time
Storage? I am Storage!
An absence of graphics drivers is what forced me off Win2k over the last couple of years.
Windows Home Server / Home Server OS
- Thread starter Stereodude
- Start date
An absence of graphics drivers is what forced me off Win2k over the last couple of years.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I had a Windows 2000 Server running until early this year.
Seems my OS drive in my home server is thinking about failing, several times that drive has been marked as degraded in the past couple months. Home server smart says nothing wrong though.
I was going to swap it with a 1TB Samsung that I have here but then I realized that the motherboard has a ICH9R, so now I am thinking I should just go ahead and do a RAID 1 for the OS drive and never have the problem again.
When I switch the motherboard to RAID how should I mark the non OS disks so WHS still picks them up?
Really hoping I can do a reinstall and have it pick up the drive pool. I have been backing up the server for a couple days now and have nearly everything off of it. Only stuff left is non duplicated items for movies I have here that I can easily rerip, just be a waste of time. Does a reinstall really wipe out the non duplicated folders when it rebuilds the pool?
Newegg has some Samsung F4 320GB drives I was thinking about using for boot, thoughts? Those are single platter jobs right? Either that or two 1TB F3. Existing drive is something 5400rpm Samsung but would like to get two more or less matched drives for RAID.
Was previously using a WHS nlite image with the AHCI drivers on it, will redo the image so I get AHCI and RAID drivers on it.
I was going to swap it with a 1TB Samsung that I have here but then I realized that the motherboard has a ICH9R, so now I am thinking I should just go ahead and do a RAID 1 for the OS drive and never have the problem again.
When I switch the motherboard to RAID how should I mark the non OS disks so WHS still picks them up?
Really hoping I can do a reinstall and have it pick up the drive pool. I have been backing up the server for a couple days now and have nearly everything off of it. Only stuff left is non duplicated items for movies I have here that I can easily rerip, just be a waste of time. Does a reinstall really wipe out the non duplicated folders when it rebuilds the pool?
Newegg has some Samsung F4 320GB drives I was thinking about using for boot, thoughts? Those are single platter jobs right? Either that or two 1TB F3. Existing drive is something 5400rpm Samsung but would like to get two more or less matched drives for RAID.
Was previously using a WHS nlite image with the AHCI drivers on it, will redo the image so I get AHCI and RAID drivers on it.
ddrueding
Fixture
I had to do a reinstall of my WHS a while ago when the OS became corrupted. I disconnected all the drives during the install, then re-connected them afterward. I don't remember all the steps exactly, but it was a happy ending.
Odd, I have seen it mentioned in several places that WHS needs to see the drive pool while doing an install and the user needs to select reinstall for it to recognize the old drive pool.
Otherwise you just get a bunch of empty disks. Some have mentioned they didn't get the reinstall option and got unconfigured disks anyway.
Otherwise you just get a bunch of empty disks. Some have mentioned they didn't get the reinstall option and got unconfigured disks anyway.
ddrueding
Fixture
Yeah, disregard. That rebuild was late at night, and I was stressed enough to not remember correctly.
OK like about day three of data restore here and only on the second 2TB backup disk. Transfer started out at 78MB/s as reported by windows explorer file copy, this morning it is still going and down to 19.5MB/s. HDD light on the server is on solid and process demegrator has over 1.7TB of I/O other activity. I forgot how shitty demegrator makes things, on the old machine I had it disabled during the usual hours I use the box which was required for bluray playback.
I am seriously considering going back to the nlite neutered version of home server and setting up a simple SOFT RAID5 and a file share in it. Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't?
About the only reason I went with this again is because I have it and it is nice to have easy workstation backup/restore, but I will find another way to do that. I accidentally stumbled on how to turn WHS into server 2003, just nlite it. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1581003
I am seriously considering going back to the nlite neutered version of home server and setting up a simple SOFT RAID5 and a file share in it. Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't?
About the only reason I went with this again is because I have it and it is nice to have easy workstation backup/restore, but I will find another way to do that. I accidentally stumbled on how to turn WHS into server 2003, just nlite it. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1581003
Yeah, I need to do something else, this is intolerable.
