sduphily

I have decided to take the jump into WHS 2011. Without DE in Vail, I have decided to go RAID instead of the 3rd party DE replacements. ..mostly due to “read” performance reasons. Outside of data storage and backup, the server hosts Recorded TV and movies primarily to the HTPC and four Xbox units. I’m writing this up to document my experience with the upgrade and to get any feedback from others that may have already tried the upgrade at this scale.
Starting with my current WHS v1 system:

•Norco RPC-4220 (20 Hot Swap bays) Case
•Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H AMD motherboard (6 SATA-II)
•Corsair CMPSU-750TX
•AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz
•Crucial 4GB Ram (2 x 2GB)
•Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-port SATA Controller PCI Express x4 Card
•Current Drives:

2 – 320GB WD Scorpio Black (2.5”) – Attached to Motherboard (0 & 1) – Non-RAID
7 – 2TB WD 32MB Cache Green

-4 Attached to motherboard (2-5) – Non-RAID
-3 Attached to 8-port SATA Controller

3 – 2TB Samsung 32MB Cache Green - Attached to 8-port SATA Controller
1 - 2TB Hitachi 32MB Cache Green - Attached to 8-port SATA Controller

Below is an image of the Disk Management Add-In I have running that basically shows how my drives are setup. The one unmanaged disk was actually supposed to be used as a FlexRAID parity disk, but due to complications I had abandoned that venture.


My current folder capacities are as follows:

• MovieBackups – 6.4 TB
• Music – 205 GB
• Photos – 45GB (duplicated)
• Recorded TV – 5 TB
• Software – 32 GB (duplicated)
• Users – 83 GB (duplicated)
• Videos – 2.6 TB

The plan is to have a mixture of RAID types based on the data type

• OS – RAID 1 (2 x 320GB WD Black Scorpio)
• Crucial files – RAID 0+1 (4 x 2TB)

Photos, Software, & Users (160 GB currently)

• Non-crucial files – RAID 5 (16 x 2TB)

MovieBackups, Recorded TV, Videos, Music

The problem I was questioning initially was how to put all these drives under RAID control. I have decided at this point that I am going to try the following:

• Motherboard RAID controller (RAID 1 for OS and RAID 0+1 for Crucial files)
• 2 x HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL 8-Port PCI-Express 2.0 x8 SAS/SATA RAID Controller (RAID 5 x 2 for all other files)

So at this point, I have ordered the following equipment to help with the transfer:

• 2 x HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL 8-Port PCI-Express 2.0 x8 SAS/SATA RAID Controllers
• 3 x Seagate 2TB 64mb Cache Green

I also have in my possession that hasn’t been installed yet:

• 1 - 2TB Hitachi 32MB Cache Green

These are the steps I envision I will need to take:

1. Backup Crucial files
2. Turn off data duplication on server
3. Remove the 320GB and three of the 2TB drives from the data pool. (Files may need to be removed to provide the space.
4. Find the files that are located on the C:\ drive included in the pool in order to backup.
5. Shutdown, pull all drives out except for the 2 x 320GB drives.
6. Startup BIOS and enable RAID controller. Setup RAID 1 on the two drives.
7. WHS 2011 installation.
8. Once the server is installed, shutdown and add the empty 4 x 2TB drives.
9. Enter BIOS and set the drives up in the controller as RAID 0+1
10. Setup the RAID 0+1 array in the OS.
11. Shutdown server and install the one of the two RocketRAID controllers as well as the three new 2 TB drives.
12. Boot up and setup the new drives in a RAID 5.
13. Insert one drive at a time and copy the data off the drives. To start, I will need to do this to three drives. The data will need to be placed in the existing RAID 5 and RAID 10 folders to accommodate the space needed.
14. Shutdown server and install the remaining RocketRAID controller as well as the three old 2 TB drives.
15. Boot up and setup the old drives in a RAID 5.
16. Insert one drive at a time with the remaining drives and copy the data off of them.
17. For each drive, I will attempt to increase the size of the RAID 5 until all 8 drives are added.

In the end and once this box is filled up, I should have access to:

• 320GB - OS
• 2 TB – Crucial Files
• 2 x 14TB – Non Crucial Files

Currently, step 1 is underway. The hardware I’m waiting for should be in early this week.