178 replies to this topic

[geek-accountant]

So why unRAID versus RAID 5?

For me, speed is not a major concern. Yea I need enough to stream movies around the network, sometimes more than 1 at a time, but for me getting every last bit of speed possible is not a real issue and not something that is going to make a real difference day in and day out. Sure large file transfers may take a bit longer, but how often am I sitting there waiting for the transfer to complete with noting else to do?

So the real issue for me was efficient protection (ie, parity drive), ability to use varying sized drives, easy expansion, ability to remove drive and read data from another system if ever needed, array not destroyed by multiple drive failures. Does this feature set sound familiar?

RAID 5 meets some of these but fails on others. unRAID meets all of these. So it was an easy decision and actually one I made prior to learning about DE being removed from WHS.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

For me, speed is not a major concern. Yea I need enough to stream movies around the network, sometimes more than 1 at a time, but for me getting every last bit of speed possible is not a real issue and not something that is going to make a real difference day in and day out. Sure large file transfers may take a bit longer, but how often am I sitting there waiting for the transfer to complete with noting else to do?

So the real issue for me was efficient protection (ie, parity drive), ability to use varying sized drives, easy expansion, ability to remove drive and read data from another system if ever needed, array not destroyed by multiple drive failures. Does this feature set sound familiar?

RAID 5 meets some of these but fails on others. unRAID meets all of these. So it was an easy decision and actually one I made prior to learning about DE being removed from WHS.

I will have to do some more research on this. Sounds very interesting.

Have you ran any tests on read/write speeds?

[geek-accountant]

Can you run raid five with 4 drives? I thought you would need 5 for a parity. I am sure i have this wrong (getting old =)

You can run RAID 5 with 3 drives of you want. I have a three drive RAID 5 setup running right now in my Hyper-V server. I think it just has to be more than two.

[geek-accountant]

I will have to do some more research on this. Sounds very interesting.

Have you ran any tests on read/write speeds?

Very limited. One thing I just added was a cache drive. Which means all data, unless you tell it not to, is written to the cache drive and then latter added to the protected array and an off time. What this means is you get the full speed of that one drive, but it also means the data is not protected while sitting on the cache drive. For this reason, I have my Photos folder set to not use the cache drive.

Without a cache drive, the data is written to the array based on the slowest drive, either the parity or the drive being written too. Because of this, I want to slowly work out my 5400 & 5900 drives with the parity being first. Right now, my parity drive is a 5400rpm drive. Yea, I know I didn't plan this out very well.

I plan to do some speed testing at some point and will report back then.

[jvk]

My strategy is pretty simple... no raid here. I'll be relying on the sever backup function for my duplication. I'll set it at 2 times per day.

For my data drives, I'll be running 2 1TB Western Digital 2.5" (WD10TPVT) drives.

The OS will reside on a 320 GB Western Digital (WD3200BEKT) 2.5" drive.

I'll then plug in a hard drive dock to my Server via USB like this one and always have a 2 TB 3.5" drive in the dock. I'll have an additional 2 TB 3.5" drive at work to act as my co-location strategy. Then VIA sneaker-net I'll switch the drives out ever other week or so.

jvk

[pcdoc]

My strategy is pretty simple... no raid here. I'll be relying on the sever backup function for my duplication. I'll set it at 2 times per day.

For my data drives, I'll be running 2 1TB Western Digital 2.5" (WD10TPVT) drives.

The OS will reside on a 320 GB Western Digital (WD3200BEKT) 2.5" drive.

I'll then plug in a hard drive dock to my Server via USB like this one and always have a 2 TB 3.5" drive in the dock. I'll have an additional 2 TB 3.5" drive at work to act as my co-location strategy. Then VIA sneaker-net I'll switch the drives out ever other week or so.

jvk

Very sound. Nice strategy and should work fine.

[pcdoc]

Did a chart for a friend to illustrate a point. Not earth shattering by an eye opener. The prices used in here are a bit conservative but it gets a point across and he found it useful so I thought I would share it.

[jvk]

Did a chart for a friend to illustrate a point. Not earth shattering by an eye opener. The prices used in here are a bit conservative but it gets a point across and he found it useful so I thought I would share it.

That's a pretty useful chart... You should do some whs installation consulting.

jvk

[Andne]

I'll then plug in a hard drive dock to my Server via USB like this one and always have a 2 TB 3.5" drive in the dock. I'll have an additional 2 TB 3.5" drive at work to act as my co-location strategy. Then VIA sneaker-net I'll switch the drives out ever other week or so.

