18 replies to this topic

[HSS-Dave]

I just wanted to start a place to keep some notes on my installation. It's actually been in process for a few days but I haven't been in a huge hurry to get it done.

Two 250 Gig drives for the OS in an Icy Dock Mirror

Three 2TB drives in a RAID 5 array. 3.7TB useable on the Intel SATA ports on the motherboard.

Two 2TB drives in a mirror on a RocketRaid 620, two port card.

All drives are hard mounted in the case. I also have a 3-in-2 external cage that I will use to hot swap drives in and out of the server.

At this point i'm not real sure where I'll put my folders or where I'll save computer backups to. I plan to do a server backup of the 2TB mirrored volume so I don't know which RAID to trust more.
The RAID 5 or the mirror with an external backup.

During data migration goal is to have data in two places at all time. Most of the time I will have 3 copies at once. This is due to having external backup drives on V1 that I'm not touching during migration.

Backed up all computer to the v1 server
Ran a BDBB backup to an external drive, 1TB. Archiving this drive. Will load v1 in a VM to get to this data if needed.
Removed BDBB duplication in order to free up space on v1.
Copied DVD library which is the bulk of my data to a Synology DS211+ setup in JBOD mode. Two 1.5TB drives in one volume so it looks like 3TB.
Removed duplication on the DVD folder to free up space.


Backed up MyMovies Database via settings in v1 server.
Cleared up KeepVault and made sure there were no pending files to backup to my cloud location.

Using RichCopy utility to copy from v1 to 2011.
Copied Music, Video, Users, Public, etc.

1st Lesson
Clean up your data! I thought I did but during a copy operation I found 104,000 files totaling 95Gigs of data. It was my old Audacity folder that I used when creating the podcast. A one hour recording can run about a gig worth of data when recording to .wav format. When you save in audacity it creates a bazillion little files of audio. I'm cleaning these up slowly and just going to keep the .mp3 as a backup to what is online. Another found folder of 18 gig of .wav.

I have two instances of RichCopy running right now. One to the mirror and one to the RAID5. The copy is coming the v1 and the Synology so two different sources on the network to two different destinations on the 2011.

I'll keep the thread updated as I go along.

[Citezein]

What are the other specs of your new server?

[G. WadeTech]

Nice write up so far and good description of how you are making the migration happen in a safe and worry free fashion. I look forward to reading more and seeing progress updates.

Side note: the Icy Dock Mirror is the coolest part of the build in my opinion... I have to get one of those enclosures.

[TechMule]

Two 250 Gig drives for the OS in an Icy Dock Mirror

Three 2TB drives in a RAID 5 array. 3.7TB useable on the Intel SATA ports on the motherboard.

Two 2TB drives in a mirror on a RocketRaid 620, two port card.

What's the targeted data plan here?

AV files on Raid5, Critical data on the mirror?

Personally, things seem overly complicated to me with all the raid arrays. if Raid is a must have, I'd skip the MB raid and get a HP-2720 and use it for both Raid5 and the mirror to ensure better performance. I also don't see a need to mirror the OS. Has anyone every fully recovered a failed OS drive from this type of setup in WHS 2011?

[HSS-Dave]

@techmule, please expand on the HP-2720. If you do a google shopping search on it you will see what i mean. How much does the card run?

http://homeserversho...rver-build.html Here are the parts I purchased last year for testing. Same build except I removed the iStarUSA box and replace with the Icy Dock.

http://homeserversho...-2s-review.html

The targeted data plan is use the drives I have instead of planning it out! Media on the RAID5, user data on the mirror. Backup the mirror. I think this is what I've finally decided.

[TechMule]

Highpoint 2680

or, if you need Sata III/6 GB
Highpoint 2720 SGL <--- This is my reference to HP-2720 above.

Big 2720 HSS discussion is here.

+ the cost of
HighPoint Internal Mini-SAS to 4SATA

You can buy in at $110-$160 depending on your card choice and if you need 1 or 2 Mini-SAS to 4SATA

With the initial lengthy install/configuration required with Raid, I'd opt to do it 'right' the first(& only) time and skip all the half baked options of using an existing 2 port Raid card and MB Raid. Plus I can't say I am a fan of having three different Raid controllers as you have setup your build. It just seems way too complicated and ensures hours of endless maintenance and monitoring.

