I’m always looking at hard drives and ways that I can expand my storage capacity to better organize my systems and backups of those systems. The following is not strictly a review of the FreeAgent GoFlex 4TB or the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card but more of a chronology of how well they work in my systems and a few basic performance ratings.

Not long ago I noticed that Amazon had a price of $229 on Seagate’s FreeAgent GoFlex 4TB External Desk Drive STAC4000100. More recently, I’ve seen prices for the GoFlex 4TB hover just above $200. Always before I considered myself a Western Digital fan boy but after testing the Seagate ST3000DM01 in my MicroServer I’ve been substantially more open minded about exploring off the Western Digital reservation.

What I found very intriguing about the 4TB GoFlex was that at its core was the 4TB Seagate Barracuda XT ST4000X000 SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive that was, and still is, selling at a substantially higher price than the 4TB GoFlex when it is sold as a bare drive outside the external case. There is a video out that gives step by step instructions on how to remove the enclosure/casing from around the ST4000X000 so that it can be used inside a desktop – which obviously violated the warranty on the GoFlex. Removing the ST4000X000 from the GoFlex housing is beyond the scope of this paper.

I ordered the GoFlex 4TB intending to try it out on several of my machines. I also ordered Western Digital’s USB 3.0 PCIe Card which would fit perfectly inside my MicroServer.

The Seagate GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0

The GoFlex 4TB Unpacked

After the GoFlex 4TB arrived I unpacked it and set it up. I first attached it to the USB 3.0 port on the back of my X58.

The GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0 attached to the GA-X58A-UD3R USB 3.0 ports on back and powered up

I powered up the GoFlex 4TB. My X58 saw it right away. I opened up Windows Explorer and check out the directory.

While I didn’t try it in this exercise — the GoFlex 4TB comes supplied with software to set up automatic backups to the GoFlex 4TB. I’m sure their software is good – it just wasn’t the reason I bought the GoFlex 4TB to try out and I already have a backup solution that I am using.

Directory of what is on the GoFlex 4TB as seen in Windows Explorer

A detailed directory view of what came on the GoFlex 4TB in Windows Explorer

Checking out the Properties of the GoFlex 4TB it showed the available capacity on the 4TB drive as 4TB (less some space being used by the included Seagate software mentioned above).

Properties of the GoFlex 4TB

As shown below the performance of the GoFlex 4TB (and the underlying ST4000X000) on the USB 3.0 with reads and writes around 170 MB/sec.

ATTO performance of GoFlex 4TB on X58 USB 3.0 rear Port

I next moved the GoFlex 4TB to one of the USB 3.0 ports on the back of my Z68 and got similar results that I had achieved with the X58’s 3.0 ports, i.e. reads and writes between 160 & 180 MB/sec.

While the GoFlex 4TB was attached to the Z68’s USB 3.0 port I copied about 400GB of files to the GoFlex 4TB over about a 70 minute time period.

Atto performance of GoFlex 4TB on Z68 USB 3.0 rear Port

Western Digital’s USB 3.0 PCIe Card in a MicroServer

I mentioned earlier that I also picked up a WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card to try out in my MicroServer. The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card arrived in a plain box. The Card comes with a drivers disk that you install before you install the PCIe Card. I installed the drivers onto the host operating system on my MicroServer which is Windows Server 2008-R2.

The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card and Driver Install Disk

Installing WD Driver onto the MicroServer using an external USB drive

The MicroServer powered down and placed on grounding mat -- preparing to remove the motherboard/system-board

After installing the Western Digital drivers for the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card I powered down the MicroServer, unplugged it, and moved it to my workbench and set it onto a grounding mat. I then attached a ground strap to myself and began taking the MicroServer apart. You’ll observer in the first picture below (left) that the dual Intel NIC that I had installed earlier has been replaced by a single NIC Intel card. In the second picture below (right) we see the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card installed in the Mother Board, or System Board, of the MicroServer.

Below (left) we see the MicroServer Mother Board from the back with both PCIe Cards installed and the card NIC and USB connection ports clearly visible. Below (right) is a top view of the MicroServer Mother Board with the cards installed.

Installing a second PCIe card into the MicroServer was problematic in one respect because by filling up both slots I lost my empty slot to run my cable (see lower left picture) from my eSATA port on the back of the MicroServer into the case to plug into the WD Green drive in the ODD in the top of the MicroServer.

The solution I found was to bend the bracket, also known as the PCI holder, that anchors the top of the PCI brackets 1 & 2 to the case. Just a “slight” bend was all that was necessary and is clearly visible in the lower (right) picture. Another option I considered was to use a dermal to make a new hole in the case for the cable – bending the bracket, PCI holder, was easier and probably the better solution in my estimate.

Below, the Western Digital software successfully installed onto the MicroServer before opening up the MicroServer and installing the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card.

WD drivers installed for USB 3.0 PCIe Card

Below, is the performance of the GoFlex 4TB using the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card in the MicroServer. The read and write speeds are just over 140 MB/sec which is roughly 30 MB/sec worse than the performance achieved with the USB 3.0 ports that are available on the X58 and Z68 boards tested earlier.

