Hard config on WHS 2011

thestrangebrew

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Apr 30, 2010
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I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a few HDDs for my WHS 2011 setup. Right now I have 1tb samsung spinpoint drive that's storing data with no other means to back anything up. I was thinking of picking up 2-3 HDDs and throwing them in there, maybe an external drive to backup the actual server. What I was thinking of doing is this:

1. Use the existing samsung for the OS (It's currently not partitioned) and use the remaining for storage
2. Use 1tb hd for my media files
3. Use 1tb for client pc backups (3 clients)
4. Use 1tb (internal or external) to backup the server itself.

Is this a logical setup? What HDDs would you guys recommend? I'm leary about spending the $ and all the horror stories about how HDDs are failing. Personally, I've yet to have one fail on me and I've used several different brands from Maxtor - Samsung, but it's been about 2 yrs since I've purchased one. The other thing is I've never bought an external HDD before either.

I'm also considering RAID but that's a whole new venture that I'm a complete noob at. Would a RAID config. be a better config. for my WHS setup?

Thanks.
 
Solution
WHS is a weird program and it acts similar to a Z-Pool. When you add HDDs it will 'intelligently' spread the files over multiple drives, and write in its own redundancy. As you fill up the drives it will remove the redundancy in order to make space for the new files.

The nice thing about this is that you do not need to set up a RAID, or worry too much about HDD failures. The bad thing is that you have no way of telling which drives have what information, and what information is redundant, and what information is sitting all alone. I would highly suggest doing an occasional 'file copy' style backup of your media (not system backups) to an external HDD that is generally left turned off, unplugged, and in a safe location. Other than...
WHS is a weird program and it acts similar to a Z-Pool. When you add HDDs it will 'intelligently' spread the files over multiple drives, and write in its own redundancy. As you fill up the drives it will remove the redundancy in order to make space for the new files.

The nice thing about this is that you do not need to set up a RAID, or worry too much about HDD failures. The bad thing is that you have no way of telling which drives have what information, and what information is redundant, and what information is sitting all alone. I would highly suggest doing an occasional 'file copy' style backup of your media (not system backups) to an external HDD that is generally left turned off, unplugged, and in a safe location. Other than that I would just plug them in and let Windows manage it for you... that why you paid for it instead of using a free micro-manageable OS like FreeNAS.
 
Solution

thestrangebrew

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Apr 30, 2010
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How is drive extender different from Z-Pool? I'm obviously unfamiliar with either of them but from your description above, I thought spreading data over mult. drives was what DE did.

At any rate, I'll def. be getting an ext. hdd to backup my server and get a few internal hdds to add to my build and play around with their settings on the server. Any HDDs you guys recommend for 1+TBs?