pcdoc

Saw that one coming.  They would have received too much grief if they did not.

Would love to find a way to get back at these guys.  That is just not right.

I don't trust the intel coolers, here in Malta it get very hot in summer and I don't want to risk it. As for the RAID I think it's safer, raid 6 provides fault tolerance up to two failed drives. I think its better then having an extra 9TB and more cost effective in my opinion, but thanks for the info technogod.

 

 

Hi pcdoc, I real like your backup strategy. Maybe i'll do something like that in the future, but first I want to build and learn more about servers. I'll be adding 2 more larger drives for backup in the future. Can I ask you a question: what is the difference between WD and Seagate in performance and noise.

 

Thanks

 

The seagates run a bit hotter (7-10F), draw a bit more power (about 2 watts) and are about 15-20% faster that the RED/Green drives.  As for noise the WD are almost inaudible.  The Seagates you can hear the seek and access very clearly but in a case tucked away it is not an issue.

Still would not trust my data to storage spaces.  Been there done that...

I still would not go GPT/UEFI on an SSD.  If you are building from scratch and plan to use WHS, stick with MBR for now.

Do yourself and wife a big favor and look a deal on an SSD with a virgin install.  An SSD on a Windows 8 machine like this will be awesome.

I'm not really sure I should be "repeating" this... but some of the word we've been getting is that "storage spaces isn't for database usage". And the backup database.... is a database.    It's meant for storage only.   And yes, I understand that it is a BS statement.  But I'm willing to bet that you won't see this issue if you stop using storage spaces for the backup database.

Interesting point.  I would not use Storage Spaces as backup location unless I took mind altering drugs first.  I do not trust it for regular storage, much less a backup location. Not that I have an opinion on this or anything.

This is always been a controversial topic.  I am using a double liscense of AVG server edition ($39 for 2 servers) and have been pleased.  I have caught a couple of old files that where copied to the server a number of years ago that were infected and bypassed earlier client protection.


http://thedocsworld....server-edition/

I vote for option 2 as well.

You do not actually have to do anything with the domain.  Leave the server alone and just move the clients you do not want to be on off.  the backup still works fine and you can still see all the shares.  I am running that way now with no side effects yet.  I have put two on the domain, and two off the domain with so far no problems.  I was mostly interested in trying it as I do not want to log into my HTPC's.  I want those to auto login.

The answer to your question is probably more with what you are attaching to.  If you are attaching multi-computers your should go with some form of network storage. "If" hard cabled through a gigabit router, Gigabit is much faster than USB 2 but slower than USB 3.  I would go with network attached as it far more flexible and not reliant on a computer being operational or on.

Looks great except for two things.  Based on my tainted past, I would not use the Corsair GT.  Corsair has been slow to respond the BSOD issues and my recent round with the GT will not allow me to recommend their products as solid.  In my opinion, you are better off with the Intel or Vertex versions of the Sanforce series.  I have not tried this particular version of the DDR3 but  I have several of thier vengeance sticks that are flaky here on my desk so I have abandoned Corsair memory for the time being and stick with GSkill.  As of this writing I have have not had any go bad so all my builds run on Gskill.  Just my two cents.

I just did a short video on creating an FTP site.  I am not sure if this helps but check it out and let me know.  I am going to supplement this with some more advanced features in the upcoming weeks.

http://thedocsworld....whs-2011basics/

<sub>I Just listened to Podcast #68, where PCDoc talked about Acronis 2012. I just want to add my 2 cents worth here.

First let me say that I do not work for or have any affiliation with Paragon, so I have no reason to perfer it over any other software.

Although Acronis is a good product I have had much better luck with the Paragon software. I recently did a study for the company I work for about backup software products so I tried all that were not enterprise solutions. Our company produces equipment that are PC controlled and these systems with our own software have a very complicated configuration that requires a huge amount of time to set up properly (as in Weeks, not hours) so having a good backup solution is extremely important. When doing the testing I found that Acronis failed at scheduled, and non-scheduled, network backups more frequently than it succeded. I am not sure why, but Acronis was my first procuct of choice so I was really dissapointed that it failed so frequently. Paragon however almost never fails.  This being the case we proceeded to test Paragon to make sure that it was compatible with our software. No Problem!

Reasons Why I chose Paragon over Acronis:

1. Reliability
2. Help they offered.
3. Selection of products. Hard Drive Manager 11 is the best.
4. Options that Acronis offered for a price were included with Paragon, Like "Restore to Dissimilar Equipment", and RAID support, Win PE Recovery (Windows Pre-Install Enviornment).
5. More Tools for Geeks like us. Hard Drive Manager can do many things with the hard drive. Re-partition on the fly, Clone, Wipe the drive, Defrag, make VMDs (virtual Disks), as in Physical to Virtual, Virtual Adjust (so that it will make sure that it will work on the VM software that you are using). It can Clone from any size Drive to any size Drive, it doesn't have to be larger, it can be smaller as long as the data fits, Win PE recovery enviornment(Windows Pre-install Enviornment).
6.Trial Software proved its Superiority for me.
7. Last but not least Price. Paragon is cheaper than Acronis by a good margin. Also if you want all the extras that Arconis offeres that can double your cost. With Paragon it is all included. Hard Drive Manager Pro is kind of expensive, but they offer other products line Hard Drive Manager Suite that is about 1/2 the price, and does almost all the things that Pro does. They have a comparison on their web site that you can use to compare. Also you can find Backup and Restore Home version for around $20 depending on if you can find it on sale or not and "Restore to Dissimilar Equipment" is still included.

Give it a look and try.</sub>

Very nice write up.  Although I have not seen the reliability concerns you have, I certainly will try download and try this.  With discount pricing they are actually both about the same as Amazon sells Acronis for $19.  I certainly love to try new software so I will try this and do my own comparison based on different needs.  You are obviously on a larger scale than I am which says something.  Thanks for the detailed write up and will update with my own thoughts so we can compare notes.  After all it is about ease of use and value.  Thanks for the post.

I agree with with Yodafett but here is my two cents.  The D510/525 is fine for standard file serving, back up, and centralized storage.  These have more to do with the type of storage you will use.  As for transcoding (usually not done very often) that is another story.  You certainly will be able to rip your DVD/BD with no problem but not transcode real time and stream to you portable devices.  If you are OK with slower transcoding (conversations/not real time) it should be fine.  But if you need real time stuff spend a bit more and get a Core I3-2100.  Personally when you add up the cost of everything else you need such as drives, case, etc., the $100 savings you get by buying an atom is not worth it and you will outgrow it in a short time.  You are better off spending the extra $100 and getting 4+ times the power and have a bit of future proof.