ATTO performance of GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0 with WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card mounted in MicroServer

The performance in the MicroServer is respectable for the GoFlex 4TB with the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card though it doesn’t measure up to the performance I saw with the Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001 when it was directly installed to a SATA II port inside the MicroServer.

Compared to a directly installed ST3000DM001 the GoFlex 4TB has the additional overhead of the WD USB 3.0 interface card as well as the interface of the Seagate external enclosure USB 3.0 to SATA base. Compared to the GoFlex 4TB’s performance in the X58 and the Z68 the WD USB 3.0 card in the MicroServer is apparently not as fast as the direct motherboard USB 3.0 connections on the X58 and Z68.

USB 2.0 Performance Comparisons

For comparison, I check the performance of the GoFlex 4TB when plugged into one of the USB 2.0 ports in the MicroServer. The ATTO performance charts below show that the GoFlex 4TB’s performance when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card (below left) was about five times the performance when it was attached to a USB 2.0 port (below right) on the MicroServer.

Next I compared the relative performance of the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card to the USB 2.0 ports in the MicroServer by attaching a WD 2TB Elements USB 2.0 External disk. Surprisingly to me, the WD 2TB Elements USB 2.0 External Disk performed slightly better when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card (below right) versus the USB 2.0 port (below left) on the MicroServer.

Conclusion

In the short time that I’ve used it the GoFlex 4TB has been reliable and relatively fast low cost mass storage. The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card provides a low cost option of attaching 2 external devices to my MicroServer – in the case of the GoFlex 4TB – I could add 2 GoFlex 4TB’s for a total of 8TB of additional storage on my MicroServer. I could do likewise with my Z68 and X58 machines.

Bottom line: I like the GoFlex 4TB. I’m impressed with its ease of use and its speed for an external drive and of course I’m impressed by its massive capacity. I also like the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card – it expands my options with my MicroServer (the MicroServer is not built with any USB 3.0 ports) and it is an option for adding additional USB 3.0 ports to my other machines. It was interesting to observer that a regular USB 2.0 external drive performed about 16% better when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card versus a USB 2.0 port in the MicroServer.

The big question remains: how would the Seagate ST4000X000 that makes up the core of the GoFlex 4TB perform on it’s own as a bare drive directly connected to a SATA III or SATA II port?

Answering that question will have to wait till the next installment (Part 2) of this report.

Zalman (http://www.zalman.com/eng/main.asp) is pretty well known for their computer accessories, particularly their CPU and GPU cooling products. Over the past few years they have expanded their line to include cases, power supplies, VGA cards, hard disk enclosures, and others.

Recently, Zalman released a 2.5” hard drive enclosure that brings a new wrinkle to the genre. The VE200 enclosure, in addition to providing the usual USB hard disk features, has the ability to act as a virtual CD/DVD drive.

What is the point of a virtual CD/DVD drive? Well, if you load .ISO files onto the drive in the enclosure, it can mount them and present them to a computer as if they are real CDs or DVDs. Imagine being able to have all your installation CDs/DVDs on one device and to use a small LCD display to pick and choose which one you want to use — pick an ISO, mount it as a CD or DVD, and boot the computer from it exactly as if it was in a physical CD/DVD drive. At the very least it greatly simplifies installing Operating Systems on devices like netbooks that have no Optical Disk Drive.

REQUIREMENTS

There are a few requirements in order to obtain a working VE200 setup:

1. The VE200 kit
2. A 2.5” SATA hard drive
3. A computer with a free USB2/3 port (Windows is OK; don’t know about Mac)

THE SYSTEM

This is what you get.

Opening the box reveals this:

So, without being too fancy, it was nicely packaged.

Here are the complete contents of the boxs:

From top left: the Quick Guide, VE200. a leatherette carrying case with a small package containing a tiny screwdriver and 4 screws. Bottom row: eSATA cable and USB A-miniB cable (but not such a ‘standard’ one as it might appear — more on that later). Although the Zalman web site seems to indicate that it comes with a CD, mine did not.

As noted in the requirements, a customer-provided 2.5″ SATA hard drive is required to complete the system. Pretty much any 2.5″ SATA drive will do. In other words, almost any modern laptop drive.

The connection ports for the VE200 are along the top of the unit:

From left to right: an eSATA connector, a small hole that contains a Reset button, a blue LED to indicate activity, a slot containing a switch to write protect/enable the drive, and a USB 2 miniB connector.

The USB connector is critical. The VE200 is completely USB powered. Although the Guide doesn’t mention it, I assume this means you need to be using a USB port that has battery charging capability. I don’t see how it could supply enough power otherwise.

I have not used the eSATA connector. I did plug it in once, but the unit did not power up. I presume they included eSATA in order to facilitate faster-than-USB file transfers. To be honest, I haven’t really found that to be an issue, and I can’t really see the usefulness of having to plug the unit in with both eSATA and USB in order to get it to work. Everything that follows is based entirely on using the USB port.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

The first step to getting the VE200 set up is to install the hard drive. To do this, the head containing the LCD display has to be separated from the case. Try resting the back of the unit on the tips of your fingers, (i.e. LCD display face up) and away from you. Now, put your thumbs on the LCD display and gently push the display away from you.

