I am so confused since I have started reading about WHS11 not having a drive pool. Can someone explain in plain nonteckie speek how this works?? Does each drive show up individually?? I don't understand raid, which is why we If I send a file to the server do I have to specify a drive?? My old 470 is still chugging along just fine, but I am worried about it giving up and we just can't live without it! Went looking for a copy of WHS2003 to buy and store away, but no one seems to sell it anymore. I have seen some 2008's available to buy, but I don't know if that has drive extender or not.

Thanks for helping a dufus out!

Bob

_________________
Where's the trains???
EX470 2 GIG Ram 7.5 T.byte Storage
HP 64 Bit Quad Core Desktop Vista
HP 32 Bit Dual Core Desktop Vista
2 HP 64 Bit Dual Core Laptops Windows 8
1 Gateway 32 Bit Dual Core Laptops Vista
1 Gateway Laptop XP
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Bob,

I had the same issue as you - I had no idea how WHS2011 would compare to WHSv1.

In simple terms, you install WHS2011 onto an operating system partition (usually about 60Gb) and then you format up all the drives you had in your WHS box. You add all your drives to WHS, and then you use the WHS2011 dashboard to manage the drives and the folders.

The drive screen gives you an overview of what physical drives are available to the server. I've attached a screenshot of mine so you can see - DataR5 on my E: drive is a software raid drive that is three 1.5Tb drives in a RAID-5 configuration. Seems to work very well for me.

The folders screen gives you an overview of how you have set up folders on each drive. I've attached a screenshot of mine so you can see - notice that most of my stuff is on my E: drive, which is fairly large. I keep my videos on the G: drive, which is a 2Tb drive. Because I used a 1.5Tb drive as the book drive, there is a 60Gb C: partition and a 1337Gb D: drive, so I'm using the D: drive for computer backups and other things.

Now, how do you USE this stuff? That's the folder shares. I've attached a screenshot of those. Each of the shares is available on the network. Certain of the shares are also part of the media server - so my XBOX and PS3 can see the Videos, Pictures and Music.

So far it's working out for me very well.
Dean

_________________
Server: HP EX495 | E5200 CPU @ 2.5GHz | 4GB RAM | 4 x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200RPM
Backup: Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2 | 4 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2.0TB 5900RPM
Operating System: Windows Server 2012 Essentials | Media Server| Anywhere Access

Thanks for that info, but what does/is raid?? If I reused my seven drives how would raid work?

Will be studying your screen shots for sure!

Bob

_________________
Where's the trains???
EX470 2 GIG Ram 7.5 T.byte Storage
HP 64 Bit Quad Core Desktop Vista
HP 32 Bit Dual Core Desktop Vista
2 HP 64 Bit Dual Core Laptops Windows 8
1 Gateway 32 Bit Dual Core Laptops Vista
1 Gateway Laptop XP
C-200 Popcorn Hour

RAID stands for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks". There are different flavours of RAID, but the most useful one for the majority of users is RAID-5.

In very simple terms, it is a way of taking at least three disks and combining the sizes together across all three to create a shared pool that has fault tolerance. If one drive fails, and you replace it, the RAID system will rebuild the content on the new drive from the other drives. It's not fail-safe, but it is tolerant.

There is software RAID (which I am using) and hardware RAID (where you have a special card that acts as an interface between your system and the hard drives). Hardware RAID is faster, but I've not noticed any speed issues on my server. I was very glad to find out that WHS2011 supported software RAID (mainly because of the Windows Server 2008 R2 foundation).

_________________
Server: HP EX495 | E5200 CPU @ 2.5GHz | 4GB RAM | 4 x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200RPM
Backup: Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2 | 4 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2.0TB 5900RPM
Operating System: Windows Server 2012 Essentials | Media Server| Anywhere Access

So this is built into WHS11 and is something that can be turned on??

Thanks for your patience!

Bob

_________________
Where's the trains???
EX470 2 GIG Ram 7.5 T.byte Storage
HP 64 Bit Quad Core Desktop Vista
HP 32 Bit Dual Core Desktop Vista
2 HP 64 Bit Dual Core Laptops Windows 8
1 Gateway 32 Bit Dual Core Laptops Vista
1 Gateway Laptop XP
C-200 Popcorn Hour

It's built into Windows Server 2008 R2, which is what Windows Home Server 2011 is built on. It was quite easy to do.

_________________
Server: HP EX495 | E5200 CPU @ 2.5GHz | 4GB RAM | 4 x Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200RPM
Backup: Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2 | 4 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2.0TB 5900RPM
Operating System: Windows Server 2012 Essentials | Media Server| Anywhere Access

Thanks so much!! your a rock star!!

Might go order one now.

_________________
Where's the trains???
EX470 2 GIG Ram 7.5 T.byte Storage
HP 64 Bit Quad Core Desktop Vista
HP 32 Bit Dual Core Desktop Vista
2 HP 64 Bit Dual Core Laptops Windows 8
1 Gateway 32 Bit Dual Core Laptops Vista
1 Gateway Laptop XP
C-200 Popcorn Hour