Major thoughts on my mind are will microsoft soft RAID5 be any better or do I just go straight for a PERC6i?
If I do go PERC6i will it care about my motherboard only doing PCIEx4 and the card being PCIEx8?
Major thoughts on my mind are will microsoft soft RAID5 be any better or do I just go straight for a PERC6i?
If I do go PERC6i will it care about my motherboard only doing PCIEx4 and the card being PCIEx8?
Stereodude
Not really a
I don't think it cares. I think it will work in a 1x electrical slot (assuming it fits in the slot mechanically).
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Software RAID5/6 in my experience is fast enough for what I want to do with it, which is store gargantuan amounts of data in a fault tolerant fashion. If you'd like, I can run some tests to see what write speeds look like on a four or five drive Windows softRAID5.
Stereodude: I hope it doesn't care, I can't think of a reason it should. The slot in question is a PCIEx16 mechanically so it will fit.
Mercutio: I know you love softraid and I am damn curious myself considering the CPU in question. This is what I am working with:
I have canceled my restore, I think I will set this up as a neutered server 2003 using that nlite hack I found and check into what soft RAID can do for me. If I don't like it I guess I will just ebay a PERC6i.
Mercutio: I know you love softraid and I am damn curious myself considering the CPU in question. This is what I am working with:
I have canceled my restore, I think I will set this up as a neutered server 2003 using that nlite hack I found and check into what soft RAID can do for me. If I don't like it I guess I will just ebay a PERC6i.
ddrueding
Fixture
You can still have the mymovies auto indexing, I'm not getting rid of that either. Autoripping may take something else though. I don't know if anydvd will automatically rip.
Mostly I am thinking now what am I opening myself up to if I use a neutered WHS as server 2003 standard? Should I just get something else? Going to try it, nothing to lose at this point.
Mostly I am thinking now what am I opening myself up to if I use a neutered WHS as server 2003 standard? Should I just get something else? Going to try it, nothing to lose at this point.
Stereodude
Not really a
Don't you need to already have an extended partition to put a logical drive in it? Since you don't have an existing extended partition, you can't put a logical drive in it.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
When I started looking at replacement drives for my arrays, I kept reading that people had issues with 5900rpm drives in RAID5 arrays. Lots of problems with the drives not responding quickly enough to controller commands and dropped from the array. Seagate drives were specifically fingered as problematic, but at least a few people were claiming that there were issues with Samsung and WD drives as well.
I'm under the impression that at least Seagate "green" drives are somehow sub-optimal for RAID applications.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Merc, from your post I’m thinking that your were/are using desktop drives for RAID. If I’m wrong, please let me know.
As a general point, Seagate drives are not the exception or somehow sub-optimal in comparison to WD or Samsung in RAID. When it comes to RAID applications, especially something beyond JBOD or 0+1, RAID Edition drives are required. Desktop drives are not designed for complex RAID environments. Seagate even footnotes on their drive-selection white paper that their desktop drives are okay for: “Desktop RAID 0+1/JBOD with less than five drives.” Whereas their Enterprise drives are: “RAID/JBOD with more than four drives.” When Seagate mentions that as a ‘primary application’ their desktop drives can be used in “low-cost personal servers,” they footnote this with: “Low-cost desktop server is designated as single-drive personal server.” WD has similar comments and footnotes.
As a general point, Seagate drives are not the exception or somehow sub-optimal in comparison to WD or Samsung in RAID. When it comes to RAID applications, especially something beyond JBOD or 0+1, RAID Edition drives are required. Desktop drives are not designed for complex RAID environments. Seagate even footnotes on their drive-selection white paper that their desktop drives are okay for: “Desktop RAID 0+1/JBOD with less than five drives.” Whereas their Enterprise drives are: “RAID/JBOD with more than four drives.” When Seagate mentions that as a ‘primary application’ their desktop drives can be used in “low-cost personal servers,” they footnote this with: “Low-cost desktop server is designated as single-drive personal server.” WD has similar comments and footnotes.
ddrueding
Fixture
Buck,
I'm aware of this note by drive manufacturers wanting some more money, but in the past, any old SATA drive would work in RAID5 arrays of 10 disks or more without issue. I'm wondering if the manufacturers are now doing something to break this functionality?
