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

The DS411slim is a compact 4-bay NAS that is compatible with only 2.5” drives. Measuring under 5 inches tall and 4 inches wide, the DS411slim looks much like its predecessor, the popular DS409slim. Inside, the DS411slim has been equipped with a 1.6GHz processor and 256MB of RAM, providing solid throughput speed within the small package.  Ideal for home and SOHO use, the DS411slim ships with the award-winning DiskStation Manager 3.0. With built-in DLNA compatibility, iTunes server, Xbox and PS3 compatibility, a wealth of backup and file sharing features, and even iPhone and Android apps for mobile streaming, the DS411slim is a powerful member of any media-intensive environment.

Using only 9W of energy when idle and 16W during operation, the DS411slim is a near-silent, energy-saving home device.

The DS411slim is slated to be available through poplar online retailers such as Newegg, Amazon, Buy.com and others in mid-February. While the final price has not been set, Synology expects the price point to be at or better than the DS409 slim which is currently around $370.  Press release and photos to follow.

Hands on Review at UWHS:

Review

Related Links:

DS411slim product page

CES 2011 coverage of Synology

Synology Announces Its Newest Small Form-factor DiskStation, the DS411slim; Now, iPad® App Ready

Redmond, Washington- Synology America Corp. today announced the release of its latest DiskStation for home and small office use, the DS411slim.  Using 2.5” drives, the compact form-factor DiskStation allows for full RAID redundancy while minimizing energy usage and noise.   Utilizing Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), users can easily create redundant volumes up to 3TB.The energy-efficient DiskStation consumes fewer than 17 watts in use, and a scant 9.6 watts in hibernation.

The DS411slim boasts a faster processor than the previous DS409slim, and more RAM (now 256MB).  These enhancements allow users to do more with their DiskStation and do it more quickly.  Like its predecessor, it can still fit in the palm of one hand.

Bundled with Synology’s renowned DiskStation Manager (DSM) 3.0, the DS411slim is a feature-rich network attached storage solution, offering numerous tools to home users.  In addition to the expected file sharing and backup, DSM 3.0 includes an integrated DLNA-certified media server to effortlessly stream music and videos to compatible media players.

“Don’t let the small size fool you.  This is a full-fledged NAS server,” said Jason Bonoan, Product Marketing Manager at Synology America Corp.  “From the breadth of integrated features to the ease of remote access, this comprises an incredible suite of solutions that mere DAS devices just can’t match.”

Surveillance Station 5, Synology’s included network video recorder (NVR) software, lets users quickly turn their DiskStation into a surveillance system.  Compatible with over 750 models of IP camera, Surveillance Station 5 makes it easy for home users to monitor their homes when away, for either protection of the premises or as a nanny-cam.

In addition to the depth of features currently offered in DSM 3.0, the upcoming DSM 3.1 (now in public beta) will further expand the capabilities of the DiskStation.  Among the enhancements will be:

· DS File for iPhone- a new app to ease file access

· DS Photo+ and DS Audio are released for iPad to manage photos and stream your entire music collection from the DiskStation

· Airprint support- allows wireless printing from iPad/iPhone

For more information, please visit: http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS411slim/index.php

Availability:  The DS411slim is scheduled to be available for purchase in mid-February.  The price will be announced at its release.

About Synology

Founded in April of 2000, Synology Inc. is a leader in next-generation Network Attached Storage (NAS) servers for the home and small to medium sized business markets.  Specializing in both hardware and software for network attached storage devices; Synology products are feature-rich, easy-to-use, energy-efficient, reliable and affordable.  All Synology product investments are enhanced with product warranties, free software upgrades and 24/7 online support. Visit http://www.synology.com for more information

Synology has a global presence with regional offices in the US (Redmond, Washington) and the UK (London, England) and Taiwan (Taipei).

We left of in Part 2 with the first two bays changed to 1TB drives and drives 3 and 4 with 80GB drives.  Now to complete the drive upgrade.

I removed the 3rd 80GB hard drive and installed 1.5 TB Drive.  Took about 2 minutes to format and show as ready.  Did the same for the 4rd drive.  Same result.

Now that all the drive are in, here is the Dashboard.  4.5GB of available space!  You can see that 1.17 is unallocated.  That means we need to create a new volume (since we only created a 2TB volume in Part 1) so that space can be used.  More on that farther down.

