WHS question regarding Hard Drives

[joe_H]

I'm putting together a home server primarily for client computer backups, streaming dvd/blu-ray rips to a WD LIVE box, and running a PlayOn server to the same WD box.

I was thinking about putting WHS on the server, but I absolutely hate the idea of hard drive pooling. I want all of my drives to be seperate, and function as if they have drive lettering. I basically want full control on what drive a particular piece of data or backup is stored. I also want the freedom of removing a drive without having to rebuild the pool or possible data loss.

Is this even possible? Can all the drives be independant of each other, or should I stick with something more like Windows 7 Ultimate with shared folders enabled?

Thanks.

 

[Griffinhart]

WHS will not let you have "full control" of where stuff will be. I have to ask. What benefit do you seek to gain by not using pooled drives?

You can certainly use shared drives on a Windows 7 machine or any other OS and use a local back up program to back up your data, but you would lose some of the primary benefits that WHS brings.

-The Equivilant to Data De-Duplication, for example. How much disk space do you want to waste on backing up identicle data from several machines?

-The ability to restore individial files and systems from practically any point without wasting Terebytes of disk space. I can do a full system restore on 6 different systems I have, to anypoint in the last 22 months (when I got my home server) and I am using 576GB to do that. To accomplish that by mapping a drive and backing up those systems to a shared folder would take an order of magnitude more disk space.

-The ability to centrally manage your backups. Ok, you can get a centrally managed back up system, but it would be a lot more espensive than a WHS.

I use my server for daily backups and a centrally located place for streaming media from. I have removed and added drives to it several times and have never had data loss as a result of doing so. My "mission critical" data is contained in folders that are duplicated in case of drive failure.

The only thing more that I would love to see out of my WHS is a Mozy or Carbonite client so I can automatically back up critical data to the cloud.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

As far as I know this is not possible on WHS.

The entire point of WHS is that it is a fire and forget type setup. You turn it on, and it just does it's thing.

If you want more control, you need a full Windows Server or Linux.

 

[joe_H]

WHS will not let you have "full control" of where stuff will be. I have to ask. What benefit do you seek to gain by not using pooled drives?

You can certainly use shared drives on a Windows 7 machine or any other OS and use a local back up program to back up your data, but you would lose some of the primary benefits that WHS brings.

-The Equivilant to Data De-Duplication, for example. How much disk space do you want to waste on backing up identicle data from several machines?

-The ability to restore individial files and systems from practically any point without wasting Terebytes of disk space. I can do a full system restore on 6 different systems I have, to anypoint in the last 22 months (when I got my home server) and I am using 576GB to do that. To accomplish that by mapping a drive and backing up those systems to a shared folder would take an order of magnitude more disk space.

-The ability to centrally manage your backups. Ok, you can get a centrally managed back up system, but it would be a lot more espensive than a WHS.

I use my server for daily backups and a centrally located place for streaming media from. I have removed and added drives to it several times and have never had data loss as a result of doing so. My "mission critical" data is contained in folders that are duplicated in case of drive failure.

The only thing more that I would love to see out of my WHS is a Mozy or Carbonite client so I can automatically back up critical data to the cloud.

Fair enough points. There will only be two clients hooked up to this machine (my main machine, and a small machine used by my wife). My machine would have a large backup, while my wife probably doesn't use more than 25GB on her drive. Space for backups doesn't concern me as storage space is dirt cheap. My main concern with pooled drives is if one of the drives goes bad, how do I know what's on a particular drive at that point in time? What is the best way of replacing a failed drive without data loss? Up to now, I've just been keeping Acronis images of the two systems on an external drive.

I was going to put the OS on an old 320GB drive, and use a 2TB drive for storage, with a second 2TB drive as a copy of the first.

My other concern was with running a PlayOn server. I've found posts of people getting it to run by tearing apart a Media Player 11 install, and putting specific components of it onto WMS in order to get it to run. I was just wondering if 7 would be an easier alternative.

Any more imput is definitely appreciated.

 

[RebateMonger]

As noted, many of WHS' unique features are dependent on the "drive pool" concept. WHS' client backups are first-class and definitely need those pooled drives.

As a file server, WHS does have some weaknesses, such as maybe not knowing exactly which files were lost if disaster strikes. If you enable WHS' "folder redundancy", however, the odds of losing shared folders to a disk failure go down drastically. Folder redundancy requires pooled disks. WHS has recovery procedures for replacing a failed disk (either the System disk or Data disks) without data loss if you have folder redundancy enabled.

Generally speaking, if you want client PC backups and only have a couple of Terabytes of shared folders, then the easiest way is to use WHS with a couple of large pooled drives running in "folder redundancy" mode. If you have larger quantities of shared data, you'll want to take a closer look at the best way - for you - to insure against data loss. There's no "perfect" file server that is large, fast, safe, and cheap. Only compromises.

I don't know the current status of Carbonite or Mozy on WHS. What I have done in the past is to keep "ultra-critical data" on a client PC, install Carbonite on that PC, and also have WHS back up the client PC. That gives you three independent copies of your data, including full previous versions on the WHS backups.

