Redoing my network...

riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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From another thread in another place, Im wondering what people can help me out there with this new network Im doing at my home.

This is my new network layout

66XhMst.png


There is a N54L with ESXi 5.5 that will act as my gateway and firewall with pfSense. It has 3 ports: One integrated and another dual port that will connect to the modem (WAN) and another that connects to the switch. It has a forth one but that is dedicated to RAC.

Im pretty new to virtualization so be easy

I have two APs; One on the top floor for my and another one extending for the middle and bottom floor.

Wireless: Sadly we have 802.11g devices in our home still. The number of wireless clients varies but I wanted to put phones as its more or less what is going to be used wirelessly. Im sure at least ONE of the phones is 802.11g and the TV is also problably 802.11g Both APs are 802.11n capable. The bottom one was used to extend the range of the top one since it didn't cover the entire house.

Don't know if its of intrest but the current main router and access point is a TLWR1043ND and it is running DD-WRT v24-sp2 (03/19/12) std (SVN revision 18777) The middle floor is a TL-WR841ND it is running DD-WRT v24-sp2 (04/13/11) std (SVN revision 16785).

The N54L has ESXi 5.5 U1 installed on a USB drive. Im putting a 320GB to use as the datastore to install both pfSense (Im gonna give it 3GB of space and 1GB of RAM) and WS2012R2 (250GB of space and 7-8GB of RAM). Some left over space for random VMs. 4 x 3TB HDDs also as data space in a storage pool in WS2012R2.

Ive got pfSense running (great change from DD-WRT, very happy) and now Im in the process of moving the RAID5 from my PC to the N54L and make a pool with DrivePool. Configuring also media sharing.

Not sure If im missing any information. Basically wanted to know if my network setup is correct and if I should think about anything before hand. If there is any info Ive left out or something, please feel free to comment.

Also I apologize as this is a move from a thread in another place so maybe there are things that don't make sense.

Thanks to all
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riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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One of the problems I have is this:

post-25747-0-46924300-1397925393.png


As you can see, D :/ is mapped to every special folder for my user. D :/ is my RAID5 in my current local PC. When I move all the data to the NAS, obviously it wont find D : /and I imagine I have issue loading Desktop, Documents, etc.

I tried to Network map a drive but it has issues as well and I would need for it to be mapped BEFORE login.

Solutions to this problem?
 

azazel1024

Senior member
Jan 6, 2014
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Just map it after loading and change it in the registry. You may have some issues with some of that running off of a mapped network drive, PERIOD, however nothing I see there should have a problem with that (I don't think).

You may have an issue attempting to pull the RAID5 array and put it in another machine though. Its only remotely likely to work if the donor and recipient machines have the same RAID controller.
 

riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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Just map it after loading and change it in the registry. You may have some issues with some of that running off of a mapped network drive, PERIOD, however nothing I see there should have a problem with that (I don't think).

You may have an issue attempting to pull the RAID5 array and put it in another machine though. Its only remotely likely to work if the donor and recipient machines have the same RAID controller.
I tried with my Desktop and when it loads it up, it asks me for my username and password. I type it in and it is very slow to load the desktop (this is a gig network)

Im destroy the RAID5 from my Windows 7 PC and putting it in a storage pool in DrivePool so no issue there :)

My idea would be to format and store everything you see (Desktop, Documents, etc) locally. I dont like it because this means each time I format/reinstall I wouldnt be able to restore everything I want so quickly.

Also, programs look for "My Documents" sometimes and I want "My Documents" to be stored directly on the N54L. Also some programs dont play nice with network mapped drives. I thought about iSCSI.
 

riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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Does anyone have any other suggestions on the "My Documents" issue? Is there a way to map a network drive BEFORE login?
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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Store My Documents locally, then run a daily backup to the network drive. After a reload, just copy My Documents contents from network to local. Do you reload that often that this would be a weekly event?
 

riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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Store My Documents locally, then run a daily backup to the network drive. After a reload, just copy My Documents contents from network to local. Do you reload that often that this would be a weekly event?
Lets say inside "My Documents" I have a folder called "Game1 Save Data". My Documents will grow to be huge (in my case) as it stores a lot of other things.

My Documents local will grow huge where it only would fit into the N54L, not the local HDD. If I want to reload, copying it back would be impossible and I would have to go thru the N54L to find "Game1 Save Data"

That's why I wanted to use the N54L directly as a "drive" instead of just using it as a backup location. Having it as a "drive" gives me that additional laziness.

Use Folder Redirection in group policy.
Can I do this without a domain on Windows 7 Ultimate?
 

riahc3

Senior member
Apr 4, 2014
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Ive tried looking for Folder Redirection on my W7U machine but cannot find it.