WHS2011 + Software Raid5

[Axel]

Well guys I've just bitten the bullet and bought myself one of these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/253305-hp-proliant-athlon-ii-neo-n36l-microserver-100-cashback-633724-421

With myself looking for a home server solution I couldn't say no to that £100 cashback offer! I also went ahead and got myself a copy of WHS2011 and another 4gb of memory.

I'll start by saying that I have absolutely no hands on experience with RAID (nor with WHS2011) but I do understand some of the basic principles.

At a hardware level, this only supports RAID 0 or 1 and my understanding is that when adding more than 2 drives to an array you get the best space vs redundancy solution using RAID 5. Through some light googling I understand that at a software level, WHS2011 supports RAID 5.

My present solution is to store everything in my desktop machine (1x1.5TB hdd), and using microsoft synctoy to backup to an external hard drive. Ultimately I guess I will buy another 1.5 or 2tb hardrive to eliminate backing up ALL data on the external and it'd be mirrored within the server, at that point I'll put my raid plan and solution (when decided upon) into action. I also use a cloud backup service to store irreplaceable files.

My questions regarding the software RAID solution would firstly be to ask your opinion on it. Secondly I would ask the reliability of this solution. Thirdly, as I assume the data on the array is stored on the same hard drive as the operating system, what happens if the OS hard drive fails? In that case it surely doesnt provide much additional redundency over Raid0!

Anyway I'll leave it at that for now but I can feel more burning questions creeping forth!

Many thanks,

Alex

[+Dick Montage Subscriber²]

Following this thread, as I also just bought one (not arrived yet), and considering WHS or Win7 (undecided).

[Roger H. Veteran]

I have just installed WHS 2011 on my Lenovo D400 as well and was thinking of using the software RAID5 as well. Right now i have 2 x 2TB WD EARS drive and a Seagate 1TB Barracuda.

As for RAID 5 via software, the idea is you are allowed to loose 1 out of 3 drives or 2 of 4 drives and everything will rebuild once you replace the dead drives. So if the OS "drive" dies then it doesn't really matter as the OS runs from ALL the drives. That is unless you put 3 drives in RAID 5 and the OS drive by itself then you'll have some issues.

WHS 2011 partitions the first drive however into 60GB/XGB and then the rest of the drives run independently under normal setup. Since that can hold 4 physical drives as well, maybe you want to just RAID5 all of em?

Subcribing here too as I am still trying to decide how to set mine up with the current HDDs I have.

Moved to Server Support

[Osiris]

Youll be happy with your purchase guys, I updated my home server with one of these a few weeks back and they are great value, quite, small and very very capable.

To answer your question, you wont store your raid files on the same drive as the OS. The unit comes with a 250GB 7200rpm drive, you should install OS to that, then add additional drives that will comprise of your RAID5 (you will need a minimium of 3 drives for RAID5).

Software Raid 5 is quite realiable although not as speedy as Hardware Raid5 (but if its just for backup wont be any issues). With 3 drives you can have one drive fail and as long as you replace it before any other drives fail your data will be safe and you will have the benefits of a larger storagepool.

Pending the size of your drives be aware that building the array can take quite some time and you want to add as many drives as possible to it initially, as updating it will be painful.

Enjoy your new HomeServer

*As a note to others the Server can potentially house up to 5, 3.5" HDD's,

[neoraptor]

raid0 - doubles the chances for data lost

raid1 - in theory protects you from hardware failure of one of the drives. In practice the chances are that you are going to buy 2 desktop (not server grade) hdds from same batch which increases the chances for them failing at the same time.

Also with raid you are making things more complicated and in case of failure you will have to rebuild it.

If i were you I would put a single hdd and backup to remote location which is the only way to be safe in case of fire, spilling water, earthquake, power issues etc.

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 12:56, nik louch said:

Following this thread, as I also just bought one (not arrived yet), and considering WHS or Win7 (undecided).

Reason I chose WHS was that it was only £35 and I also found some negative experiences with running Win7, for the life of me I can't find the original thread detailing this!

[+Dick Montage Subscriber²]

  Quote

Reason I chose WHS was that it was only £35 and I also found some negative experiences with running Win7, for the life of me I can't find the original thread detailing this!

