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PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:07 pm 
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Hello. I'm new to WHS & new to some HW I've just 'inherited' from work . . . stuff the IT department abandoned (three-year equipment rotation - you want it, you got it - just get it out of our way).

I've got a mid-tower ATX chassis that can hold up to 10 3.5-inch hard drives, 6 of them in a hot-swap cage & 4 that must be screw-mounted. I also have two external drive chassis, each with space for 5 3.5-inch hard drives, again with hot-swap bays. There are three Addonics eSata II to 5-port Sata II port multipliers (one in each of the two external drive chassis and one that mounts in a back-plane slot but does not use a PCIe socket in the ATX chassis). Each of these has switch settings for various RAID levels. Finally, there is a 4-port PCIe/8 eSata board (no RAID, just eSata connectivity and compatible with port multipliers).

Am I correct in assuming that I can build three 5-drive RAID-5 arrays (with the addition of a lot of drives -- I have an entire case of recycled 750GB drives that have been "wiped" but are - at least, potentially - still good), connecting them all to the 4-port PCIe/8 eSata board and then have WHS use all the space?

The prospect of building an essentially 8+TB home server with essentially no cost for the actual storage was too awesome to pass up.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:13 pm 
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Actually with WHS you do not need to setup a RAID Configuration. WHS was designed to use JBOD or Just a Bunch Of Drives. You can mix and match the sizes, use consumer grade drives or any drives of your choice or comfort level. Basically you add each drive into your storage pool and setup the shared folders for your files and then if you want the files and folders dupicate you just turn it on and WHS takes care of the rest.

So WHS is basically a server system designed for the average everyday person. In its original form its fairly straight forward, runs pretty much on its own after you configure it. Its basically set it and forget it. WHS was intended to be run like a home applience. Over the years many have taken it to all new levels doing some wild and interesting things. While it may not always be perfect, one has to ask what is perfect anyway. If things were perfect then there would be no need for updates and what not.

Now if you have your heart set on a RAID Solution you may want to consider WHS 2011 and impliment that there rather then in WHS v1. Although I took on the assumption you were refering to WHS v1 I started there.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:53 pm 
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I was thinking WHS 2011; however, I seem to have posted in the wrong thread. Sorry.

With the understanding that WHS 2011 has dropped support for some of the features that made drive/storage options so easy in the original version, and, given that I have an entire case of 750GB WD Caviar black hard drives (24 of them - ~3 years old, about a quarter of them used & 'wiped', the rest unused), I figured that creating three 5-drive RAID-5 arrays would be the way to go, especially since I've also got the extra hardware to treat three 5-drive RAID-5 arrays as 'single' external sata drives. I'd also use 2 of the drives in a RAID-1 array for the OS and whatever else needs to located there. The remaining 7 drives would be used as spares for the inevitable failures expected when using recycled drives. Eventually, I'd buy WD or Samsung 2TB green drives as replacements, 5 at a time, giving me significantly greater storage. Their slower speed is unlikely to be a factor in this application -- certainly not for my needs.

If this is not a reasonable plan of attack, I'll abandon it. I'm certainly open to suggestions. It just seemed like a good way to go, given that the drives, controllers & cases are costing me nothing. All I'll have to buy is a power supply, motherboard, processor & some memory.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 2:48 pm 
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The 24 drives you inherited maybe fine for a RAID System and were probably used in a RAID Configuration so your probably good to go there. However when looking at consumer class drives they may not be suitable for RAID so you will need look for suitable drives later down the road.

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~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


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