All without the complexity of RAID.
What's so complex about RAID. Just plug in the drives, create an array and format. I've never seen a RAID controller that was significantly more complex than using a bunch of bare drives. In many cases, RAID controllers make it easier to manage a bunch of drives. If you are talking about the complexity of managing software RAID under Windows, now we are talking about a problem created by MS. :confused:

If you are using older hardware (like mine) then the C: drive must be the primary IDE. If that is the case, ensure that you have at lease a 300gb, better to have 500gb as that drive.
I don't see the reasoning behind this, especially for a server. I have run Windows NT/2000/XP for 10 years and never had a system drive (C) larger than 30GB. They have rarely been over 50% full, even with a large suite of applications installed. Very large applications and data should always be written to another drive. That way, it is easy to save and restore drive images quickly in the event the system drive fails.

New software solutions have the ability to make full use of drives of different sizes with a redundant file system. (AKA RAID 1/5) That is a big advantage for people who want to recycle old drives. OTOH, I still don't see the advantage to this. Instead of spending $100s on a new system, why not just spend the money on new, larger, more reliable drives for an existing desktop system? :confused:

Robert, could you please excuse yourself from this thread. The purpose of this thread is to discuss WHS and you are simply thread crapping about Microsoft.

Going forward all posts not specifically related to the use or purchase of WHS will be deleted.

Hugh, given the rather modest requirements from MS for WHS, you are not going to need much in the way of computational power or RAM. Even a P3 1 GHz can do WHS (Which is exactly what I plan on using).

I figure with that big beastly 6 port SX6000, the two IDE port on the mobo and an extra USB2.0 card, I will have all of the drive connections I need for some time to come. I have 3 external enclosures and two of them have 4 port USB hubs in them so that will make for a total of 11 USB drives if I buy more enclosures, so I could run up to 19 drives on the one machine! :o

The only thing that will be a real issue for me is breaking away from the way I have things all set up right now. I have RAID 1 on one PC and the most sensitive data is there. Otherwise, I have data all over the place across 4 PCs and about 1.5 TB of space. Time to consolidate!

Yeah I know you don't need a lot of computational power but I would want a MOBO that had good power management, lots of drive connections, proper fans etc.

I think I would rather spend a little extra and get a new low energy consumption CPU. It might cost you a few extra bucks upfront but the power savings over 5 years could be substantial and it would make me feel better knowing my carbon footprint was less!

I would like to clear up the C: drive point I main. The primary drive of the primary IDE controller will be partitioned in a C: drive of 20gb and the remained as D: drive. All other drives with be in the storage pool but you will not see them. When you copy files, they all go to the D: drive and then during idle times, the files are moved and balanced across the storage pool.

Here is a quote from the WHS forums

WHS uses a tool called Drive Extender to "balance" files on drives in the storage pool. The "files" you see in the shares are actually NTFS reparse points (which the team calls "tombstones"). These are "pointers" to the actual files. If you open up a share on WHS which contains files, and you have several drives connected, you can see one of the odd side-effects by right-clicking a file or folder and selecting Properties from the context menu that pops up. You'll see that the file size is right, but the size on disk is 4k (for a single file, some multiple for a folder).

This tool doesn't exist in Windows Server 2003, so you will not be able to achieve the same results

This is the reason that a very large primary drive is recommended.

As for CPU, you do not need much, but you are getting a new MB and CPU, I would recommend the low wattage AMD Athlon 3800+ dual core. I believe that it has a power usage of just 65w. Team that up with a 6 port SATA motherboard and 4 500g SATA HDs, you would have a very efficient 2TB server ready to go.

On the power management side, I would see the fact that you can let your other systems power down or hibernate more readily as a much larger power savings. One of the really neat first add-ins for WHS is a Wake on LAN tool that you can configure to poke systems that you want to do backups of and then let them "fall asleep" again.

Also, there is a X2 3600+ now available in 65W that "might" use even less power. Not sure though. I do know that it costs the least.

BHoward...

What is the deal with the automagic consolidation of all of the drives in a system? Is it doing some bizzare form of data striping like RAID 5?

Rather than just use "old hardware", I think I will get mostly new so I guess my question is what would you buy for such a server? (i.e. mobo, memory, etc)

I want excellent power management and reliability so I'd be interested in thinking what type of UPS would be prudent also for such a beast!
Hugh when it comes to UPS'es my main bit of advice is don't cheap out, esp. if you want rock solid reliability of the thing during extended power "incidents".