If you do ever stumble upon it, please do let me know. Ta

[briangw]

There are various Drive Extender replacements coming out where you can do away with RAID altogether and just use those products. Many of this is discussed out on the We Got Served forums

http://www.wegotserved.com/

[MFH]

I'm still running WHSv1 and personally I won't switch to WHS2011 before there is an alternative to DriveExtender. Currently there are "Drive Bender", which currently was released as final but seems to still have some bugs. The second replacement would be "Drive Pool" which is still in beta…

[jakem1]

  On 20/10/2011 at 13:51, MFH said:

I'm still running WHSv1 and personally I won't switch to WHS2011 before there is an alternative to DriveExtender. Currently there are "Drive Bender", which currently was released as final but seems to still have some bugs. The second replacement would be "Drive Pool" which is still in beta…

I'm in the same boat and am not sure what to do. I really want to upgrade but I don't want to give up on Drive Extender and don't feel too comfortable about relying on a third party replacement. Drive Extender is supposed to return in Windows 8 Server but there's no way of knowing how long we might have to wait for an update to WHS based on that version.

Microsoft have really made things difficult for WHS users :angry:

[Axel]

Thanks to all who have replied, I'm just trying to make sense of a few things!

  On 20/10/2011 at 13:12, Osiris said:

To answer your question, you wont store your raid files on the same drive as the OS. The unit comes with a 250GB 7200rpm drive, you should install OS to that, then add additional drives that will comprise of your RAID5 (you will need a minimium of 3 drives for RAID5).

I think I'm misunderstanding so you might need to pretend I'm 5! :p

Is the suggestion for Raid5 that I install WHS on the 250gb and then have 3x1.5TB(for example) for the RAID5. Whats the recovery situation if the OS drive fails and I need to reinstall WHS and get it to interpret the array? Can I choose an option to specify that the RaidArray information be stored on the Array itself. In which case, won't that introduce a catch 22 situation on the basis that WHS would need access to these files to restore the array, yet would not be able to access the array they're stored on due to the fact it doesn't have those files anyway! (hope that makes sense my head hurts).

  On 20/10/2011 at 13:12, Osiris said:

*As a note to others the Server can potentially house up to 5, 3.5" HDD's,

I think you can also cram a single 2.5" drive in there and 2 additional drives at the top, bringing the total to 7 overall!

[Fred Derf Veteran]

If your motherboard controller has RAID 5 built into it then you should be able to install three drives and boot into a RAID5 array. Sometimes they still are referred to as software RAID because your CPU does the extra work rather than independent discreet logic (like a RAID controller card).

However, if you plan to use Microsoft's internal software RAID (without BIOS assistance) then you'll likely have to boot onto a normal HDD and then use a three drive RAID 5 array for storage. Thus you'll need 4 HDDs total.

To address an earlier comment, I thought you needed RAID 6 to deal with two simultaneous drive failures.

  On 20/10/2011 at 13:58, Axel said:

Is the suggestion for Raid5 that I install WHS on the 250gb and then have 3x1.5TB(for example) for the RAID5. Whats the recovery situation if the OS drive fails and I need to reinstall WHS and get it to interpret the array? Can I choose an option to specify that the RaidArray information be stored on the Array itself. In which case, won't that introduce a catch 22 situation on the basis that WHS would need access to these files to restore the array, yet would not be able to access the array they're stored on due to the fact it doesn't have those files anyway! (hope that makes sense my head hurts).

In order to have the OS included as part of the RAID 5 array then you'll need to have some sort of BIOS support that allows you to boot to a RAID 5 array. In this configuration you don't use Microsoft's software RAID at all. You don't necessarily need a RAID controller card to do this as some motherboards have support for RAID 5 arrays that use your CPU to do the extra work.

I recently set up a bootable RAID 5 array on a Dell 110 server that ran Windows Small Business Server 2011 (something very, very similar to WHS 2011). I had to do the OS installation myself though as Dell couldn't sell it like that.

[El Marto]

definetly move the stock 250gb hard drive into the ODD slot and use that for the OS. leaves you the 4 bays for storage drives.

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:06, Fred Derf said:

However, if you plan to use Microsoft's internal software RAID (without BIOS assistance) then you'll likely have to boot onto a normal HDD and then use a three drive RAID 5 array for storage. Thus you'll need 4 HDDs total.

Unfortunately the mobo only supports Raid 0 or 1.

what you've mentioned there is the scenario I assumed I would have to go with if I was to use Software RAID5. However, this still doesn't address the unlikely issue of having the OS drive fail, since the 3 additional drives used in the array depend on that particular drive to organise themselves...