If that doesn’t seem to work, the head may be wedged into the case a bit too tightly. In that case, look at the diagram below. Notice that there are 2 plastic/rubber strips along the sides of the VE200.

Use the small screwdriver included with the kit to peel back the strip on one side and gently pry up the LCD head on that side to loosen it. Repeat the process on the other side. This should get the head far enough out of the case that you can pull it the rest of the way.

Here’s a look at the business side of the LCD display head.

To install the drive, simply connect the VE200 head’s SATA connector to its mate on the drive.

With the drive attached, simply slide the assembly into the case.

Once the drive and head are fully inserted into the case, complete the installation by using 2 of the supplied screws to lock the VE200′s head to the case. Note: the screws do not go into the drive, only into the head, as per the photo below. This photo also shows the Jog Switch. It is a vital part of the VE200, as we’ll see later.

CONFIGURING THE HARD DRIVE

Once the hard drive has been installed, the next step is to configure it. But first, some background.

The VE200 does not automatically configure the hard drive. This can lead to complications.

The VE200 can only use the first partition/volume on the drive, even if that partition/volume is one that’s hidden in Windows

Many people will likely want to use old laptop drives in VE200s. If a drive comes from a major laptop supplier such as Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. it will likely contain an OEM recovery partition/volume. These partitions/volumes are normally not visible in Windows Explorer. This means it would be impossible to copy ISO files to the OEM partition/volume, which is the only way the VE200 would see the ISO files.

To get around this problem, the hidden partition(s)/volume(s) must be deleted. I recommend simply deleting all partitions/volumes from the drive and starting afresh.

This creates another issue: Disk Management in Windows can’t normally delete OEM partitions/volumes because they are protected. There are a number of utilities, free and paid, that can do this, but Windows own DiskPart can do the job and it’s provided for free with Windows. I won’t go into how to use DiskPart here; there is plenty of info available on the web and DiskPart’s own built in Help is pretty useful as well.

To configure the drive, connect the VE200 to a Windows computer, using the USB cable provided with the VE200. Most USB A-miniB cables will not work; they will light up the LCD display, and it will look like it’s working, but the hard drive will not power up. Of all the USB A-miniB cables in my own stock, only 1 other would work. Most USB A-A extender cables cannot be used either. Be warned.

Once the VE200 is connected to the computer, clean out any existing partitions/volumes using your utility of choice.

Now that the drive has no partitions/volumes, it’s time to find out what firmware the VE200 has installed.

There are 2 ‘types’ of firmware for the VE200: NTFS, and FAT32/exFAT. It’s important to know which one a particular VE200 has installed because the hard drive must be formatted to match the firmware type. Note: it may be possible to flash an NTFS VE200 with FAT32/exFAT firmware, and vice-versa, but I wasn’t about to kill my VE200 trying to find out.

The Jog Switch is used to find out what version of firmware a VE200 has. With no partitions/volumes on the drive, the VE200 should show something like this on its LCD display:

The Job Switch has 3 positions: up, down, and in (or depressed). To get the version of firmware, depress the Jog Switch 4 times. Each depress will display a different screen.

The first depress will show the model of hard drive in the unit. For example:

The second depress should show the drive serial number:

The third depress will show some number, but I don’t know what it is (perhaps the drive’s firmware number?):

And finally, the fourth depress will show the VE200’s firmware info:

The important item on this screen is the ‘N’ at the very end. It indicates that the firmware is NTFS (FAT32/exFAT firmware has as ‘F’ at the end). BTW, as of this writing, this is the latest firmware release.

Next, create a new partition/volume on the drive. I recommend using the entire drive because the VE200 can only use the first partition. I won’t go into details on how to create a partition as there is tons of info available on the internet. The main things are to assign a drive letter to the partition/volume (so ISO files can be copied to it later), and to format the partition/volume to match the version of firmware installed in the VE200.

The final step in configuring the drive is to create a directory/folder named “_iso” at the root of the newly created partition. This is critical. All ISO files must reside in this _iso directory/folder or the VE200 will NOT be able to mount them as virtual CDs or DVDs.

With the “_iso” directory/folder created, the configuration of the drive is complete.

Using the VE200

As a first test, copy an .ISO file to the _iso directory/folder. The ISO needs to be a mountable image file. A Windows 7 or XP installation DVD ISO makes a good test case.

Once the file is copied, either eject the VE200 (just like any other USB external drive) and disconnect and reconnect it, or use a paperclip to press the Reset Button on the top of the VE200. After the unit reboots it should show the name of the ISO file that was copied to it. I used a Windows XP ISO and it looks like this:

Notice the second icon from the left in the top row; the one that looks like a tire. It indicates that the ISO is mounted. Depressing the Jog Switch mounts and unmounts ISO files. So, depressing it once shows this:

Moving the Jog Switch down once will give the full name of the ISO file:

At this point I recommend trying to boot from the VE200. Make sure the VE200 shows that your ISO file is mounted, then reboot your PC and use its boot menu to select the ZMVE Virtual CDRom as the boot device. You should get the normal bootup for your computer; the same as you would get if you booted from a physical CD/DVD.

After verifying that the VE200 does boot correctly, it’s use can be expanded. For one thing, it supports folders, very much like Windows Explorer.

To go into a folder depress the Jog Switch.

