Help on upgrading a small office file server

[Fayd]

I think you are reading it correctly and interpreting it incorrectly. The black dots are annual failure rates, with error bars above and below. The probability density is the white bars behind it. There are 2 values (annual failure rate and probability) graphed on the same chart. The probability density is what we want to check, as it is a measure of the probability that a drive will fail at a given temperature point. The shorter the white bar, the lower the probability is at that temperature point. The probability density of failure at 45C is about 0.01, and .0015/.002 at 50C leading to my '6 times' comment. The 'sweet spot' you were talking about earlier would be where both values are at their lowest, or somewhere higher than 45C. It may be higher than 50C, but we don't have data to make a conclusion about temps higher than 51C where the graph stops (the error ranges also get much bigger). Best guess using that data is that it is right around 47C.

What I was saying about it possibly being skewed is that Google (or anyone) probably doesn't run that many drives at 50C+ which can lead to an uneven measure.

it would make more sense to me that probability density is essentially a histogram of the sample data. and google does talk about the chances for skew, at the extreme ends of the data the bounds for the AFR dots widen up. meaning there's not enough data to give a more exact estimate.

 

[VinylxScratches]

Just buy a Iomega NAS and be done with it?


http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-StorCenter-ix4-200d-Attached-34546/dp/B002O0KH7K/ref=pd_cp_e_2

 

[hoorah]

For the OP, I would recommend using WHS1. WHS1 will be around for a while, and after WHS2 gets the bugs worked out and ten thousand folks using it and reporting concerns (say a year or 2 after WHS2 has been out) then I would say to investigate an upgrade.

There really isn't a reason to upgrade to WHS2 in this situation besides 'wanting to have the newest stuff' WHS1 does everything required. Having the 'newest stuff' will generally increase speed/performance at the expense of maintenance and up time IMHO, which is a downside to a business; especially one being supported remotely. This server just 'has to work' no matter what.

I agree completely, it 'has to work' and I have no intention on putting mission critical files onto something unstable. I guess my bias towards going with the latest and greatest was during my last round of testing for my media center PC, each subsequent release of the OS had vastly improved capability over the last one (MCE 2005 vs Vista, Vista vs Vista (w/ media power pack or something like that), newest vista vs 7 beta, etc). Anyway, each time even the beta was vastly superior to the old setup that I suppose I developed a habit.

Also, I guess I have in my mind that buying WHS1 now is like paying $90 for an XP license and then having to pay $100 for a windows 7 license in 6 months, and that I'd be better off just getting 7 to begin with. I know that server OSs are different, but old habits die hard, ya know?

Anyway, I was going to setup a test build of WHS1 or WHS2 last night, but the WHS1 trial is only 30 days and you're forced to reformat, and the WHS2 build wouldn't have worked (old athlon 2000, not 64 bit) and it was 12:30 in the morning so I just left windows 7 on the test computer, shared his drives, and said I'll tinker with it when the new hardware comes.

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[Homerboy]

I'll just toss in my 2 cents again...

I vote for WHS1 too. WHS2 really wont offer you anything that you would really take advantage of. WHS1 is (now) rock solid and stable and fully functioning. You may want to browse through some addons out there too as I think someof them could give you some added features that wouldmake remotely admin'ing the machine a bit nicer.

WHS1 all the way.