Windows Home Server Megathread 2.0 - This is why we can't have nice things

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Windows Home Server Megathread 2.0 - This is why we can't have nice things

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

WHS looks really cool. It also gives me something to do with all the parts I'll have left over after my next upgrade!

# ¿ Apr 20, 2010 23:30

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 12:49

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Would 2k3 x64 drivers work on 2k8?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2010 23:58

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

I have Vista x64 running now, so fingers crossed.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 00:16

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

BorderPatrol posted:

If you really want to use the externals you can set them up as backup drives to the WHS pool, and backup selected files when plugged in. They won't be duplicated at all times (meaning if one of your drives goes out you're SOL), but you'd be able to have backups stored on the externals. But you'd basically have none of the main benefits from WHS and might as well run Windows 2000.

Would I be able to back up select folders using my eSATA dock? Right now I back up my main PC using Acronis and I know that throwing a bunch of drives in WHS only keeps a given file in at most two places at once.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2010 08:13

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

JnnyThndrs posted:

You can use an external drive(eSATA or USB) as either a pooled drive or a "normal" external drive, used for backups and such. It's generally not wise to use external drives as pooled drives, though, because if one gets unplugged, it throws the whole drive pool into massive chaos, WHS thinks a drive failed. USB is particularly bad for this.

That said, I don't have enough drive bays in my WHS box, so I use external eSATA drives in the pool without any problems in 18 months.

Thanks for the answer. I would definitely use it as an external backup drive and not a pooled drive since even WD Green Power drives are loud as hell outside the case. What I don't like about my Vantec dock is that it seems to hang the whole system while it brings the drive online so hopefully WHS doesn't flip out whenever I use it.

Man I am just going to be piling TB drives into this thing when I build my new gaming machine. Maybe I can get away without a secondary storage drive in my main machine!

# ¿ Apr 25, 2010 19:32

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Do I want a small drive for the OS / secondary programs or does WHS figure that out automatically?

My current board has Win7 x64 drivers so I'm hoping I can re-use it for WHS Vail.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Apr 25, 2010

# ¿ Apr 25, 2010 20:16

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

kri kri posted:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3677/windows-home-server-v2-vail-beta-drive-extender-v2-dissected

Good article.

It's odd that MS went block-based instead of file-based for the drive extender since there have been huge benefits to going the opposite direction for their OS installs. It does sound like a large improvement even if the ability to pull drives out of the volume and read them in another PC is gone, but the way files are now in distributed "chunks" turns the whole thing into JBoD. It's also funny that they mention MS has put out ZFS-Lite after Sun has been cooking away on it for... how many years?

How much does a good RAID-5 card cost?

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Apr 28, 2010

# ¿ Apr 28, 2010 19:26

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 12:49

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

LinuxGirl87 posted:

Good to know. It'll be quicker to rip (legally owned disk media, naturally) to the 10K drive and copy it to the "slow" shares (still gobsmacked that 7200 RPM is now "slow" ) rather than having to write directly to them.

If you're ripping disc media the optical drive is the bottleneck.

# ¿ May 6, 2010 02:54

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