The targeted data plan is use the drives I have instead of planning it out! Media on the RAID5, user data on the mirror.

Do you currently have 2TB of user data? if not, seems like a waste(overkill) to allocate 2x2TB for mirrored User data. I could easily get by with a 500GB (or 2x500GB) for my user data and that includes all my Photos (DSLR) and Software.

Edited by TechMule, 09 July 2011 - 12:18 PM.

[HSS-Dave]

I have 76GB of photos, 101GB of video, and 226GB of HD Video from our camcorder. All of this done without the iPhone 4 and DSLR which I'm trigger happy with both. I'm just trying to build in some growth. My photos and video directory go back to 2004 too.

Ok, HighPoint. I had a duh moment there. It's a matter of cost right now. I have zero server fundage left and these are the parts I have. I don't know if this is the smartest move having multiple RAID configurations but I don't mind the maintenance of it. It's been running flawless for a week although that's not saying much as it needs to be a multi-year solution. I will have a backup solution in place for every single file on the server though. Either cloud or external drive. That is a must.

[TechMule]

I have 76GB of photos, 101GB of video, and 226GB of HD Video ...

OK, so you currently have about 400GB. A 2TB drive certainly gives you room to grow

Edited by TechMule, 09 July 2011 - 02:38 PM.

[HSS-Dave]

Everything is up and running. I only have two workstations backing up at the moment but will add the rest as soon as I can. I'm waiting for a server backup to kick off here soon. My first manual backup hung for some reason. I think it was the external HP simple save drive that was causing it. Pulled the drive and formatted it in order to start over. The HP Simple save drive also loads up a virtual CD drive letter to facilitate the install of the HP software so I'm dumping that case because of it.

Will let you know soon! KeepVault and MyMovies are next once everything is stable.

[HSS-Dave]

Backup of the server kicked off at 3PM and it's now 9 and it's at 85%. I thought it would be faster than that even though i realize it's the first full backup of the server. It's USB 2.0 so maybe that's the reason.

I also threw in a few drives into the Icy Dock 3-in-2 just for grins. My datavault x510 is now powered off and only has one drive in it. Once I'm satisfied with the server backup process I'll remove that last drive.

I'm also thinking of trying an iSCSI connection to the Synology DS211+. Maybe use that as a secondary backup with Synctoy.

[que3jxp]

A question and a comment Dave...

Question - Where I have not yet bothered to play with WHS2011, I am unaware of what has happened since the demise of DE and when you add a logical disk drive as a storage area for WHS2011 to use. I know that in the beta and in the old v1 server, the data on the drive is toast when you add the drive. What happens now?

Comment - Based on where TechMule is headed in his thinking and with the work of PCDoc on expanding arrays, I would like to really further the whole debate on the choice of RAID array. From all the thinking and listening (I subscribe to both HSS and BYOB let alone all of the TWiT shows like WW), the one real solid conclusion that it and all my years working with mid to high end HP servers has led me to is: Do not skimp on the RAID card at all.

To elaborate, I am advocating that we all seriously look at either $300+ range 4 port cards or the $500 range 8 port cards. These cards not only offer a lot of drives at once, they also offer caching, battery backup on the cards and most importantly, far enhanced performance from the $100-$200 cards that many are looking at. This is usually because there is a powerful dedicated processor on these more expensive cards.

I know that this is a lot of $$$ but after reading up on the real world performance and reliability of a Drobo of ANY version, the price/performance for one of these RAID cards is FAR better and delivers more drive handling and only a modest complication vs. BeyondRaid when it is time to expand or modify an existing array.

[ikon]

A question and a comment Dave...

Question - Where I have not yet bothered to play with WHS2011, I am unaware of what has happened since the demise of DE and when you add a logical disk drive as a storage area for WHS2011 to use. I know that in the beta and in the old v1 server, the data on the drive is toast when you add the drive. What happens now?

Comment - Based on where TechMule is headed in his thinking and with the work of PCDoc on expanding arrays, I would like to really further the whole debate on the choice of RAID array. From all the thinking and listening (I subscribe to both HSS and BYOB let alone all of the TWiT shows like WW), the one real solid conclusion that it and all my years working with mid to high end HP servers has led me to is: Do not skimp on the RAID card at all.