Pushing the Jog Switch up repeatedly will eventually take you to the Level Up screen:

Depressing the Jog Switch at this screen will move the VE200 up to the parent directory/folder.

It’s possible to create nested layers of directories/folders. I created a 4-deep stack without issue.

I have not used the eSATA port.

PROS

• Inexpensive (around $50US). This might seem a little high for an external enclosure, but the virtual drive capability puts it in another class in my opinion.
• Small, lightweight.
• The kit is quite complete, even including a carrying case and screwdriver.
• Simple to use, once the initial hurdles are overcome.
• A very handy device that can take the place of many single-purpose bootable flash drives, CDs, and DVDs.
• The display provides some nice information, such as the hard drive temperature. The icons are logical, well-placed, and pretty intuitive to understand, at least to a Windows user.

CONS

• Extremely poor documentation. If only the documentation matched the physical completeness of the kit.
• Initial configuration is manual, and the user is left to fend for themselves, particularly with regard to getting the hard drive configured properly.
• The Jog Switch can be difficult to use, especially trying to find the correct position so it can be depressed. Separate buttons would have been better, but likely would have added to the cost.
• Cannot use commonly available USB A-miniB cables.
• The supplied USB cable is too short.
• The LCD display is small. It works, but a little larger would have been better.
• Not every ISO can be used. I found that the Windows Home Server 2011 Client Restore Disk ISO could not be used because the VE200 would reset itself part way through the Restore Wizard. I suspect this is because the wizard reinitialized all of the USB ports as part of its normal process. On the other hand, Windows XP ran without problems.

CONCERNS

Probably my biggest concern about the VE200 is the Jog Switch. This is an inexpensive device, and the Jog Switch gets used so much that I’m concerned that it might not last too long. That would essentially make the VE200 a paperweight. Of course, it’s always possible to just get another one, and it should even be possible to transfer the hard drive from a dead VE200 to a new one.

SUMMARY

The VE200 is a pretty amazing device. It accomplishes its main goal very well. Keeping the Cons & Concerns in mind, I would recommend it to anyone who has a working knowledge of Windows; in other words, Power Users. Hopefully, this review/tutorial can overcome most of the lack of documentation and get people up and running faster.

I am now in the midst of getting rid of most of the mostly single-purpose, bootable USB Flash drives that I use to do installations. I am copying ISO files for OS installs, MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite CS5 Production Premium, LightRoom, SpinRite, CloneZilla, and many others, to the VE200.

I will now have a single place where I can find all these images, and from which I can install any of them. There will be no more inserting and removing of a pile of USB Flash Drives, trying to find the one that contains a particular install image. USB Flash Drives are certainly convenient, and they’re small, but their size also makes it hard to label them and keep them organized. They are also easily lost. The VE200 nicely addresses both of these issues.

Also gone will be the issue of fighting a specific USB Flash Drive to make it bootable, only to find that this particular model of flash drive can’t be made bootable.

SUMMARY

I’m giving the VE200 4 out of 5 stars. The terrible documentation, the fact that the VE200 doesn’t auto-configure the drive, and concerns over the Jog Switch mainly contributed to it not getting a higher rating. However, it’s overall usefulness prevented it from getting a lower score.

Okay let me set up the background of the experiment for you. Since I had set up the beta version, I’ve been using the IcyDock dual laptop drive enclosure with two 250 Gig Western Digital Caviar Black drives. Over the past year I noticed the system was getting extremely slow. Opening and closing the console took way too much time and I was pretty frustrated every time I had to do it. I’ve been toying with the idea of using SSD drive, however buying an SSD drive larger than 160 GB is very pricey. The first thing I wanted to try was to utilize an existing 60 GB drive I had just bought on sale, and use Acronis which I recently installed to restore the backed up partition onto a smaller drive. I used the restore from Acronis and was able to get the WHS OS onto a 60 gig SSD. Since I did not have anything on the “D” drive anyway, everything booted and worked perfectly with no errors. Since this was a Sata 3 drive, it was never my intention to leave it as I have a different plan for that, I just merely wanted to attempt to try it and to make sure that this is actually possible. Many have talked about the idea in the forums and have used various hacks to install the OS on an SSD.  I found this option easier, safer, and worked extremely well for me.

Once I confirmed that it would restore correctly, and I fell in love with the performance of using an SSD on WHS, I opted to repeat the process this time using the cloning feature in Acronis to clone the IcyDock mirror onto an extra OCZ 240 Gig Vertex 2 that I had recently removed from my main system to replace with a faster drive. My plan was to use the extra space for something that did not need much protection such as iTunes where I could benefit from the speed.

The actual cloning process to go from the IcyDock mirror to the OCZ 240 SSD took about 8 to 9 min. The process was very simple, though I did have to manually adjust the partition sizes in Acronis so that there was 60 gig on the “C” drive and the balance on the “D”. The process went through with no errors. When it was done I was very pleased with the results. Everything I now do from loading the console to using apps from the desktop are much quicker. Even the actual boot time of the server itself is greatly improved. Granted you don’t boot your server very often, however for me it was a very painfully and slow process. I am very happy with the results and although it’s not something that I would recommend you go off and purchase, if you do have an extra SSD kicking around that 60+ Gigs, it is certainly worth considering. For me it also establishes the value of using Acronis on my WHS as it demonstrates the versatility that it provides as well as a quick way recovering your OS drive. I attached a quick benchmark of the result. It’s a tad slower running on Windows Home Server than on my Core I7, however the performance is still extremely fast giving you extra flexibility for your WHS. Overall I’m extremely pleased with the project and I am glad I could prove that Acronis would restore to a smaller drive and allow me to install an SSD into my system.