I have only ever run APC UPS'es at home and have never had a problem with the power going into my PC, right now I'm running an APC Backup UPS 1250 going on three years, with the load I have on it, I'm estimated to get a 31 minute runtime should the power die.

However, seeing as it is three years since I purchased it at Costco it does mean that its battery replacement time in theory but since my running load is less than 1/3 of the rated max and the battery passes the self test I'm gonna gamble a bit :P

The included software manages the UPS decently enough, I don't know though if WHS will play nice with it or whether an update from APC will be required.

If I had more than one PC regularly in my home, WHS would certainly be worth looking into, at least as far as the specs go.

NefCanuck

One of the really neat first add-ins for WHS is a Wake on LAN tool that you can configure to poke systems that you want to do backups of and then let them "fall asleep" again.

This already happens. 2 of our 3 computer wakes up at midnight, does a backup and then goes back to sleep ... cool ah ...

What is the deal with the automagic consolidation of all of the drives in a system? Is it doing some bizzare form of data striping like RAID 5?

Not any type of RAID 5. From what I understand, the actual D drive contain a point file to where drive/directory of the actual file. If the file is replicated, it has 2 location on different phyiscal drives. If the primary drive fails or hardware failure (raid controller, MB, etc), all the other drives are just plain NTFS drives with no split across any phyical drive.

So in the case of a 10 drive RAID-5 that suffers a 2 drive failure, the entire array is lost. On a 10 drive storage pool, only the files that will be lost
- non replicated files on those drives
- replicated files where both the original and the copy are on both drives.

Regarding UPSs, in a non-critical environment, what I usually recommend is maybe 5 minutes of run-time, and then if the power is still out, an orderly and proper system shutdown. Keeping the server alive while all the client PCs, network hardware, etc. are down just doesn't do much good.

I use APC backup on my PCs. I wasn't really asking about whether to get one so much as I don't know what the draw would be for a machine with six hard drives!

As for CPU, you do not need much, but you are getting a new MB and CPU, I would recommend the low wattage AMD Athlon 3800+ dual core. I believe that it has a power usage of just 65w. Team that up with a 6 port SATA motherboard and 4 500g SATA HDs, you would have a very efficient 2TB server ready to go.

That sounds like the way I might go.

We have 5 PC's running in our home. Can I put all my email accounts on the server and then access my email from any client. The problem I have now with email is that it is scattered around on different computers. Some on my work station, some on the kid’s computers, some on one of my laptops. I want to be able to have everyone’s email on the server so I can access it from any workstation. If WHS allows this I will definitely purchase the product. Or maybe all I need is to store email on a shared volume?

No you will not. I was hoping for that also, but the way Outlook (I presume) handles the files, the files quickly become corrupted on the server. The team is looking at that but it will not be in release 1. This may be a problem for the Office team as Access based systems have the same problem.

If you are not using Outlook, then it make be OK.

One user suggested that the Outlook program be wrapped in a bat file that copies the .PST file from server to local drive. When Outlook exits, continue with a copy back to the server. This may work with small PST files.

Hugh

With my system an 13 HD's and a P4 , i draw just over 210w.

No you will not. I was hoping for that also, but the way Outlook (I presume) handles the files, the files quickly become corrupted on the server.

Really???

I do this at home with two machines that use Outlook 2003 and each machine points to a shared location. On top of that, there are 4 separate profiles for the 4 separate e-mail accounts that we have (On each PC). The only issue that I have ever run into is when you leave Outlook up on one PC and try to open that same account from the other PC. If this is done, you simply get the classic file is open/can't open exclusively type error message.

Now I will agree that Outlook 2002 and older are prone to self destructing their PST files. Fortunately, the 2003 PST file format is a lot better.

I use APC backup on my PCs. I wasn't really asking about whether to get one so much as I don't know what the draw would be for a machine with six hard drives!



That sounds like the way I might go.
Hrm, well, I'm not an expert but I would say six HD's assuming that somehow all could be accessed at once would be a pretty hefty draw on the computer PSU.

I would suggest a minimum of 500W, which would cut your UPS runtime down drastically (With mine it would likely knock it down to under 10 minutes, still enough to shut things down properly though)

NefCanuck

I do this at home with two machines that use Outlook 2003 and each machine points to a shared location.
I was thinking the same thing earlier that you should be able to do that but I your configuration and rules aren't saved in the .pst are they.