I'm aware of this note by drive manufacturers wanting some more money, but in the past, any old SATA drive would work in RAID5 arrays of 10 disks or more without issue. I'm wondering if the manufacturers are now doing something to break this functionality?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I have four systems with 14 operating Samsung HD103UJs (1TB, 7200rpm) in RAID6 + 2 hot spares each and they've run without issue, Buck. I'm specifically thinking that the low-rpm drives are the bad guys in all this.
I believe the largest array of Seagate drives I have is seven of the 1.5TB 7200rpm drives, only because they're so damned cheap (they dropped to $60 at one point) and sometimes I need a place to just dump data. They haven't been a problem, but I'm not keeping anything there long-term, either. I'm sure Stereodude would disagree that they're OK, too.
I believe the largest array of Seagate drives I have is seven of the 1.5TB 7200rpm drives, only because they're so damned cheap (they dropped to $60 at one point) and sometimes I need a place to just dump data. They haven't been a problem, but I'm not keeping anything there long-term, either. I'm sure Stereodude would disagree that they're OK, too.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Merc, it goes without saying that people do successfully run RAID arrays with desktop drives. You're not alone. I wouldn't do it - to many potential compatibility issues.
DD, it could very well be a pricing scheme, but the fact is that desktop drives have features that cause issues with RAID controllers. One of the main issues is that desktop drives provide their own detailed and lengthy error recovery process. RAID controllers do not like this. When the RAID controller attempts to communicate with the desktop drive, the drive does not respond in time. The controller drops it out of the array. In a desktop environment, this type of inherent error recovery and diagnostics is important. In a RAID application, the controller provides diagnostics and error recovery in tandem with the drive, and thus requires a different window of communication.
For me, I'd be more cautious about running any RAID with desktop drives. Is it a scam? Is it because desktop drives are now built to less stringent quality standards? I don't know. But I know what seems to cause certain problems with RAID applications.
The unfortunate fact is that using so-called RAID Edition or Enterprise drives will also cost more money. When building a home server or a SOHO server, is it worth the cost? Sometimes, it depends, maybe, maybe not.
To me it has to be determined when I figure the type of usage and customer expectation.
DD, it could very well be a pricing scheme, but the fact is that desktop drives have features that cause issues with RAID controllers. One of the main issues is that desktop drives provide their own detailed and lengthy error recovery process. RAID controllers do not like this. When the RAID controller attempts to communicate with the desktop drive, the drive does not respond in time. The controller drops it out of the array. In a desktop environment, this type of inherent error recovery and diagnostics is important. In a RAID application, the controller provides diagnostics and error recovery in tandem with the drive, and thus requires a different window of communication.
For me, I'd be more cautious about running any RAID with desktop drives. Is it a scam? Is it because desktop drives are now built to less stringent quality standards? I don't know. But I know what seems to cause certain problems with RAID applications.
The unfortunate fact is that using so-called RAID Edition or Enterprise drives will also cost more money. When building a home server or a SOHO server, is it worth the cost? Sometimes, it depends, maybe, maybe not.
To me it has to be determined when I figure the type of usage and customer expectation.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
One of the reasons I might not be seeing issues is my practice of using softRAID rather than relying on the specific features of a given controller. I suspect that the tolerances you're describing are different when there's fewer specific assumptions about a given drive's behavior while in an array.
Usage for me is simply it must support bluray playback over network. Considering the player is only a 100bt network connector it really shouldn't be asking too much. WHS couldn't do this, I had to schedule demegrator for after hours. After that it was fine.
It is officially 50% into the resynching for the windows softRAID, I will be interested to see how this performs. I have a feeling that it will be enough to suit my needs and I won't need to go PERC even though I want to. As there is no demegrator or other process accessing the array with regular server 2003 I figure it should be good. Wonder what my writes will be, it is nice to have stuff move over to the server fast but it isn't required. Certainly better be faster than what I was getting.
Those are very good points on the green drives / single user drives on modern hardware RAID adapters. Hot half a mind to try it anyway, but will give this an honest shot first.
