I can't find too much about WHS other than the Microsoft sales literature but that's vague. Are WHS RAIDed? There is disk duplication, but what is that, can I use one of the disks there for backup against drive failures? What about a controller board failure, can I take the drives out and put them into any other box to retrieve the info?
Are WHS boxes RAIDed?
- Thread starter wm_cheng
- Start date
I asked this question before and as best as I understand if you turn on the built in RAID in WHS aka folder duplication (not disk duplication) then any of the drives will contain all the data folders that you had specified should be duplicated.
However you couldnt just stick that drive in an external box and view files - you'll have to get past some sort of header irst and then you will see files that you can copy to recover.
And no, you cant just stick that drive back into a rebuilt WHS server as backup either. You woudl have to use the built-in external backup function to be able to do that I think.
And there is not controller board to fail - it is basically software RAID.
However you couldnt just stick that drive in an external box and view files - you'll have to get past some sort of header irst and then you will see files that you can copy to recover.
And no, you cant just stick that drive back into a rebuilt WHS server as backup either. You woudl have to use the built-in external backup function to be able to do that I think.
And there is not controller board to fail - it is basically software RAID.
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This MS article explains the Drive Extender technology.
Drives are NTFS formatted, so can be read on other Windows systems. But there isn't an easy way to find out where backup files are kept.
Drives are NTFS formatted, so can be read on other Windows systems. But there isn't an easy way to find out where backup files are kept.
It states that its got a Intel 945GC Express Chipset + ICH7R - doesn't that support RAID at the hardware level?
Can't I install WHS on RAID5 (or do a server recovery to a 4 disk RAID 5 array) and have the redundancy of RAID5 without WHS's overhead of duplication?
My worry is if the motherboard or HDD fail, then I want to take the working drives out and plug them into something else (pretty standard) available in the future that I can extract my files from. Assuming I can find a standardized RAID controller in the future.
Can't I install WHS on RAID5 (or do a server recovery to a 4 disk RAID 5 array) and have the redundancy of RAID5 without WHS's overhead of duplication?
My worry is if the motherboard or HDD fail, then I want to take the working drives out and plug them into something else (pretty standard) available in the future that I can extract my files from. Assuming I can find a standardized RAID controller in the future.
Although some people do it, running WHS and RAID isn't easy or recommended.
WHS actually has higher performance using the same hardware than running RAID 5. The file duplication is a batch process that runs during idle time.
The only protection against failure is a good backup residing on a physically separate machine. RAID or WHS Drive Duplication is not backup.
Recovery from a failed RAID 5 array is a very painful process that doesn't have guaranteed success.
WHS actually has higher performance using the same hardware than running RAID 5. The file duplication is a batch process that runs during idle time.
The only protection against failure is a good backup residing on a physically separate machine. RAID or WHS Drive Duplication is not backup.
Recovery from a failed RAID 5 array is a very painful process that doesn't have guaranteed success.
Thanks for the clarification, I just thought the hardware level RAID would perform better than the OS level duplication - I've read that the WHS duplication disc balancing severely slows/bogs down the system and can take days.
Yes, I intend to back up the WHS or RAID box at sometime later when I can afford the extra drives. But HDD redundancy is all I can afford for now.
Is it true that the WHS just writes in NTFS format and in a MB failure, I can just take the drives out and pop them in any machine to read the data out?
Yes, I intend to back up the WHS or RAID box at sometime later when I can afford the extra drives. But HDD redundancy is all I can afford for now.
Is it true that the WHS just writes in NTFS format and in a MB failure, I can just take the drives out and pop them in any machine to read the data out?
I have no experience with WHS, so you should go with what more knowledgeable people report.
If you have a Mobo or PS failure, there are no guarantees. But if the drives aren't damaged, you should be able to mount the drive in another Windows system. But don't expect that finding duplicated data will be easy. I would suggest doing some more research on WHS recovery on the WHS sites.
If you have a Mobo or PS failure, there are no guarantees. But if the drives aren't damaged, you should be able to mount the drive in another Windows system. But don't expect that finding duplicated data will be easy. I would suggest doing some more research on WHS recovery on the WHS sites.
So if the PS or MB failed, could I just take the 4 drives out and put it into my desktop (that supports RAID5) and be able to access those drives to retrieve information? Or can I buy another RAID5 box (not necessarily the same manufacturer or model) and insert those drives into any other RAID5 box to read/retrieve the info?
Not likely. There are many variations how RAID5 volumes are constructed. And there is usually an OS partition or two that is configured for the hardware the drives were running on.
You can't do the move-a-drive trick with a NAS any more than you can do it with a computer.
Both the QNAP and Synology state they can format to EXT3 filesystem (I thought they would be compatible, so if later on in the lifecycle something goes wrong, but the drives are intact, I wouldn't be able to retrieve the info on them? (even though RAID is a standard?)
Better read up on RAID5 recovery horror stories...
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=2087
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=2102
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=1895
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=2087
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=2102
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=1895
WHS itself does not support software raid, so you would need to use hardware solution. Using RAID5, you can easily go over 2TB disk size (who would want build a new box and use something like 5x 500GB disks anymore?
) but only 2TB would be usable/visible. So the problem is: at the moment WHS can handle max. 2TB sized hdd's. It is believed that an update to support large drives is released after the bigger drives hit the market.
I own HP Mediasmart ex475, love that little black box
It is getting too small, so I am planning to build a new box with lots of discs (room for 12-16) in RAID5 and some other OS instead. Then I'd leave the ex475 to handle PC backups.Similar threads
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