And a peek at the WHS.  Not much has changed here.

Creating a New Volume

From the Drobo Advanced Controls – Tools, Select Format…

Speaking of the Drobo Dashboard…I will not cover them in depth, but there are some utilities available in this dashboard that can be very helpful.

1. You can blink the lights on the Drobo to make sure they are working, much like on your car when you start it.
2. Put the Drobo in Standby.  The WHS starts to panic if you do this while the server is running.
3. The Reset button takes the Drobo back to factory defaults.
4. Rename Drobo and Volumes does just that.  In case you don’t like what you pick the first time around.

Ok, back to the review…

Then Select Reboot Drobo now.  This was a bit scary at first, since I had no idea what would happen next.

The lights on the drive blinked and flashed and the Drobo disconnected and rebooted.  This took about 1 minute.

Not a huge surprise, the WHS threw and error message and could no longer see the Drobo.  This cleared as well when the Drobo connect again.

Note: The file conflicts were caused when I added the last drive to the Drobo.  I’m sure a reboot of the WHS would clear this up.

After a few moments, the Drobo came back and began formatting the new volume.  The drive lights on the Drobo were green but the blue lights across the bottom of the box (they indicate how full the unit is) were now dark.  Back to the Advanced Controls – tools tab and format option.

I am going to select Format the new volume only and take the defaults for the drive letter and rename the volume to Drobo 2.  Select next.

Select Format

After the format is complete, the WHS adds a new Unmanaged Disk to the available drives.  [Click on the image for a larger version]  I then just added that volume to the pool.

Before

After

NOTE:  It is worth nothing here that I just used a feature in DE to add this second volume to the overall pool on the WHS.  In the next version of WHS, that will not be available.  We will see in the next section that there is a better way to do this from the beginning.

After all is said and done, here is the Drobo Dashboard with 2 volumes present.

Because I ended up with two volumes, this would not have been ideal for a DE replacement solution.  Let’s see what happens if we go a different route?

A Restart – With Larger Drives Now

When I started this review series, I started it with 80GB hard drives.  At the time, the only option I received for a volume size was 2TB.  Not very practical if one was to use this to replace DE. 

For the review, I moved all the data that had been on the Drobo back over to an external 500GB hard drive and left the Drobo empty.  I wanted to be able to format it and not lose any data!

Here is how it looked from the WHS and the Drobo

Selected Format from the Drobo Dashboard

Going to select NTFS for Windows 2003 and Vista again.

This time I get the options that I really want.  The ability to create a single 16TB volume.  I am selecting the entire 16TB for my volume.  This will be important when we look at using the Drobo with Vail minus DE!

And it creates a new drive letter and formats the drives.

In the WHS console, the drives actually disappear from the Server Storage console as the 2 x 2TB drives and reappear as 1 x 16TB.  A single volume.

With the new space available, I am going to add it back into the WHS data pool and move the data from the 500GB external drive on to it by removing it from the pool. It’s a data swap!

Here is a final shot of the WHS with the new volume. 

Notice how the fundamentals of the pie chart changes in the WHS console.  It now shows the smaller slice as the free space (2.4TB) and the large part as the rest of the Drobo volume that does not have drive space allocated to it.  A different way of looking at it.  The Drobo Dashboard has changed as well. 

Conclusion

So after a ton of testing, writing and posting, can the question of can a Drobo be used to replace Drive Extender?  While I think it is safe to say that it would be unnecessary to do this with v1 of WHS (mostly because the functionality we are looking at  is already built in) I think it is safe to say that I am excited about testing with with WHS Vail Beta 3 that has drive extender removed.  There still consideration that need to be made with cost and speed, but it is possible and looks very easy to use. 

My personal opinion is this, the Drobo is one of the easiest drive enclosures I have ever used.  If I had a family member who needed a data solution and I didn’t want to use a WHS, I would have no problems recommending and supporting a remote install of a Drobo.  It is seriously bulletproof.

At the time of this writing, WHS Vail Beta 3 is still not publicly available.  When it does become GA, I will install it and test it with a Drobo S.  There is more to come.

Jim Collison is a blogger and podcaster for HomeServerShow.com and TheAverageGuy.tv.

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