In November 2010, Microsoft announced that it would remove Drive Extender (DE) from the WHS product.  This as already been covered completely here at the Home Server Show site.  Since then, 3 software developers have stepped up to produce software that fills in where DE left off.  The challenge has been just how to test those builds in beta and do it in an efficient manner.

The testing requirements for DE are a box that preferably has 3 or hard drives attached to it.  When the Window Home Server 2011 platform first became available a few months ago, I was short on testing hardware (esp boxes with multiple drives) and had to get creative on how to set it up.  This post is a summary of that testing.

While the configuration is unique for these requirements, it could be changed to fit an assorted situations.  Certainly, one could just use the Drobo as one large drive or another attached storage device could be substituted in its place.

For this review, I am using a home built system that contains a Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 board, a Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB System Drive running Windows 7 SP 1.

For Virtualization I am using Oracle’s VirtualBox version 4.0.12

External Storage is on a Drobo S 5 Bay enclosure running the Drobo Dashboard 2.0.3 software and Drobo firmware 2.1.1 [5.29.38828].  The Drobo has 2 – 3TB, 2 -  1.5TB and 1 – 1TB drives and is partitioned into 4 – 2TB volumes.  More on this later in the post.

VirtualBox Install

Installing Oracle’s Virtual Box is as easy as installing any other application like iTunes or Microsoft Office.  One exception is that it does install an additional network adapter that it uses for the VMs.  If you try to install the software using RDP or Microsoft Live Mesh, you will lose connectivity during the install.  The install also works best when your user account is the administrator of the machine.

There is a rather large community that supports VirtualBox.  More information and installation instructions can be found at http://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/

The next step is to install the WHS 2011 Software.  I will include a few basic Oracle VirtualBox screen shots and steps that might be outside the norm of a standard OS install.

The first task is to create a virtual machine and install WHS 2011.  After opening VirtualBox, select New.

Then Select next to start the wizard.  For this installation, I am choosing to name the VM ‘WHS2011, the OS is Microsoft Windows and the Version is Windows 2008 (64 bit).

Allocated 2048 MB to the system memory,create a new virtual hard disk, choose dynamic expanding storage and allocate 160GB to the OS drive.  Finish twice.

Now there a few changes that I make to the settings.  With the VM selected, choose Settings.

In the System – Processor tab, I move CPU from one to two

In Display – Video Tab, I move the Video Memory from 16 to 128 MB

Under Network – Adapter 1, I change the Attached to from NAT to Bridged Adapter.  It automatically finds the name of my network controller.

Click OK to Save.

Now select Start

In most cases, the DVD drive on the local PC will be shown as default.

Next and Finish.

From this point on, the setup will be performed like any other WHS 2011 install.

Installing WHS 2011

Dave McCabe has a great how to article on this process.  http://www.informationweek.com/byte/howto/personal-tech/desktop-os/231000924?queryText=windows+home+server+2011

During the setup, system resources looked some thing like this on the local PC.

After the setup was completed, I applied all the necessary updates to bring the OS to the latest patch set.

Attaching the Drobo (or any other external storage device)

We set up the Drobo in an earlier post in preparation for this review.  In that setup, we created 4 – 2TB volumes.

In order for the VM to see the Drobo, the drives need to configured in VirtualBox.

Select Settings – USB from the Menu.  By default, the USB Controller is enabled.  Select Add a new USB filter and choose the external drive of choice (in this case the Drobo) and click OK.

Select Settings – Storage – SATA Controller and select Add A Hard Disk.

Select Create new disk.

Welcome to the Create New Virtual Disk Wizard!  You have seen this before when fist setting up the VM OS Drive.  Select Next and Dynamically expanding storage.

In this case, I have 2TB volumes but am going to share those volumes with the PC as well.  For the purposes of this review, I will create 1.5TB partitions on each 2 TB volume.  Next and Finish.

That process is completed 2 more times on 2 Drobo Volumes.

Restart the VM of WHS 2011

Login to the Server Desktop and open the Dashboard.

Open the Server Manager and navigate to the Storage – Disk Management Tab

The Server will as to initialize the disks.  Make sure MBR is selected and OK.

Right Click and choose New Simple Volume for each of the new drives.

Next, next, Assign a drive letter, next, next and finish.

Each Drive is formatted exactly the same way.  The drives will now appear as New Volumes in the Hard Drives Tab in the WHS Dashboard.

From this point on, the VM is ready to use as a base for testing.  While a Drobo is not necessarily required to make this work, it does make it very easy to set up.

Over the next couple weeks, I will use this base to test all 3 of the major Drive Extender software offerings.