[Osiris]

Then just spend $50 (aud...likely less in the UK) and buy a low profile raid card. Or...WHS11 being built on Server08 tech should have the backup manager...backup your OS to your external hdd, the OS drive fails you can just restore from the external drive, or purchase another hdd and use the software/hardware raid to mirror the OS drive, so you'd have your OS drive mirrored+3xdrives in software raid 5....eitherway plenty of options :)

[Fred Derf Veteran]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:20, Axel said:

Unfortunately the mobo only supports Raid 0 or 1.

what you've mentioned there is the scenario I assumed I would have to go with if I was to use Software RAID5. However, this still doesn't address the unlikely issue of having the OS drive fail, since the 3 additional drives used in the array depend on that particular drive to organise themselves...

I'm sure you can find a 4 port SATA Raid 5 controller for about $50 (maybe less). Just look for anything that includes Windows Server 2008 R2 drivers and it should be fine with WHS 2011.

(Windows SBS 2011 was "built on Windows 2008 R2) and since WHS 2011 seems pretty much the same as SBS 2011 (on a technical/installation level) then I assume that WHS 2011 is also "built on Windows 2008 R2" technology).

Edit:

I just said what Orisis said.

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:42, Osiris said:

or purchase another hdd and use the software/hardware raid to mirror the OS drive, so you'd have your OS drive mirrored+3xdrives in software raid 5....eitherway plenty of options :)

I like this idea very much! Seems like a very hardy solution :D

Is it all that difficult to set up the software RAID in WHS2011? I'm having trouble finding a guide anywhere.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:51, Axel said:

Is it all that difficult to set up the software RAID in WHS2011? I'm having trouble finding a guide anywhere.

Any guide for Windows Server 2008 should work just fine.

Be careful though, you travel without the aid of wizards! :p

WHS 2011 is basically the same as Windows 2008 R2 with an easier (read as: restrictive) installation and an easier (read as: restrictive) wizard interface. Many users of WHS 2011 and SBS 2011 happily circumvent the use of wizards whenever possible though.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Ok, so understanding what Fred and Orisis have said and also confirmed WHS 2011 is built on 2008 R2.

To reiterate Axel's concern though (without buying the hardware RAID card), basically with 3 drives in RAID 5 and then 1 by itself for the OS. Since the OS manages the RAID, so if you gotta reinstall the OS (say HDD dies or becomes currupt) does that mean you can no longer read the RAID 5 array, even after reinstalling Windows? The same would be true if your hardware RAID controller dies you basically loose all the data there.

Oh and also i'll just also mention: RAID-? is NOT a backup solution!

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:53, Fred Derf said:

Any guide for Windows Server 2008 should work just fine.

Be careful though, you travel without the aid of wizards! :p

WHS 2011 is basically the same as Windows 2008 R2 with an easier (read as: restrictive) installation and an easier (read as: restrictive) wizard interface. Many users of WHS 2011 and SBS 2011 happily circumvent the use of wizards whenever possible though.

Many thanks!

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:58, SHoTTa35 said:

Ok, so understanding what Fred and Orisis have said and also confirmed WHS 2011 is built on 2008 R2.

To reiterate Axel's concern though (without buying the hardware RAID card), basically with 3 drives in RAID 5 and then 1 by itself for the OS. Since the OS manages the RAID, so if you gotta reinstall the OS (say HDD dies or becomes currupt) does that mean you can no longer read the RAID 5 array, even after reinstalling Windows? The same would be true if your hardware RAID controller dies you basically loose all the data there.

Oh and also i'll just also mention: RAID-? is NOT a backup solution!

Wise words regarding backup, I use off-site where possible for irreplaceable files but I just want redundancy for those ones that would cause a huge nuisance to replace.

This is another good question that I would like answered. There can be many reasons to reinstall the operating system or format. Is it possible to backup/restore the raid array data in the event this is required?

[Fred Derf Veteran]

  On 20/10/2011 at 14:58, SHoTTa35 said:

Ok, so understanding what Fred and Orisis have said and also confirmed WHS 2011 is built on 2008 R2.

To reiterate Axel's concern though (without buying the hardware RAID card), basically with 3 drives in RAID 5 and then 1 by itself for the OS. Since the OS manages the RAID, so if you gotta reinstall the OS (say HDD dies or becomes currupt) does that mean you can no longer read the RAID 5 array, even after reinstalling Windows? The same would be true if your hardware RAID controller dies you basically loose all the data there.

First of all, you don't loosen or tighten data. :p

Secondly, you should be able to reinstall WHS on a new boot drive and have the OS see the RAID 5 data array from the previous installation (if it is still healthy). We aren't talking about encryption yet.

