Help: WHS Identical HDD's

[JackSpadesSI]

Ok, my Windows Home Server currently has four hard drives. Three (two WD Greens and one WD Black) have already been added to the pool. The fourth hard drive (WD Black) has not yet been added.

I'm nervous to add the second Black because it has the SAME identifier code as the already-installed Black. As there would be no way to tell them apart once the second Black is added to the pool, what would I do if one failed and I needed to replace it? Would I just flip a coin to pick the one to yank?

Please help!

 

[mfenn]

Can you see the serial number through the WHS control panel? If so, just jot that down somewhere.

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Not exactly. I'm not sure if you're familiar with WHS, but you can only see an identifier for each hard drive which appears to be a little more than the drive's model information (I say a little more because it has some letter/number characters after the model). However, apparently, these aren't unique identifiers because I have two with the same identification in the WHS info.

Anyone else have any thoughts? Surely this must have come up with other people who bought several identical drives for WHS.

 

[ViRGE]

When I installed matching drives, I just wrote down their serial numbers. If something was amiss, I could always look it up via Crystal DiskInfo and see the serial number of the offending drive.

More recently I got WHS Disk Management, which integrates into the WHS console and gives you all the disk info plus it lets you build a wireframe graph of your drive cage(s). From that I constructed a model of my server, so now I can see exactly which drive I'm looking for at all times.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

When I installed matching drives, I just wrote down their serial numbers. If something was amiss, I could always look it up via Crystal DiskInfo and see the serial number of the offending drive.

More recently I got WHS Disk Management, which integrates into the WHS console and gives you all the disk info plus it lets you build a wireframe graph of your drive cage(s). From that I constructed a model of my server, so now I can see exactly which drive I'm looking for at all times.

This.

Also, if you have the ability (through adv admin tools or otherwise) to get to the control panel you can get to the details of the disk and find the identifiers.

 

[Raduque]

More recently I got WHS Disk Management, which integrates into the WHS console and gives you all the disk info plus it lets you build a wireframe graph of your drive cage(s). From that I constructed a model of my server, so now I can see exactly which drive I'm looking for at all times.

I second this.

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Is there any *free* way to find the serial number of a specific HDD from within WHS (either from the remote console, or on the server itself)?

 

[ViRGE]

Try Crystal DiskInfo.