Datacore’s DriveHarmony

Covecube’s Stablebit Drivepool

Division – M’s DriveBender

About Jim

Jim Collison is a blogger and podcaster for HomeServerShow.com and TheAverageGuy.tv.and a Microsoft Home Server MVP

Full Disclosure – Drobo provided an evaluation unit with drives for this review.

Here are the official details.

A 3TB version of the award-winning ioSafe® SoloPRO is now available, providing an unparalleled combination of speed, physical security and storage capacity.

AUBURN, Calif., May 4, 2011 –  ioSafe today announced the availability of a 3TB version of the fireproof and waterproof SoloPRO external hard drive. The 3TB SoloPRO enables users to store up to 1,500 hours of DVD-quality video, 45,000 hours of digital music or more than 500,000 digital photos.¹

 

SoloPRO features include:

• A choice of eSATA and USB 3.0 connections providing fast transfer speeds up to 3 to 4 times faster than USB 2.0.
• Rugged disaster proof design. Both the USB 3.0 and eSATA versions of the SoloPRO protect against data loss at temperatures up to 1550° F for 30 minutes per ASTM E119 or being submerged to a depth of 10 feet for up to 3 days.
• 12 months Data Recovery Service Standard. Up to $2,500 towards the cost of third-party forensic data recovery, one time, for any reason including accidental deletion, hard drive failure, fires, floods, etc. Upgradeable to 3 or 5 years for  $49 or $99 respectively.
• Available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and now 3TB.

“Both homes and businesses need to store every-increasing volumes of data,” said ioSafe CEO Robb Moore. “The 3TB SoloPRO provides users with an easy and cost-effective way to quickly and securely back that data up.”

The USB 3.0 SoloPRO supports both Windows and Mac desktop operating systems while the eSATA versions adds support for Linux and Windows and Mac server operating systems.

Pricing and availability

Priced at $499.99 the 3TB SoloPRO is available now via the ioSafe website, resellers and international distributors.

About ioSafe

Like an aircraft black box for data, ioSafe provides rugged, fireproof, waterproof hardware and disaster recovery services as a cost-effective way for corporations and consumers alike to protect their irreplaceable data.  ioSafe is a privately held company with headquarters in Auburn, Calif. For more information, please visit www.iosafe.com .

I shopped around as I was looking for a smaller case but wanted something that would hold at least 4 to 5 drives. It is pretty amazing the few choices there are in small cases that will hold that many drives and use a MicroATX size board. Most smaller cases limit you to Mini-ITX boards which typically do not have enough sata connectors for what I needed to do. Since I was planning on moving all my movie collection to WHS 2011, I did not need nearly as many drives in this server but I wanted room to grow just in case.

Along comes the Lian-Li PC-V354B. This is one of the most unique cases I have seen in a while as it breaks the mold for sizing. It sits only 13.6 inches tall, but is wider than most cases at 9.65 inches. It is the ultimate server case as it holds 7 3.5 inch drives and 2 x 2.5 inch drives, and 1 5.25 inch drive. It has two huge quiet fans in the front which provide awesome air flow for your hard drives, and 1 on the top that provides ventilation, as well as a built in fan controller. Obviously with a smaller size, it was a bit of challenge routing wires but all in all this thing is stellar for a home server. Being this small, it goes without saying that it a bit more challenging to put together than a standard case, but in the end it is worth a bit of extra work. The only downside that I can see is that I wanted to buy another one and Newegg keeps selling out. They have received shipments twice an both times where sold out before I got a chance to order another. Apparently others find it to be a great case as well since they can not seem to keep them in stock. If you can find one and you need an awesome case for a small but feature packed server, check this one out.

PC-V354B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112300&cm_re=lian_li_pc-v354-_-11-112-300-_-Product

Dual Front 120mm Fans

Uses full size power supply

Drive cages for 7 drives

Fits full size MicroATX boards

Power supply fits in front of the board so you will not be able to use a huge CPU heatsink

The finished product.

Lets install a new application to it.  Under the My Applications setting click the drop down the arrow.  You will see we have nothing added.  Next, right click inside this blank area for the “Add” function.

You will see the typical explorer box to locate the program you want to run from the Dashboard.  It might be necessary to locate the proper executable by looking at the Shortcut’s properties though.

You will now see the Icon in your My Applications settings.

I was surprised to see it open outside of the Dashboard in a Remote Session all to it’s own.  Now you can run your favorite apps from your WHS2011 server right from your PC’s Desktop!

Here is what we are going to do.  Install WHS2011 on a mirror of two hard drives using the Icy Dock MB982SPR-2S and then use the Intel SATA ports as a RAID 5 array on the Gigabyte P55-USB3 motherboard.  At the end of the article I’m going to attempt to increase the RAID 5 array by adding a drive and hopefully not lose any data while trying!

Here are some refresher links if you would like to take a deeper look at these parts.

http://homeservershow.com/icy-dock-mb982spr-2s-review.html

This little jewel has a JMicron RAID chip built into it.  The RAID is done on the enclosure so you only have to run one SATA port to it.

Here is the test server build in detail in case you would like to see all the parts:  http://homeservershow.com/vail-test-server-build.html

The ports used on the P55 motherboard are as follows:

I used one of the JMicron ports for the Icy Dock.  It’s the set of two white ports in the photo.  Use the blue Intel ports for the RAID5.