I prefer Carbonite for this because Carbonite lets you schedule backup start and stop times. You want to set the Carbonite backup times so that you'll never run into both Carbonite AND WHS trying to do backups at the same time. Simultaneous Windows VSS backups can cause issues because both backup applications try to lock up the files at the same time. Last I checked, Mozy's scheduler didn't have an option for a backup "stop" time.

 

[Griffinhart]

Fair enough points. There will only be two clients hooked up to this machine (my main machine, and a small machine used by my wife). My machine would have a large backup, while my wife probably doesn't use more than 25GB on her drive. Space for backups doesn't concern me as storage space is dirt cheap. My main concern with pooled drives is if one of the drives goes bad, how do I know what's on a particular drive at that point in time? What is the best way of replacing a failed drive without data loss? Up to now, I've just been keeping Acronis images of the two systems on an external drive.

I was going to put the OS on an old 320GB drive, and use a 2TB drive for storage, with a second 2TB drive as a copy of the first.

WHS addresses this a little. While it's not a mirror of a drive or a raid set up, It does the job pretty well. You can set individual shares to duplicate. in the event of a drive failure, any data that is set to duplicate will be protected. Consider it partial mirroring. In addition, you can add additional drives to a WHS that are used to backup the data on the server as well.

In my case, I have 4 1.5 TB drives in my WHS. I have a TB of Data in all of my Shared folders and 750 GB of that is duplicated so that if a drive fails, I don't lose them. 600GB of the storage is used by my PC backups. A very long history of backups spanning a year and a half. I'm not even tapping half of my total storage space on the server, yet I have protection in case a drive fails.

Because I'm paranoid, I also have a 2TB External drive attached that I use to back up the server itself. In the event of the Server dying or somehow losing all 4 drives, I can still restore all my user data. Notably, PC backups are not a part of that. But any user data stored in the shared folders of the server.

There are also plug-ins available to back up user data to the Amazon S3 service.

I also use a plug in to monitor the SMART data from my hard drives. So, if there are any signs of an impending failure, I can do something about it.

My other concern was with running a PlayOn server. I've found posts of people getting it to run by tearing apart a Media Player 11 install, and putting specific components of it onto WMS in order to get it to run. I was just wondering if 7 would be an easier alternative.

One of the great things about WHS is that it is, at its core, a Windows Server. The current version is based on Windows Server 2003 and the next version, Vail, will be based on Windows Server 2008. You can use just about any product or method you want to stream content. You can use the built in stuff or you can use your favorite software. When Vail is finished and released it's going to have some fantastic media handling with it.

Any more imput is definitely appreciated.

Obviously, I'm a huge WHS fan. It is just such an awesome product, I can't praise it enough. I use the HP Media Smart Server but you can build your own box as well.

One thing about WHS is that it is extremely easy to set up and maintain while at the same time being almost as sophisticated and flexible as a full network operating system.

Other than the basic Backup/restore and network sharing functions it has great remote access of your data and desktops using HTTPS. I use the remote access abilities daily from work or school.

I have used the restore features a few times. I had a hard drive failure on my primary PC. Having the system back to fully usable and exactly as it was the day before in about an hour was wonderful.

I've used it to upgrade my laptops hard drive. I just restored the last back up to the new, larger HD and was done.

The biggest save was in restoring my music collection. I was playing with some Data Sync software so I could keep my music collection (about 500 CD's mostly ripped by hand from my physical collection) up to date on all of my local systems. Something went wrong and it corrupted every MP3 file I had, and replicated the corruption to all of my systems. WHS let me get that back in no time by pulling it from a backup prior to the disaster.

I can go on and on about WHS, and I already have.

You can get an evaluation version for free:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx

or the free beta version of Vail here:
http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

Throw a copy on an old box or in a VM and play around with it. See if you can live with the features and see what you can do to add to its functionality. If you find you don't like it, nothing lost.

Some good resources.

http://homeservershow.com/
http://mswhs.com/
http://www.wegotserved.com/

All have links and reviews to add-ons, hardware etc. There is some good info and advice to be had on their forums too.

 

[Griffinhart]

I don't know the current status of Carbonite or Mozy on WHS. What I have done in the past is to keep "ultra-critical data" on a client PC, install Carbonite on that PC, and also have WHS back up the client PC. That gives you three independent copies of your data, including full previous versions on the WHS backups.

I prefer Carbonite for this because Carbonite lets you schedule backup start and stop times. You want to set the Carbonite backup times so that you'll never run into both Carbonite AND WHS trying to do backups at the same time. Simultaneous Windows VSS backups can cause issues because both backup applications try to lock up the files at the same time. Last I checked, Mozy's scheduler didn't have an option for a backup "stop" time.

Unfortunately, Neither Carbonite or Mozy support WHS yet... in the mean time, I use Carbonite on my primary desktop in addition to the WHS backup.

