RAID on Windows Home Server

[Perryg114]

I am still trying to justify keeping my Window Home Server (Original version) but I am faced with the problem of not being able to backup or replace the boot drive without a major pain in the ass. I don't know much about RAID. Is it an all or nothing thing? Can I RAID mirror my boot drive and leave the rest alone? I like my server but I don't like the lack of maintainability of it. It is sorta like welding the drain plug on your car shut after you change the oil. I don't know why anyone would make a server software so the OS can't be backed up.

Perry

 

[dave_the_nerd]

RAID isn't a backup.

Converting an existing single drive to a raid volume is a lot more complicated than setting it up from the outset. You can do a software mirror of a boot volume using windows software raid, but it won't clone the bootloader right (without a lot of extra work). Alternatively, if you can set up two new drives in a raid, you can clone old drive to new, but you may have some driver issues to sort out.

But honestly, from an effort/reward standpoint, you're probably better off just doing a 1:1 clone of your boot drive to another disk and sticking it in the closet for when you need it. Existing boot volume fails, swap the drives and you're back off to the races.

 

[Perryg114]

What I was wanting to do is to Mirror a completely new boot drive install using RAID. This would protect me from having to install the complete OS if the boot drive fails. Can I just mirror the boot drive and run the data drives as normal disks? The problem is that WHS partitions the boot disk as a boot partition that is 20G or so and then the rest is a data drive that is part of the drive pool. I can restore an image of the boot drive to a new drive but WHS does not see the part of the drive that is data which is most of the drive. I won't loose data on shared folders if I have them duplicated but all the computer backups that I have that are stored on the data partition of the boot drive will be lost on an image of the old drive to a new drive. I would prefer not to loose these backups. If you loose a part of the backup database it hoses the whole system. Boot drives will eventually fail and a RAID system would give me redundancy. An image restored to a new drive will boot just fine but it will be missing the data portion of that drive. It sees the drive but not as part of the communal D drive that has all the data.


Perry

 

[dave_the_nerd]

1) How many HDDs do you have, of what capacity, and which one(s) are your boot drives?

2) Are you willing to do a windows reinstall and reimport your drive pool, if necessary?

3) Is your server backed up?

 

[master_shake_]

move up to windows home server 2011.

if you can find a key they'll be cheap

i use a 5 2tb drive raid 5 on mine.

works great.

also windows 8 was supposed to have some sort of "home server" capabilities.

that or windows server essentials.

whs keys are on ebay.

 

[Perryg114]

I think that WHS 2011 has the same issues with not being able to easily restore the boot drive. I am not sure would be gaining much there. I don't mind buying a copy if it solves anything.

I have a bunch of 2T black series drives that are new or almost new. I think I have about 6 of those. However, I have found out that for some reason it won't do a fresh install on a 2T drive but it will let you use them as data drives. My intent is to Mirror the boot drive with a couple of 1T drives and then use maybe 4 to 6, 2T drives as my data drives and just let WHS deal with duplicating folders on them. I could probably RAID all the disks and have maybe 3 to 4T total capacity and then turn off folder duplication. This would also protect the system backups from being lost if a data drive fails. I have been through a couple of these system reinstalls in 6 or so yrs and I would like a more robust maintainable system. Something that tells me when a drive dies and I put in a new one and all it good as opposed to spending a week getting it all setup again on all the machines in the house etc.

Perry

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I think that WHS 2011 has the same issues with not being able to easily restore the boot drive. I am not sure would be gaining much there. I don't mind buying a copy if it solves anything.

I have a bunch of 2T black series drives that are new or almost new. I think I have about 6 of those. However, I have found out that for some reason it won't do a fresh install on a 2T drive but it will let you use them as data drives. My intent is to Mirror the boot drive with a couple of 1T drives and then use maybe 4 to 6, 2T drives as my data drives and just let WHS deal with duplicating folders on them. I could probably RAID all the disks and have maybe 3 to 4T total capacity and then turn off folder duplication.

Simple problem, simple solution. Problem: Windows software RAID doesn't effectively mirror bootable drives. Solution: Use motherboard RAID or a dedicated RAID card to create a mirror at the BIOS level, and install your OS to that. You can keep using the 2TB drives for data.

The is typical configuration of servers in a datacenter - every one I've ever gotten my hands on, at least, shipped with a pair of smallish HDDs in a mirrored RAID configuration.

This would also protect the system backups from being lost if a data drive fails. I have been through a couple of these system reinstalls in 6 or so yrs and I would like a more robust maintainable system. Something that tells me when a drive dies and I put in a new one and all it good as opposed to spending a week getting it all setup again on all the machines in the house etc.

Perry

You may just not be doing it right. A single smallish boot drive (I have a 160GB boot disk in my server, for instance) that is regularly cloned via disk image to, well, wherever. As long as it's accessible (maybe upload it to crashplan or something.)

If the boot drive dies, you clone the image to a new drive, swap it in, and you're done - not system or client reconfiguration is necessary. Whole process should take under 2 hours. Less than 1 hour if it's a smallish SSD. This isn't better than a mirrored RAID, but it doesn't require any additional RAID configuration.

You certainly shouldn't have to rebuild your whole system every time - even if the boot volume fails, your data drives and the storage space whatchamacallits should be able to be imported by a new system without losing their contents.