If you really wanted to putz around with WHS 2011 restrictive installation then you could, in theory, have a mirrored 60GB boot partition (using your motherboard's RAID1) and then use the remaining space of the hard drive to create a RAID 5 array with the two already mirrored drives and one otherwise empty drive. Assuming 250 GB drives for a moment:

Drive 1: 60GB mirror + 190 GB Raid 5

Drive 2: 60GB mirror + 190 GB Raid 5

Drive 3: 60GB empty + 190 GB Raid 5

That would give you a 60GB boot partition and a 380GB data partition (plus you'd have the empty 60GB of space from the third drive that could be partitioned for extra use).

However, WHS 2011 is rather restrictive and it tends to want to create its own partitions. I don't know if you could satisfy the installer with a reconfigured 60GB Raid 1 boot drive. The software RAID 5 array could be created after the installation.

I'd only bother to try that if you had time to waste though.

  On 20/10/2011 at 15:08, Axel said:

This is another good question that I would like answered. There can be many reasons to reinstall the operating system or format. Is it possible to backup/restore the raid array data in the event this is required?

The RAID drive will show up on the network like any other server partition. You can back up the files from any workstation onto external HDDs or tapes in exactly the same way that you would backup files that were not stored in a RAID array.

Once the problem was fixed or the OS reinstalled then recreate the array and restore the files.

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 15:15, Fred Derf said:

The RAID drive will show up on the network like any other server partition. You can back up the files from any workstation onto external HDDs or tapes in exactly the same way that you would backup files that were not stored in a RAID array.

Once the problem was fixed or the OS reinstalled then recreate the array and restore the files.

But essentially in that scenario you have to wipe the drives and start over. So if you have 3x 2tb drives which in SoftRaid5 would equate to 4tb of storage, assuming that storage is full you'd need to find another 2 x 2TB hard disks for the temporary backup and restore. In which case we fallback to a low profile Raid5 controller card being the best solution when factoring the cost of an additional 4TB of storage.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

  On 20/10/2011 at 15:23, Axel said:

But essentially in that scenario you have to wipe the drives and start over. So if you have 3x 2tb drives which in SoftRaid5 would equate to 4tb of storage, assuming that storage is full you'd need to find another 2 x 2TB hard disks for the temporary backup and restore. In which case we fallback to a low profile Raid5 controller card being the best solution when factoring the cost of an additional 4TB of storage.

Well, I assumed you would have that extra storage on-hand for the day-to-day backup use.

[Axel]

  On 20/10/2011 at 15:36, Fred Derf said:

Well, I assumed you would have that extra storage on-hand for the day-to-day backup use.

I have a smaller solution for that (online and external drive) and I use it for things I would consider irreplaceable. The Raid5 array essentially just protects data that would take effort and time to replace (re-ripping my movie collection for example.)

I have actually just come across perhaps an alternative to using WHS2011 softraid.

http://www.drivebender.com/

  Quote

DATA REDUNDANCY

To further ensure data safety, Drive Bender can automatically duplicate any file added to a Drive Bender pool. File duplication is determined at the folder level and occurs on the fly as data is being written to the pool. More importantly, files are only duplicated across physical drives ensuring maximum safety and data redundancy.

NON-DESTRUCTIVE

One of the key Drive Bender features is its non-destructive file system technology. In short, this means that all drives within a Drive Bender pool are utilizing standard NTFS format and file structures. This is to such an extent that a drive can be pulled from the pool and read on any machine capable of reading an NTFS formatted drive. More over, drives attached to the pool can be done so without modification, if a drive is added (not merged) that contains existing data, that data will remain untouched.

[ToneKnee]

  On 20/10/2011 at 13:12, SHoTTa35 said:

I have just installed WHS 2011 on my Lenovo D400 as well and was thinking of using the software RAID5 as well. Right now i have 2 x 2TB WD EARS drive and a Seagate 1TB Barracuda.

As for RAID 5 via software, the idea is you are allowed to loose 1 out of 3 drives or 2 of 4 drives and everything will rebuild once you replace the dead drives. So if the OS "drive" dies then it doesn't really matter as the OS runs from ALL the drives. That is unless you put 3 drives in RAID 5 and the OS drive by itself then you'll have some issues.

WHS 2011 partitions the first drive however into 60GB/XGB and then the rest of the drives run independently under normal setup. Since that can hold 4 physical drives as well, maybe you want to just RAID5 all of em?

Subcribing here too as I am still trying to decide how to set mine up with the current HDDs I have.

Moved to Server Support

Just to elt you know, RAID-5 only allows for one drive to fail, not two. So it's 1 drive out of 3, or 1 drive out of 4, or 1 drive out of 5. So the more drives you add, you still only allowed one drive to fail. If you want 2 redudendant drives to fail, then you need RAID-6.