If you don’t want to use the Icy Dock enclosure for this mirror you could simply use both the JMicron ports on the motherboard as the mirror.  If you want to save space in your case you can use a little box like the one below.

It’s the StarUSA BPU-2535V2 1 x 3.5″ to 2 x 2.5″ SATA I/II Hot-Swap Drive Cage

I did a head to head RAID comparison of the Intel ports vs. the JMicron ports on the motherboard in this article.  It is also required reading!

OS Mirror

The Icy Dock mirrored install is a breeze.  You can do it two ways.  Set the switch on the box to mirror and install or do the install to one drive then use the Icy Dock software after you install WHS2011 to setup the mirror while you are logged in via Remote Desktop.  You can’t do this in WHS2011’s Dashboard.  Windows Home Server 2011 will automatically load the drivers for this Icy Dock RAID enclosure during install.  No extra drivers needed.

There is not a whole lot to it.  Once you have installed WHS2011 verify the OS drive in the dashboard and it is the correct size.

RAID 5

The RAID 5 array is no more difficult than the mirror.  We will be using the blue Intel ports on the board.

Here are some of the drives being used for the tests.  I’m using the MB973SP-B trayless 3 in 3 SATA backplane module from Icy Dock.

Install your drives to these SATA ports and power it up.  The first thing you have to do is enter bios setup and designate the ports as RAID.

In this motherboard RAID is under Integrated Peripherals.

Now the ports are set to RAID.

Reboot the box saving your bios settings and be ready to recognize a different in the RAID bios screen.  It will list all your drives and allow you to hit a key combination like CTRL-I to enter RAID bios setup.  It’s here where you will designate RAID 5.

Set the RAID up as per the defaults choosing RAID 5.  Save and exit.  When your server reboots you will have one hard drive in your dashboard.  This is your array although it’s not useable yet.  You will be notified via alerts that the drive is ready to be formatted.  Format and your done!

You now have two RAID arrays setup on your new WHS2011 server.  One mirror for the OS and one RAID 5 for the data.

In this screen shot you can see the OS Drive that is 60GB and the rest of the remaining space on it which is 172.7GB.  The Intel Raid shows up as 931GB free.

You can go further into this adventure by installing the Intel(Intel Rapid Storage Technology) and/or the JMicron RAID software on your server via remote desktop.  This software will help you check the RAID health and do repairs if needed.

Some extra info.

I had a hodge-podge collection of hard drives to test with.

500Gb

1.5Gb

1.0Gb

I used all these drives in the RAID 5 array.  I don’t really recommend this as I think it’s better to go with like drives.  As large as you can afford if possible.  The 500 GB drive I have installed in this array is dragging down the total size of usable space.  Let’s break down these drives though.  They add up to to 3Tb of total storage.  In version 1 of WHS this would be 1.5TB if you used duplication and filled the pool up with data.  It’s a 1 to 1 ratio.

This hodge-podge RAID 5 array came in at roughly 1TB of usable space.  That’s not a very efficient use of the SATA ports which reiterates the point of installing like sized drives and large ones if possible.

We have all heard the horror stories of how long it takes to format RAID arrays with software based RAID.  This RAID 5 array is not large by any standard but it only took around a minute to format it. Can’t beat that!

Can you expand the RAID 5 Array?

It’s the million dollar question.  Can you successfully add a hard drive to the RAID array without losing your data that’s already on the array?  This is the whole reason I started this article.  I want to know!

I powered the server off and added a 1.5TB drive to a blue SATA port which is now controlled by RAID.  I’m going to attempt this via the software Intel provides for the motherboard, Intel Rapid Storage Technology. (verify your setup before installing)

In this shot you can see the RAID 5 array at the top right.  Everything with it looks good.  However, the software is reporting a new drive sitting all by itself.

It’s even visible in the dashboard which expels one myth that I thought was true about setting the Intel ports to RAID.  I thought that all the ports were set to RAID and you couldn’t load a drive on a free port without using it in the array.  Looks like I was wrong.  Notice I have some data on it as well.  I’m expecting to lose that data if I’m able to insert the drive into the array.

I’m going to follow the IRST instructions of “Reset disk to Normal.”

I’m not sure what it did but the drive is now green.

Click on the array on the top right and Add Disk.

Here is the warning that any data on the drive will be lost.  Also, it states that once the process is complete I will need to reboot and increase the size of the volume using Windows Disk Management.

The drive is now added.  The process took about 30 seconds.

Back in the dashboard WHS2011 still reports the old size of around 1TB but the drive did disappear.  Reboot time.

After the reboot I checked IRST to see what was going on with the array before I did anything else.  It reports that it is Migrating data and there is a caution flag on the drive I just added.  Dashboard still reports the old size of 1TB but the data I had on the array is still intact.  I’m not real sure what it’s doing at this point and it’s going very slow!

In Disk Management I can see that I have unallocated space ready to be added to the volume.

In Disk Management right click the healthy RAID volume and click Extend Volume. Don’t click on the unallocated space.

Next you will see what is available to add.

The RAID volume has now grown.

