7 replies to this topic

[Captain Reynolds]

Hi folks, I am a long time podcast listener and first time forum user from Australia. I have just downloaded 2011 and am looking for some thoughts / advice on whether my current V1 setup is suitable to upgrade to 2011 or whether I should bite the bullet and move to a H67 / Core i3 type build...

CPU: LGA775 Q6600 - Not sure what the power consumption is like on this one, but a reasonably efficient system is important to me
MBOARD: ASUS P5K WS
RAM: 4GB DDR2 800Mhz Corsair
PSU: Antec 650W Truepower
CASE: Thermaltake Soprano
HDD: OS = 1TB Samsung 103UJ, Storage = 1 x 750GB Samsung 753LJ, 1 x 1.5TB Samsung 154UI, 1 x 2TB WD EARS
BACKUP: 1 x 1TB Seagate external USB2.0, 1 x 2TB WD EARS in an eSATA enclosure

My home is cabled with Cat6 and I have a 16 port gigabit switch. I work from home and mainly use one of my shares for all of my quotes / brochures etc. The rest of the space is made up of music, home movies, photos and recorded TV which I stream around the house to 2 laptops, an HTPC and an XBOX.

My thoughts are that the above setup would be sufficient to run 2011, but am open to any advice to the contrary. I am also considering the benefit of installing 2011 to an SSD and either removing the 750GB drive or replacing it with another 2TB WD EARS which are under $100...

I don't think I have left anything out...

Thanks in advance!

[no-control]

Sufficient is the right word. The only real issue is the drives. All the different drives will make oddball shares. I would suggest using software RAID in the OS to keep it simple or use a RAID controller. Here's how I would lay out the drives. Use the 750GB for the OS. Buy an additional 2TB drive. Create a RAID 5 using the existing 2TB drive, the existing 1.5TB drive and the new 2TB drive this will yield 3TB of redundant data locally. Then use the 2TB external for offsite backup, if you need it the 1TB external can cover the rest of the 1TB.


The remaining 500gb of each 2TB drive can be set up as a mirror for 500GB of redundant backup. Then use the 750GB for the OS. If you really want to get crazy use the 2 500gb of space along with the 750GB drive and create another RAID 5 array of 1TB. This leave 250GB on the 750 free for the o/s.

So when all said and done the most efficient use of space would look like this:

C: system = 250GB
D: data = 1TB in RAID5 (3x500GB)
E: data = 3TB in RAID5 (3x1.5TB)
Then use the external 1TB & 2TB drives and the internal 1TB (buy an external case) to backup the volumes above as needed.

Alternately if you must have the OS fault tolerant a slight shuffle of the drives and using the 1TB you get this:

C: system & data = 750GB in RAID1 (2x750GB)
D: data = 3TB in RAID5 (3x1.5TB)
E: data = 250GB

You're short on external backup, but your o/s is fault tolerant.

In the end I would suggest (funds permitting) that you just buy 2 more 2 TB drives and a 750gb drive. Mirror the 750s and RAID 5 the 2TB's. It's really the better way to go in your case. Unless you're fine with WHSv1 then you can keep it as is without issue.

[Captain Reynolds]

Thanks for the advice Michael, I see that I can make do quite well with what I have. Although very happy with WHS V1, the geek in me wants to make the jump to 2011! I am leaning towards just purchasing some additional 2TB drives and repurposing the smaller ones at the moment, but I have some concerns about RAID5... I thought that there was a performance hit in that configuration? I was going to just split my videos into common categories like TV / Movies / Kids and place them on different drives with backups to other drives for redundancy and not bother with RAID... My whole network is gigabit so I wanted to get the most out of it. I would also like your opinion on using an SSD for the OS drive and also my main work share which is only around 12GB. Am I going to see better performance working with office files and some web pages and images if the share is on an SSD instead of a spindle?

[no-control]

RAID 5 incurs a performance hit when writing files only. Even then it isn't really noticeable unless you moving a lot of files onto the array. That being said since most of the array is basically a stripe you gain a massive amount of read speed. Approaching and even surpassing SSD speeds.

I don't recommend using SSDs for servers cost:Performance ratio just isn't there yet. What I would do is use the SSD locally on your workstation. Then let WHS's pc backup handle the backup of that data. SSDs perform best as OS drives in a desktop/workstation. Sure there are exceptions like swap files for graphics, video, or CAD rendering. Possibly with DB files, but like I said for a server OS drive its overkill.

[Captain Reynolds]

Thanks again Michael, am going to go with a couple of new 2TB WD EARS and set them up in RAID 5 for storage, then either find abother 750GB or perhaps even look at a couple of 2.5" drives in an icy dock raid for the OS. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[pcdoc]

Just to add to that, I agree with Michael and depite being a SSD hog, I see no value in a server. Your system is plenty fast for this task but power efficient it is not. If that is important, you may want to make a couple of changes in terms of CPU/Motherboard otherwise keep what you have. THe only comment that I will add is that if you use you existing board, I would get a RAID card (for the Raid 5) instead of MB as it will offer more portability in the event you want to upgrade boards or if you want change architecture.

[no-control]

BTW I suggested software RAID mostly due to the mix match of drives. SW tends to have less issues when the hardware isn't exactly the same.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

BTW I suggested software RAID mostly due to the mix match of drives. SW tends to have less issues when the hardware isn't exactly the same.

Good clarification. I am sure you would have gotten a lot of questions without it.