One thing that I've been wondering that I haven't yet gotten around to figuring out is how easy is it to switch between two backup drives. I am planning to take this same approach, but haven't tried it. Do you have to reconfigure backup every time to use the new drive, or can I set both drives as backup and it just uses the one that it finds? (Hopefully without complain too much about the other one). Guess I need to get another external drive so I can set this up and try it out.

[no-control]

Been playing with this idea for a while, but it changes every 5 minutes still.

2 - 1TB RAID 1 System & Data
1 - 2TB backup for the above
4 - 2TB RAID 5 for media


Still debating to use WHS2011 and/or SBSe Or virtualize it all in the WS2K8 box

[geek-accountant]

no-control, I vote for virtualizing both in WS2K8!

[jvk]

One thing that I've been wondering that I haven't yet gotten around to figuring out is how easy is it to switch between two backup drives. I am planning to take this same approach, but haven't tried it. Do you have to reconfigure backup every time to use the new drive, or can I set both drives as backup and it just uses the one that it finds? (Hopefully without complain too much about the other one). Guess I need to get another external drive so I can set this up and try it out.

I was wondering that myself as well. I know it complains when you remove a backup drive, but if you have two separate drives (one plugged in at all times)I don't know if it will be ok if one of the two is working... will have to test it out as soon as I can scrounge up another drive.

jvk

[jmwills]

One nice thing about stepping up to Essentials is that with a second server you could use it as a secondary file server and when incorporating DFS (Distributed File System), all of the shares will appear to be on one box. For some this could mean making the primary box a much smaller installation. This would however, mean the incorporation of a domain, nit such a big deal as the install process does this for you.

Nice chart...pcdoc.

[CablDeViL]

My strategy is pretty simple... no raid here. I'll be relying on the sever backup function for my duplication. I'll set it at 2 times per day.

For my data drives, I'll be running 2 1TB Western Digital 2.5" (WD10TPVT) drives.

The OS will reside on a 320 GB Western Digital (WD3200BEKT) 2.5" drive.

I'll then plug in a hard drive dock to my Server via USB like this one and always have a 2 TB 3.5" drive in the dock. I'll have an additional 2 TB 3.5" drive at work to act as my co-location strategy. Then VIA sneaker-net I'll switch the drives out ever other week or so.

jvk

Why not just mirror the 1 tb with the other 1tb in disk manager?

[dvn]

One nice thing about stepping up to Essentials is that with a second server you could use it as a secondary file server and when incorporating DFS (Distributed File System), all of the shares will appear to be on one box. For some this could mean making the primary box a much smaller installation. This would however, mean the incorporation of a domain, nit such a big deal as the install process does this for you.

Nice chart...pcdoc.

That sounds good. When can we expect a write-up on the set-up and config? We'll be needing network charts, pie charts... jk...

Why not just mirror the 1 tb with the other 1tb in disk manager?

Disk space on server, backup scheme that includes moving the data offsite, the opportunity to use the old-school term 'sneaker-net'... haha

[jvk]

Why not just mirror the 1 tb with the other 1tb in disk manager?

Because I want a 2 TB data pool, I think mirroring 2 1TB drives would only yield 1 TB total but please correct me if I'm wrong.

jvk

[jmwills]

You sir, would be correct. To achieve what you want, a mirror (RAID 1) of 2 x 2TB drives would be needed.

[CablDeViL]

Because I want a 2 TB data pool, I think mirroring 2 1TB drives would only yield 1 TB total but please correct me if I'm wrong.

jvk

That makes sense - it would be nice if I read more before I post =)

[skid]

Why not just mirror the 1 tb with the other 1tb in disk manager?

I am currently running 2-1TB drives using one for data and the other for backup. I think I will try your idea and mirror the data drive from disk manager.
(The OS is on a 3rd 250GB drive)

[pcdoc]

Mirroring makes sense if you want reduncy, however if you want to backup from multiple sources, you will need to a backup. Another words if all you have is 2T of and do not plan to add more drives, just mirror and forget it. Bear in mind that mirroring does not protect you against destruction, such as viruses, corruption, acidental deletions etc. My suggestion is Mirror and backup. Use 2x 2T in a mirror, then back that up to a third 2T. This gives you even better protection than DE, quicker perforance, and no down time at all.