WHS system advice

[beelzerob]

Since i've got a PC running 24.7 for CQC anyway, I've decided I might as well put it to better use doing something like backup. The ease of use and automatic nature of WHS appeals to doing that.

Here's mainly what I want it to do:

1) Be my CQC server
2) Backup all the PC's connected to it
3) Be our file server for things like pictures and general passing between PC's of various files.

That should all be pretty simple stuff for this.

I guess the question comes to the makeup of disks inside it. I have a handful of spare hd's laying around, but I'd also like the system to be single drive failure tolerant. I know that WHS does this with the data if you ask it to, but from what I understand, that doesn't protect the actual disk WHS (and CQC) is installed on...just the data disks. If that's the case, I was considering buying a relatively cheap RAID card and getting 2 disks and using them in a RAID1 for the system, and then whatever other disks I have for data.

does that sound like a good plan?

 

[signal15]

You can't set up the system disk as software RAID 1 with another disk? Since the disks are mirrors of each other, you just boot off of one of them, and when the system comes up, it joins the other disk to the array automatically.

Or maybe I'm overestimating the capabilities of WHS. In which case, Lame.

 

[beelzerob]

My understanding is that the "system" disk of a WHS system doesn't duplicate itself...so there's no "single disk failure" protection for that unless you use some kind of external duplication like a RAID1 system.

Other Data that WHS protects you can tell it specifically to duplicate in which case it makes sure the data exists on 2 disks...so you're protected against a single disk failure.

But if the system disk goes to heck...you've lost no data, but would a reinstall of WHS on a new system disk pick up how the previous WHS install had arrange the data on the disks?

 

[sic0048]

I believe there is a WHS plugin that effectively will backup the system drive. However you can mirror the system drives if you so desire. I recommend getting something in the 500gb range. You don't want the system drive to be very large because you really want all of your data on the other drives incase they do fail. So you'll have all the OS on the drive and it uses it as a scratch drive while moving files from drive to drive. But anything bigger is just going to be a waste of space.

 

[troymt]

WHS has no OS level raid support. AFAIK

 

[ano]

Since i've got a PC running 24.7 for CQC anyway, I've decided I might as well put it to better use doing something like backup. The ease of use and automatic nature of WHS appeals to doing that.

Here's mainly what I want it to do:

1) Be my CQC server
2) Backup all the PC's connected to it
3) Be our file server for things like pictures and general passing between PC's of various files.

That should all be pretty simple stuff for this.

I guess the question comes to the makeup of disks inside it. I have a handful of spare hd's laying around, but I'd also like the system to be single drive failure tolerant. I know that WHS does this with the data if you ask it to, but from what I understand, that doesn't protect the actual disk WHS (and CQC) is installed on...just the data disks. If that's the case, I was considering buying a relatively cheap RAID card and getting 2 disks and using them in a RAID1 for the system, and then whatever other disks I have for data.

does that sound like a good plan?

Just keep in mind that WHS runs Winders Server 2003 as its OS, and many common PC devices do not have drivers supporting Server 2003. Also, not all Windows programs run on it, but most do. Just verify everything you plan to run on it actually will support it. For example, WHS does not support Text-to-Speech.

 

[beelzerob]

Just keep in mind that WHS runs Winders Server 2003 as its OS, and many common PC devices do not have drivers supporting Server 2003. Also, not all Windows programs run on it, but most do. Just verify everything you plan to run on it actually will support it. For example, WHS does not support Text-to-Speech.

That's a good point, especially for CQC. At this point I've stopped using the cqc master for the TTS, but I could see doing that at some point in the future.

 

[sic0048]

I haven't had trouble finding Windows 2003 drivers for my devices (and I have a lot of stuff on my WHS server) - but it is possible I guess.

Some sort of external/offsite backup scheme is the only true way to prevent data loss. Mirroring won't prevent data loss if the drive gets some sort of corruption/virus that is mirrored to the 2nd drive. WHS backup scheme and most RAID schemes won't prevent data loss with multible drives going bad at once. And of course having those backups offsite is best to prevent an onsite loss due to fire, flood, etc.

There are several WHS plugins that allow automatic backups to different "cloud" online sites. The only problem I see is that most of those sevices are expensive.

Having several external drives that are used to regularly backup the critical data and then carried offsite to a secure location is another option.

I've been thinking about these options for a while and may decide to go with the external drives carried to an offsite location. I would really like to find a reliable cloud server that was a decent price. But I guess those two desires are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Neurorad]

Would be great if there was an easy way to back up to a hard drive at a neighbor's house - do the same for him, even swap. 'Next Door Cloud'

 

[signal15]

Would be great if there was an easy way to back up to a hard drive at a neighbor's house - do the same for him, even swap. 'Next Door Cloud'

There is:

http://www4.crashplan.com/landing/index.html

Just configure a wireless link between the houses and use this. It's free unless you want to back up to CrashPlan's servers. I haven't used it, because I have my own backup solution. But a guy I used to work with started this company and a bunch of people I know use it and think it's great.

 

[Steve]

Since the system drive doesn't really change much, why not just take an Acronis snapshot of the drive and if the drive fails simply replace the drive and throw the image back on it?

 

[beelzerob]

Well, the whole point of going with WHS is so that I don't have to setup things like backup or have restoring be a pain. I'd just rather it be automatic and simple.

I'm not counting on this as a method of permanent storage...i still burn whatever I really care about. But it would be nice to have some kind of backup for normal day-to-day type stuff.

 

[beelzerob]

Well, I found the WHS trial download, so I figure before I start plunking down money for hard drives and interface cards, I should see how it works with what drives I have, and then I'll have a better idea of what I need.

 

[123]

... and here's something to run WHS.

 

[beelzerob]

I hope to avoid having to buy another system. I've got so many laying around.... Hopefully the one I've been using as my CQC server will suffice for WHS too.