It is officially 50% into the resynching for the windows softRAID, I will be interested to see how this performs. I have a feeling that it will be enough to suit my needs and I won't need to go PERC even though I want to. As there is no demegrator or other process accessing the array with regular server 2003 I figure it should be good. Wonder what my writes will be, it is nice to have stuff move over to the server fast but it isn't required. Certainly better be faster than what I was getting.
Those are very good points on the green drives / single user drives on modern hardware RAID adapters. Hot half a mind to try it anyway, but will give this an honest shot first.
ddrueding
Fixture
I think this is quite significant. Error recovery is one thing, but this also gives the drives more time to spin up and initialize then RAID controllers typically do.
Well not good news. Array finished initializing fine and shows healthy.
On the windows softRAID5 array of eight ST32000542AS I made a new share and started copying files. They started transferring at 53MB/s but quickly dropped to about 17MB/s and stayed there for a good 20 minutes before I canceled it. During that task manager didn't show anything really huge in CPU power being done, would I even see the work the softraid is doing in task manager for windows?
To compare I made another share on C:, which on the server is two F3 HD502HJ in a mirror on the ICH9R. Transfer of same file started at 68MB/s and eventually rose to hover around 76MB/s. I'd be happy with that.
Source drive is ST32000542AS. Both computers are on gigabit network.
Guess I will get some test tools and see what we are really looking at here.
On the windows softRAID5 array of eight ST32000542AS I made a new share and started copying files. They started transferring at 53MB/s but quickly dropped to about 17MB/s and stayed there for a good 20 minutes before I canceled it. During that task manager didn't show anything really huge in CPU power being done, would I even see the work the softraid is doing in task manager for windows?
To compare I made another share on C:, which on the server is two F3 HD502HJ in a mirror on the ICH9R. Transfer of same file started at 68MB/s and eventually rose to hover around 76MB/s. I'd be happy with that.
Source drive is ST32000542AS. Both computers are on gigabit network.
Guess I will get some test tools and see what we are really looking at here.
Stereodude
Not really a
It might be time to play with iperf.
iperf says
I made sure I had my RDP closed first
So in theory minus overhead I am good for 96MB/s looks like, yes?
Code:
C:\>iperf -c 10.2.1.12
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 10.2.1.12, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 63.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[156] local 10.2.1.10 port 50860 connected with 10.2.1.12 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[156] 0.0-10.0 sec 942 MBytes 790 Mbits/sec
C:\>I made sure I had my RDP closed first
So in theory minus overhead I am good for 96MB/s looks like, yes?
Stereodude
Not really a
Yeah, except SMB 1.0 will never let you get that high.
Yeah I ran iperf up to six minutes and it still came back with this.
0.0-360.0 sec 33.7 GBytes 803 Mbits/sec
Plus end to end I do actually see a little over 73MB/s if I go to my mirror, and I am perfectly happy with that. That's the number reported by windows explorer file copy in win7 anyway.
How long does IO meter take? I added the all in one to all four workers. That going to be sitting there grinding for a couple hours?
Oh and I don't see that you can do HD tack on a softRAID? Just shows the member disks, not the array.
0.0-360.0 sec 33.7 GBytes 803 Mbits/sec
Plus end to end I do actually see a little over 73MB/s if I go to my mirror, and I am perfectly happy with that. That's the number reported by windows explorer file copy in win7 anyway.
How long does IO meter take? I added the all in one to all four workers. That going to be sitting there grinding for a couple hours?
Oh and I don't see that you can do HD tack on a softRAID? Just shows the member disks, not the array.
Stereodude
Not really a
IOmeter takes as long or short as you set it up to run.
Stereodude
Not really a
It takes 30 * 5.5 minutes to complete a run. So 2 hours 45 minutes.
Stereodude
Not really a
Ugh... I like graphs, not some craptacular spreadsheet of data.
ddrueding
Fixture
Those numbers aren't exceptionally bad.
But they do account for my abysmal file copy rate to the array don't they? For the major part the files being written are BD and DVD movie rips in file mode, some ISOs too. Generally lots of really big files with some small ones thrown in.
Oh and thanks for the chart!
Oh and thanks for the chart!