The Outlook thing is kind of off-topic so if you wish to continue discussion, please start a new thread. thanks!

The Outlook thing is kind of off-topic so if you wish to continue discussion, please start a new thread. thanks!

No prob!

I don't know what the draw would be for a machine with six hard drives!
I have an HTPC with 5 hard drives and 2 9200s on a $99 APC 650VA UPS. It registers less than 50% load. Hard drives typically take less than 10w, 15w under full load. 6 hard drives take less power than a CPU, most video cards or a typical LCD monitor. Choosing a high efficiency power supply, low power CPU, low power video card (or built in video on a low power motherboard) and omitting a dedicated monitor can create a server that consumes less power than typical desktop PCs.

I would caution against using a lot of external drives. They will be a more likely point of failure and will consume more power than hard drives built into a PC case. They also won't benefit from the PC's power management capabilities.

in the case of a 10 drive RAID-5 that suffers a 2 drive failure, the entire array is lost.
This is not a likely occurrence. Most RAID5 controllers offer smart drive monitoring that warns of impending drive failure as well.

On a 10 drive storage pool, only the files that will be lost
- non replicated files on those drives
But the non-replicated files will be lost so backups are still necessary, essentially doubling drive space and requiring lengthy backup/restoration procedures.

- replicated files where both the original and the copy are on both drives.
Also not likely. However, replication is very inefficient, doubling the required drive space for all replicated files. RAID5, in comparison, only requires an extra drive, regardless of the number of files that are recoverable (essentially the same as replicated.) RAID 5 only requires 33% overhead for a 4 drive array or 14% overhead for an 8 drive array, to parity protect (essentially replicate) all files on disk. Disk controller failure is another issue... but redundant, self correcting, RAID5 disk controllers are also available.

The chances of a 2 drive failure in a raid 5 are equal to a 2 drive failure in WHS. Both are very unlikely ... All mission critical data must be backup, even on Raid-5 systems.

Replication is not very effecient for any large data repository but for home use when 2 x 500 GB drive would hold the data for a family of four for 10 years is not a big deal and much easier to manage.

Please remember the target of this OS. It is to be used in a HOME ENVIRONMENT as an easy to setup/use for J6P. These uses may not know or care about RAID-5 advantages, will not have access to backup devices, etc etc. Replication for home use is a excellent trade off bewteen easy of use and spaces usage.

The power requirement for any 7200RPM hard drive is indeed 10 watts as I_Want_My_HDTV has stated. So 6 HD's will eat 60watts from you PSU ... peanuts really.

I was running a Sempron 2800+, Asus MB, ATI 9200, 2 x IDE RAID, 15 harddrives, CD on a 430w PSU with no problems.

The chances of a 2 drive failure in a raid 5 are equal to a 2 drive failure in WHS. Both are very unlikely ...
Actually, this has shown to be not the case. A number of recent studies regarding hard disk failures show that RAID 5 is not necessarily as robust as previously thought:
http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
Here's a more concise summary of the key points:
http://storagemojo.com/?p=383
Another article showing that mean time to failure for hard drives is less than manufacturers advertise:
http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder.html
Most RAID5 controllers offer smart drive monitoring that warns of impending drive failure as well.
A paper by some guys at Google showed that SMART parameters alone are unlikely to be useful for predicting individual drive failures:
http://209.85.163.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf
While none of this means that conventional setups are ineffective, it suggests that storage technologies in the future will have different architectures (as seen by Drive Extender in WHS and things like DFS in Windows Server). In all likelihood, in the future we will simply pool drives on a machine (or multiple machines) accessing them as a single virtual drive and then set a level of redundancy as parameter that will determine the net amount of space available.

Off topic on RAID...

The only good choice for fault tolerance and performance is RAID 10. There are other nested RAID configs that are better but they are WAY out of the league of home users.

WHS is targetted at HOME people. Us crazy "propeller heads" are already capable of providing fairly robust solutions for ourselves. What WHS DOES provide us PHers is the ability to put simple, yet effective solutions in place for the normal people of the world.

I say that the most aggressive WHS solution that should be done for the average house is a 4 x 500GB in RAID 10. That way, there is ample storage and double the fault tolerance for WHEN the average J6Per does not replace a failed drive fast enough. Where most motherboards have 4 x SATA2 and do RAID 10 natively, there is minimal hardware to buy.

The only other RAID config I would entertain for a home user would be a 4 drive RAID 5 with a hot spare.