12 replies to this topic

[Dude]

Folks, just planning out a WHS11 build, been listening to the podcasts over the past year or more and have read many posts.

I want to mirror the OS so I appreciate there are 3 primary options use the mobo raid, a dedicated raid card or the icydoc cage.

I have excluded any software raid configurations and am not planning on using any of the DE options.

I'm will purchase a highpoint Raid 2680 card for a raid 5 array of the main storage pool, everyone seems to be very happy with that configuration, so I guess I could set up the OS on a separate array off that card.

Regarding the drive types and size, should I purchase two 2.5inch 200gb laptop drives or should I just purchase 2 * 2TB 3.5 inch drives and partition them so as I can use the extra space for data storage.
Should I look for SATA 3 drives or would sata 2 5400 rpm drives be OK.

The purpose of the WHS is for:-
1) Backing up my home PC's
2) Streaming HD video

What are the considerations for making this decison.

Thanks

[yodafett]

My personal opinion would be if you have room to have 2 2TB 7200 for OS plus the bulk of your data. This could be mirrored off the onboard motherboard Raid Then have a single external 2TB for backing up this array for offsite storage. You can then make a RAID 5 arrays of 5900 or 7200 rpm drives for your Videos and other non critical files (ISO and other stuff you could redownload.) Depending on your tower this gives you alot of flexability (up to 20ish TB if you went 3 TB drives) for video streaming while the family pics, files, and possibly PC backups on the 2 TB mirror) I run a similar setup except my Raid5 array is actually hosted on a SAN with a 2GBs trunk from the WHSserver to the SANServer. The SAN also then is used for VMs, remote backup of Parents PC, and Security DVR without having to interface with my WHS.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

I am currently running my OS on two 2.5" 7200 rpm caviar black drives inside the icydock cage. If I had it to do again, I would use the MB for mirroring the OS. My drives are 250 GB each and I would stick with those. I don't want anything on my OS drives so that I maximize their speed.

Personally, I wouldn't use anything below 7200 rpm regardless if it was the OS, data, in a raid, or not. I see no reason to justify this given the small price difference.

[jmwills]

I have the same setup as ITTOG and I do use the Icy Dock controller for the OS. Works just fine and peachy dandy.

[Dude]

Folks, thanks for the info, much appreciated.

Just cuirious as to why the laptop drives, is it just to accomodate the icydock, or are there other reasons why it makes sense to use laptop drives for teh OS in WHS?

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

The icydock only accepts laptop drives. If you are not using the icydock cage then use 3.5" drives if you have enough bays to commit two of them to the OS and still have enough slots for data drives.

[Dude]

The icydock only accepts laptop drives. If you are not using the icydock cage then use 3.5" drives if you have enough bays to commit two of them to the OS and still have enough slots for data drives.

Thanks ITTOG that makes sense, have room for all the 3.5 so will use those as they are cheaper

[Dude]

Whats the smallest drive in GB I can use for the OS, the WHS11 specs say 160GB, but I'm assuming that's allowing for a data partition as well.

[jmwills]

There was a post on the forum about a registry hack to eliminate the 160 gb barrier. I think if you keep the server on the "pure side" 80 gb should be sufficient. On the other hand, drives are still cheap and there is not much reason to run with a 160 for the OS.

[Kazz]

FYI: There are converters for 5.25" bays to use 3.5" (and 2.5") drives, btw. I'm using two at the moment for my OS drives (mirrored via motherboard). I will be installing my data RAID in the remaining 3.5" bays in the case when I move to that upgrade.

[Dude]

Thanks, I am buying a box that has 7 3.5 inch bays which will be more than adequate for my needs. Will go with 160GB for OS, don't want to start hacking the OS

[yodafett]

You might want to consider 250s or 320s for the OS just due to the probablity of a larger cache on the drive and at the price difference on the small drives we are talking maybe 5bucks differences per drive

[Dude]

You might want to consider 250s or 320s for the OS just due to the probablity of a larger cache on the drive and at the price difference on the small drives we are talking maybe 5bucks differences per drive

OK Thanks