system OS partition, while keeping all the data and backups intact.

If you just need the data and dont want to restore the server, just pull the drives and put them in another system. The directory structure will be a bit wacky (the files are stored in D:/de/shares/), but all the files will be there, each individual file on at least one of the drives. If you have a lot of drives you might have some fun trying to figure out which drive has the exact file you need.

Ah this is what I needed to hear. So none of the data is split or anything like that under a proprietary format to fit on the drives perfectly. They're all still intact individual files that can be read by any other system, they don't need WHS installed to read any specialty information about them.

That was the last issue kind of keeping me from wanting to go all out with it. Thank you.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: heymrdj

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: heymrdj
If i may be so rude as to hijack a bit, I'm converting my Windows XP Pro file server into a WHS box. (Just got my copy of WHS 2 days ago). I'm wondering, with the file server starting to get older and not much expansion left, what happens at hardware upgrade time if all your files are managed my WHS in this...JBOD like system. What if the mobo fails and must be replaced. Normally a repair install is required...but you can't just wipe out the OS...you'd never be able to get your data back....or would you?

You have two ways to get your data back:

You can do a server reinstall, which will just restore the system OS partition, while keeping all the data and backups intact.

If you just need the data and dont want to restore the server, just pull the drives and put them in another system. The directory structure will be a bit wacky (the files are stored in D:/de/shares/), but all the files will be there, each individual file on at least one of the drives. If you have a lot of drives you might have some fun trying to figure out which drive has the exact file you need.

Ah this is what I needed to hear. So none of the data is split or anything like that under a proprietary format to fit on the drives perfectly. They're all still intact individual files that can be read by any other system, they don't need WHS installed to read any specialty information about them.

That was the last issue kind of keeping me from wanting to go all out with it. Thank you.

Yep, its all still there, split up on a file by file basis, good ol NTFS, readable by any Windows PC if you drop the drive in.

Having a single drive makes it much simpler, as every file will be on that single drive. It will be a total pain in the ass transitioning from WHS to non-WHS and vice versa, so expect to make a commitment. Especially once you throw a second drive in there, it starts getting a lot more complicated, unless you're duplicating every folder. Three drives...good luck.

Keep in mind WHS is going to wipe any drive you want to attach to it, so you'll basically need plenty of spare space just to set it up. Having an external USB drive of some sort will speed this process up immensely.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: heymrdj

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: heymrdj
If i may be so rude as to hijack a bit, I'm converting my Windows XP Pro file server into a WHS box. (Just got my copy of WHS 2 days ago). I'm wondering, with the file server starting to get older and not much expansion left, what happens at hardware upgrade time if all your files are managed my WHS in this...JBOD like system. What if the mobo fails and must be replaced. Normally a repair install is required...but you can't just wipe out the OS...you'd never be able to get your data back....or would you?

You have two ways to get your data back:

You can do a server reinstall, which will just restore the system OS partition, while keeping all the data and backups intact.

If you just need the data and dont want to restore the server, just pull the drives and put them in another system. The directory structure will be a bit wacky (the files are stored in D:/de/shares/), but all the files will be there, each individual file on at least one of the drives. If you have a lot of drives you might have some fun trying to figure out which drive has the exact file you need.

Ah this is what I needed to hear. So none of the data is split or anything like that under a proprietary format to fit on the drives perfectly. They're all still intact individual files that can be read by any other system, they don't need WHS installed to read any specialty information about them.

That was the last issue kind of keeping me from wanting to go all out with it. Thank you.

Yep, its all still there, split up on a file by file basis, good ol NTFS, readable by any Windows PC if you drop the drive in.

Having a single drive makes it much simpler, as every file will be on that single drive. It will be a total pain in the ass transitioning from WHS to non-WHS and vice versa, so expect to make a commitment. Especially once you throw a second drive in there, it starts getting a lot more complicated, unless you're duplicating every folder. Three drives...good luck.

Keep in mind WHS is going to wipe any drive you want to attach to it, so you'll basically need plenty of spare space just to set it up. Having an external USB drive of some sort will speed this process up immensely.

Yeah I knew it was going to require some shifting around. We have 3 externals and 2 internals that we're going to use to drain the 1TB and go from there. Then hoping soon to introduce 3 more 1TB's for backup and more space.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Gee. This thread has been burnin' up!

My decision to go "WHS" derives from hardware concerns. The boot volume of my Win 2K-Pro server is a RAID0 that has been running 24/7 since January, 2003. The data is stored on a RAID5 3-disk-array under a HighPoint controller.

I'll start putting together the new hardware today -- motherboard, CPU, RAM and Ultima-90 cooler. When I make the swap, I'll want to test the hardware integrity before installing the OS, so I'll run MEMTEST86+ against default hardware settings.

Then, I'll install the WHS-OS on a 320 GB SATA2 drive. After that, I'll begin adding stuff:

--Highpoint controller and RAID5
--StarTech hot-swap IDE drive bay with removeable drives/caddies

I just don't know for sure what to expect with all this. Given all the backup features built-into the OS, there seems to be varying opinions and confusions about adding more hardware. There seems to be an insinuation that you can only take full advantage of the OS with certain hardware configurations, and RAID is not at the top of the list -- if at all. Someone else above seems to have some 8 or 10 drives hooked up -- maybe JBOD.

At least it was easy backing up the entire RAID5 to a workstation's RAID5. I'm beginning to wonder if I really need a server-box anymore. At one time, I had file-server acting as proxy-server and printer-server. Right now, the file-server is also the machine I use for scanning documents through my Cano-Scan.

But Win 2K Pro and a 533-FSB P4 -- like brown shoes -- "don't make it" anymore.

 

[heymrdj]

We'll be starting today to put it together. Getting our floppy disk to install our board's AHCI drivers for hot swap. Then install it on the 160GB IDE drive. Then start moving data and instantiating drives as needed.