To elaborate, I am advocating that we all seriously look at either $300+ range 4 port cards or the $500 range 8 port cards. These cards not only offer a lot of drives at once, they also offer caching, battery backup on the cards and most importantly, far enhanced performance from the $100-$200 cards that many are looking at. This is usually because there is a powerful dedicated processor on these more expensive cards.

I know that this is a lot of $$ but after reading up on the real world performance and reliability of a Drobo of ANY version, the price/performance for one of these RAID cards is FAR better and delivers more drive handling and only a modest complication vs. BeyondRaid when it is time to expand or modify an existing array.

Hmmm, I thought PCdoc tried 1 or 2 high end RAID cards and concluded that the performance difference didn't warrant the higher cost.

[que3jxp]

Hmmm, I thought PCdoc tried 1 or 2 high end RAID cards and concluded that the performance difference didn't warrant the higher cost.

If that is the case, then my mistake for missing that. I would agree that there is no need for the higher IOPS that the more expensive card would provide but that higher performance would come into play when expanding an array or when replacing a failed drive. Also, having the battery backup on the card itself is really attractive.

[ikon]

If that is the case, then my mistake for missing that. I would agree that there is no need for the higher IOPS that the more expensive card would provide but that higher performance would come into play when expanding an array or when replacing a failed drive. Also, having the battery backup on the card itself is really attractive.

the higher performance for expansion/rebuild would certainly be nice, but not sure if it's worth that much extra. Individual choice of course, as always.

[Joe_Miner]

the higher performance for expansion/rebuild would certainly be nice, but not sure if it's worth that much extra. Individual choice of course, as always.

I think a big part of the "fun", at least in my view, is building a reliable high performance system on a relative shoestring (i.e. real world & wife approved) budget. Sort of a McGiver approach to design & building a system. I've been very impressed by people's builds that squeeze the most out of a system design while minimizing the VA's drawn from the wall socket.

[que3jxp]

No question that us the most fun. I work for a fortune 50 company that is cash rich and as squeaky as an old gate hinge. I have had a lot of experience having to do IT projects on the least amount of money that is safe.

I have carried this same strategy over to home but with the loss of DE, it has made me reconsider just how cheaply I do my build for 2011. I think if you are building from scratch and you have the extra $$$ to spare on storage components instead of processor or RAM, it is better money spent. You can always get a mobo that allows for decent CPU and RAM options for later. Just spend as little as possible on that aspect. Even so called "slow" AMD processors are far faster than the average person needs for home.

[tojoski]

I really like the Areca Raid cards and have used several in servers I have built for businesses.

I built one with the ARC-1222 with a 1.5TB Raid5 + Hotspare Array and put the OS on the array, I also built a 5TB Raid6 + Hotspare on an ARC-1880i with battery backup.

Areca has an EFI bios for the cards so with an EFI server board I was able to install Server 08R2 directly on the 5TB partition.

Another great thing about those cards is the ethernet port right on the card that is dedicated for the management. So regardless of what state the server is in, you can connect
to the web interface and see whats going on.


Yes these are very much out of budget for home use.. I'm running an older generation Intel SRCSAS18e raid card in my home server, with battery backup.. got it on ebay for about $100

[The Jason]

Ok, HighPoint. I had a duh moment there. It's a matter of cost right now. I have zero server fundage left and these are the parts I have.

You could sell the car....

I'm also running RAID 5 off my motherboard and the write performance is not acceptable (read performance is good, but not great). If I'm streaming a video to the TV and then someone tries to copy a file to that array, the video stutters and even pauses. I was getting about 5 MB/s in RichCopy when I did my migration to this array. I'm about to order a HP2720SGL to correct this.

This will be a pain, but if you are having slow writes it would seem more logical to have the RAID 5 on the 620 and the RAID 1 on the motherboard where performance shouldn't be a problem.

jO

[ikon]

what do people think of Mylex cards?Does anyone know if they're still around?


And while I'm asking, what about AMCC cards? I know they're still around.

Edited by ikon, 20 July 2011 - 05:38 PM.