WHS v1 - folder duplication or RAID 5?

[VirtualLarry]

I'm building a WHS, almost ready to load the six 2TB HDs. I have an existing 4-in-3 drive cage, with 4 500GB WD HDs in RAID5, running on a 3114 PCI SATA controller from SI.
I was originally going to flash with the IDE firmware, and then let WHS handle the drives in the pool, but then I remembered that WHS can use other drives, and just not add them to the pool, and you can still share folders on those drives out on the network. (Which also makes me wonder if I could use a 3TB drive like that, because I think Server 2003 handles GPT disks, as long as I don't put them in the pool (because it formats to Basic MBR partition then))

So I was wondering if I would benefit from the hardware redundancy, by leaving the RAID5 intact, and installing the RAID drivers into WHS v1, and using that array for personal data.

 

[nanaki333]

when it comes to home media storage, i had to start over 3 times due to drive failure. once in a WHS, once with an iomega NAS, once with a lacie NAS. i prefer to go at least raid5 whenever possible. currently using 4 drives in raid5 with freeNAS and it's been solid for over a year now 🙂

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, that's kind of what I was worrying about, but also considering that folder duplication in WHS, is pretty wasteful of storage space. With 4x500GB RAID5, I would get 1.5TB of space for my stuff, out of 2TB total space. With folder duplication, that same 1.5TB of useful space would cost me 3TB of total HD space.

To be honest, I'm kind of leaning towards UNRAID server, due to the storage efficiency, but I don't think it offers drive pooling, does it? WHS and Amahi offer drive pooling. I really want drive pooling too.

 

[imaheadcase]

DOnt' raid with WHS, let it do its thing. I've had whs v1 since release, got 8TB of data on it now never had a problem. Why raid a server when you are bandwidth limited on network you access it from? 😛

 

[Bish]

On the other hand I said no to folder duplication and went straight RAID5 a few years ago on whsv1. Never had a problem. When I built my WHS2011 server I went RAID6. As long as you still backup important data.

 

[kmmatney]

I had a lot of problems trying to get WHS working with RAID before giving up, and just letting it do its thing without RAID and folder duplication. I was trying to use on-board RAID, and that probably didn't help. I'm happy with folder duplication, though.

 

[Old Hippie]

WHS and Amahi offer drive pooling.

Are you talking about the ability to add any drive size to the system?

If so, WHS V1 has it but the new version doesn't.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I had the system disk die on my WHS, so now I run a RAID 5 array off of an Areca RAID controller for the system disk, and all other disks attached to the system. Been running fine now for years. System is currently at 22TB with no problems.

 

[Emulex]

whats the throughput on read for that system F. Chocobo? how about viability to use as wtv storage pool and stream blu-ray iso's?

 

[Old Hippie]

I had the system disk die on my WHS, so now I run a RAID 5 array off of an Areca RAID controller for the system disk, and all other disks attached to the system. Been running fine now for years. System is currently at 22TB with no problems.

WoW!

That's very cool! :thumbsup:

 

[thorin33]

I had the system disk die on my WHS, so now I run a RAID 5 array off of an Areca RAID controller for the system disk, and all other disks attached to the system. Been running fine now for years. System is currently at 22TB with no problems.

Do you have a write-up of how you did this? Is this possible on an ex495?

 

[taltamir]

WHS is buggy as hell, it will lose your data.
RAID5 is has some flaws, its not as bad as WHS but its not good either.

Get ZFS RAIDz2 (RAID6 equivalent with all the bugs fixed, combined with ZFS file system for extra data security).

 

[Old Hippie]

WHS is buggy as hell, it will lose your data.

I can only speak about Ver.1 and while I did have my fair share of problems "lost" data has never been a problem.

Unlike V2 these disks can be read by any OS that can read NTFS.

Besides that, the thread's @ 6 months old. 🙂

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Do you have a write-up of how you did this? Is this possible on an ex495?

It was quite simple, really. Setup RAID 5 array in Areca firmware, then install the OS onto that. System had no problems. After that, adding disks as you would to any other WHS system. Only the "boot" disk is in the RAID configuration, so the 20gb partition plus whatever is left (1500-2). I used 750gb hard drives so that the system wouldn't have issues with hard drive volumes over 2TB.

I haven't done any throughput testing, but I can if needed. I've also been upgrading my internal network to 2Gb and utilizing separate subnets so that internet only devices don't have access to the LAN systems.

EDIT: And I should mention, I am now having issues with my WHS server, although it has nothing to do with the RAID configuration. Something wrong with a client machine or the network...