Errors

I clicked through this at a lightning pace since it’s just a test and I don’t have any real data to lose if it failed.  As soon as I clicked finish on the Extend Volume Wizard the IRST application notified me that a drive in the array has failed.  It’s not the drive that I just added though.  It’s the 500GB drive in the array.  The irony to this is I was going to attempt to remove this drive from the array since it’s the smallest and is really holding back the entire array due to it’s size.  My best guess is that the array is now too big and the smaller drive can no longer participate in the array due to it’s size.

In a normal situation I would have let the IRST finish the data migration before attempting to extend the volume.  I also would never have added a 500GB drive to a RAID 5 array.  I just happened to find the 1.5TB drive after I had already started the testing.  I will follow up and let you know how it all turns out.

UPDATES:

The rebuild finished sometime overnight so I can’t tell you how long it took but everything looks good.  I’ve received a few messages from some guys that know more about RAID than myself and have some better explanations for you.

When setting up raids with different size disks (regardless of raid 0,1,5,10, etc) The array will use the size of the smallest disk on all the disks.  In plain english if you have a 500gb, 1tb, and 1.5tb drives in an array it is going to treat each drive as a 500gb drive so all of that extra space will be wasted. You definitly want to use same size drives.

Well stated.  I was trying to say that!  He also goes on with a quick RAID lesson.  The stuff I didn’t want to get into!

The way raid 5 works is that it is kind of a mixture of raid 1 and 0. It stripes the drives for performance but also kind of mirrors. the reason i say “kind of” is because it uses a parity system. What it does in a 3 drive array is use 1/3 of each disk for the parity data. on the first drive it has parity data for drives 2 and 3….on the second drive it has parity data for drives 1 and 3…..and so on.  What happens is when a drive fails the array uses the parity data on the 2 remaining drives to rebuild the array.

When you added the 4th drive into the array it is actually generating and adding the parity information to that drive (and other drives for that drive) in the background so that all 4 drives now have the parity blocks.   this is all for raid 5 only by the way. It will go slow for a while until the parity is built on the new drive.

That makes perfect sense.  Better yet, all my clicking and rushing through this process didn’t effect it one bit.  It all works and all the data is good on the array.  I think that speaks highly of the technology if I can’t mess it up!  I also think this is a good lesson displaying the effects of RAID and using unlike sizes of drives.  As in, don’t do it.  I’m willing to bet most WHS v1 owners don’t have same size drives throughout their system.  When I bought my v1 server a 500GB drive was awesome to have and soooo big!  Now 2TB drives are pretty much the standard.  I have a mishmash of sizes from 1.0 to 2TB in my MediaSmart Server today.

Last Test

Get rid of that 500 GB drive.  I don’t see a clear cut way to remove a drive via the IRST software.  I’m going to further test this thing but powering the server off and pulling the 500GB drive out.  That should also suffice as a disaster recovery test.

After it’s removal IRST is all kinds of annoyed.  One drive is not in good state and the 500 is reported missing.

The drive that is reported “At Risk” has a link to click to reset it to normal.  I’ve seen this once before and it just takes a few seconds although I don’t know why it’s doing it.  I still cannot find a way to remove the drive from the array.  Update:  Some sort of SMART event is taking place.  I’ll have to dig deeper to see what.

Disk Management looks normal as well.  Looks like I need to reboot it and look at the RAID BIOS utility.  Once I looked in there it became clear.  There was an option to remove a drive from the RAID array.  That’s what I was hoping to find in IRST but didn’t.  The caveat is I had to add yet another hard drive in order to remove a hard drive.  The contents of this 500 were to be moved to the new drive.  It’s a larger drive as well so I’m not sure what it will look like in IRST.  I’m hoping that my RAID 5 volume would increase.  The BIOS also told me that the rebuild would happen in the OS.  So I saved and selected exit.

Once inside WHS2011 the IRST application shows the array as rebuilding.  It looks to be progressing faster than the original rebuild but still it’s a slow process.  A question though.  I replaced the 500GB drive with a 2TB drive.  Shouldn’t my volume size increase?  Is the RAID hardware only using 500GB out of the 2TB to replace the 500GB drive that is being removed?  Sounds confusing but my volume did not grow.  It’s still rebuilding so I will wait and see.  More to come…

Finished Rebuilding

Just as suspected.  Increase size is now available.

Size of volume increased!

A question was asked about resources during a rebuild.  I don’t see much of a problem in this area.

And that’s it.  The end of the marathon RAID post.

I realize that this blog and podcast primarily cover Windows Home Server but I think it’s time to broaden our horizons a bit and take a look at some competing products.  It won’t hurt to learn a little bit about what’s out there.  You might just be surprised.

This post is simply a placeholder for all the Synology posts that are to come.  Check back often for posts and news about Synology products.

Synology DS211+ Review Prep and Unboxing

Install the Synology DS211+

Setting up hard drives, users, and shares on the DS211+

The Synology DS211+ DSM Hands On

Data Redundancy and Drive Swapping with the Synology DS211+

Synology DS211+ Audio Station Hands On

Synology Network Attached Storage DS1511 and DS211 @ CES 2011

Synology announces the DS411 slim

Podcasts in which Synology is discussed

The Home Server Show 121

The Home Server Show CES 2011 Edition

The Home Server Show 117

http://synology.com