 

[MotF Bane]

OP, what you want is what I have. I have a total of seven drives in my WHS machine. The 250 runs the OS, the basic shares, and backups. Each other drive has its own drive letters, and I maintain the files myself.

Open the home network, Liberty (the server's name) is automatically detected by 7. I set a shortcut on my G15 keyboard to open //Liberty, and that pulls up the pictured window. Folders Mom through Videos are on the 250 GB D:/ drive. Only Public and Mom actually have any files; Public is where I put things until I sort them. That is the only drawback of this - I cannot move the files into E through J from here, I have to Remote Desktop into it and move them from there. Remote Desktop is a snap, open the Windows 7 RD screen, type in the server's network name, and you're there.

 

[joe_H]

Thanks for the responses. Pleased to hear from WHS users who have confirmed their data security. Sounds like I'll have to give it a shot.

Edit: Bane...are you saying that you have the 250GB as a backup drive, with the rest of the drives pooled, or are they all backkup drives? If they're all backup drives, does WHS have an issue running workstation backups to a non-pooled drive? I also thought the connector software was supposed to be installed to use in lieu of remote desktop. Does remote desktop work as well as the connector software installed?

 

[MotF Bane]

Thanks for the responses. Pleased to hear from WHS users who have confirmed their data security. Sounds like I'll have to give it a shot.

Edit: Bane...are you saying that you have the 250GB as a backup drive, with the rest of the drives pooled, or are they all backkup drives? If they're all backup drives, does WHS have an issue running workstation backups to a non-pooled drive? I also thought the connector software was supposed to be installed to use in lieu of remote desktop. Does remote desktop work as well as the connector software installed?

The 250GB is the main WHS drive. It is effectively a pool drive, except it is alone. It is the only one that has the special features of WHS. The other six hard drives, E-J, are data drives, just like they would be for any other computer. I do not use the connector software, remote desktop is far more effective imo.

 

[joe_H]

The 250GB is the main WHS drive. It is effectively a pool drive, except it is alone. It is the only one that has the special features of WHS. The other six hard drives, E-J, are data drives, just like they would be for any other computer. I do not use the connector software, remote desktop is far more effective imo.

Nice. That may just be the route I'm looking for. Do you run the automated backup utility to any of the drives?

 

[MotF Bane]

Nice. That may just be the route I'm looking for. Do you run the automated backup utility to any of the drives?

Nope. I have less than 50 GB of data that I feel is important enough to manually duplicate to another drive; everything else goes singular. It can be replaced if the worst happens.

 

[RebateMonger]

If they're all backup drives, does WHS have an issue running workstation backups to a non-pooled drive?

WHS won't be able to store client PC backups on any drive that isn't a member of the drive pool. With only a single disk in WHS, all of the client PC backups will have to fit on that disk. Also, the Client Connection software is what allows the client PCs to be backed up.

The Client Connector also provides useful information like the health status of the server and the client PCs, whether backups are working properly, and warns of low disk space on the WHS server.

 

[TheKub]

I had that concern that I wouldn't know where my files are when I started my WHS. It was uneasy but once I started using it I loved the simplicity! I just manage shares and not drives, all of my shares are duplicated so a single failure wont cause dataloss.

As for your concerns about not having the freedom to pull a drive or havin to rebuild after a failure you dont have to worry. If you have 6 drives in a pool and want to replace one simply tell WHS to remove it from the pool, it will automatically move the data and the copies to the other drives, when its done you pull the drive. Also if you ever have a drive that goes south there is nothing to worry provided you have duplication enabled as WHS will know the drive is down and start making new copies of all the files that where on the bad drive.

I guess the only thing you loose is if all your drives are at capacity and you want to pull a drive WHS wont be able to duplicate everything, but since your data should be duplicated it shouldnt be a problem to yank the drive and replace it and WHS will just treat it as a drive failure and restore the copies when you add the new drive to the pool.

 

[BTA]

I don't know if anyone has commented on PlayOn yet but I run it on my WHS box without issue.

You just RDC into it the WHS box and install it like you would on any other OS.

I also second what TheKub has said.

WHS has been the most stable and easiest server setup I've ran personally, I can't recommend it enough.

 

[joe_H]

Thanks for all the input. I downloaded the trial version and fired it up into VMWare last night. It seems fairly intuitive and simple to use. I also managed to install PlayOn into the VM copy and was able to stream it over my LAN to the WD Live, so that eases my concern about it not working.

Now I just have to try and find a good sale on it. ()

 

[TheKub]

Now I just have to try and find a good sale on it. ()

Short of a blanket X off X coupon at some site I havnt really seen it for much less than the typical $90.

 

[nerp]

If a drive goes bad in a WHS pool, WHS will tell you when it starts to detect problems and allows you to remove it from the pool. Any data on it will be moved to other drive if it isn't stuff stored in a duplicated folder already. Then you just add a replacement drive and the pool expands back onto the new drive. The flexible storage is excellent. I have 4 drives running and have everything on the server duplicated. I'm not worried about HD failure at all. Unless all four drives go at once, I'm covered.