The server is dead, long live the server!

[elootos]

Well I've just formatted the 750Gb OS drive for WHS so it is officially gone.

Now however I'm using Ubuntu (mem stick) to copy all my DVD folders across onto it off the old WHS storage drives (which should all fit under 750Gb, just), then all my Blu-ray ISOs across onto a new 2Tb drive (which should just fit now I've thinned out all the crap ones )

What that'll leave me with is:

• 2 x 500Gb which I'll mirror as RAID for Ubuntu Server OS and Photo/Docs/Music storage
• 4 x 1.5Tb drives which I'll create as RAID5 array for film storage under Ubuntu which will give me 4.5Tb available storage. It'll stripe the data so be damn quick. I know it'll run fast from the one at work I had.
  

Once my films are all across onto the RAID5 storage, I'll use the 750Gb as temp storage on the lounge PC and the 2Tb that'll be empty once all the ISOs are off I think I may add to the RAID5 array as a 5th drive. The array will only allow 1.5Tb of it to be used but it'll do; take it to 6Tb

I'll map 2 server shares to the PCs in the house ('films' and 'photo/docs/music' and only have it come on WOL (wake-on-lan))

I've always thought it was overkill having the server on all the time as it's only needed with film watching, and with Spotify I don't listen to the music on it anymore so it'll just be for archiveing of files.

RecordedTV? Well we only ever watch what we record in the lounge so once again, no need to keep it on a server. WHS has been stuttering TV files anyway recently so I'll be glad to keep it all local and fast!

I feel a bit let down by WHS, on paper it seems the greatest solution but in reality it's a dog of a system and only good for basic, small file storage.

Ubuntu Server reports much better drive health info so will be more reassuring in the long term.

Which reminds me, I must get a new UPS for the server. RAID5 would NOT like a power outage...

[elootos]

Goddamn it, why is nothing easy?!

Tried to install Ubuntu on a mirrored pair of 500Gb drives and it won't boot!

So I tried using a PCI-e SATA RAID card I've had for a while and it reports the drives as not connected, so the card id dead

Now, to bring this all to a conclusion I'm installing it one 500Gb drive from which I'll create my RAID5 from the four 1.5Tb drives and if when I boot again from the pendrive I can access/repair/service the RAID5 array then a single drive for the OS will do me fine.

[elootos]

Nuts. I've tried creating a RAID5 array from 3 of my 1.5Tb with Ubuntu 10.04 installed on one of my 500Gb drives and it keeps reporting the array as degraded (i.e. knackered).

The SMART report from a few of the drives says 'Disk has a few bad sectors' and Googling this tells me that the drives are on their way out! Apparently the drives should auto-fix themselves in their firmware and if not then they shouldn't be trusted. Bugger.

So basically of the 4 drives I was going to use to build my film storage, 2 of them are knackered.

More worryingly, WHS never reported any of this to me. So how far would it have gone before they failed and I lost data?

[elootos]

Oh I don't know. Now after talking a lot about RAID here on this forum I'm thinking of giving Windows Home Server a second (er, make that fourth) chance by installing it on a hardware RAID array made up of all my drives. It would need to be JBOD to utilise all the varying drive sizes and I'd need at least 8 ports ('cos I have about 8 drives). So I may look at getting a mobo to support it as a dedicated 8 port RAID card starts at about £300.

That way it would stop WHS trying to organise its own drives and slowing down; it would see just one C:/ drive.

Bloody hell, why do there have to be so many options

[northan]

It's been interesting reading your progress reports on raid.
Have you thought of using and testing the windows vail beta version, see if it rocks?

[elootos]

(10-08-2010 01:41 PM)northan Wrote:  It's been interesting reading your progress reports on raid.
Have you thought of using and testing the windows vail beta version, see if it rocks?

Yeah I was tempted with the Vail beta until I read about a few of the known bugs such as data loss and corruption er, not for me just yet then!

Well I did a bit of googling for WHS and raid and it seems that most adopters of raid with WHS are saying they wish they trusted WHS own data management which is the opposite of what I think! Sounds like it's not too happy with a lot of RAID hardware as well so it may be a no-go.

If it were however, I have found a £70 mobo suitable for my CPU and RAM with 6 SATA ports and RAID 0,1,5,10 and JBOD support so it is tempting...

Probs with RAID is software support, as I'm learning with my Ubuntu server, even though the RAID chip is supposed to be generating 'one' drive, not all RAID arrays are seen as easilty as a SATA port is. Driver issues etc.

I've lost faith in WHS managing the storage so I know that if I do try it again, it WILL be on a RAID array of some sort.

The last issue with hardware raid is that if the array does become unreadable then you're buggered and you can't move the drives to another system to try and recover it. With software raid however (like Ubuntu etc) you could move the drives to another system and try and recover data.

I seem to be going round in circles.

I think I may give servers, raid etc a complete break this weekend

[elootos]

OK, Ubuntu Server is a no-go. Tried and tried to get a decent RAID5 array working with the ability to rescue it via the Pendrive and never quite got to a point where I was happy entrusting all my media to it.

RAID on my mobo is flaky as hell so don't really like installing WHS with that either.

WHS on its own is a dog and I don't want to go back to having it slow to ridiculous transfer speeds and ignore the fact that drives have read errors.

So, I have since found unRAID and so far it is rocking my server. Installed within minutes and happily taking all I throw at it. Gonna swap some drives around, change the flash drive it's installed on and see what happens. If it copes, its in. Done.

Next up on my hitlist is My Movies. Now it's never quite worked as well as I hoped and now I am trying to install it as a 'standalone' on each PC but it keeps trying to look for the old 'server' for its database. No matter how I try and how I google there is no easy answer. The Movie Management just won't run without knowing where the WHS 'server' is that I've already destroyed. Bloody thing.

So My Movies has been binned now as well.

In its place is Yammm for metadata and Mount Image on each PC. This allows the default Movie Library in Media Center to recognise ISO files as well as DVD rips and will automount ISOs and play them in TMT3. Keeping it all very simple from now on.

As Yammm creates folder art and metadata on the server itself within each film folder, it is only needs to run on one PC (kitchen one for me). The other Media Centers just read the files on the server when the Movie Library is accessed.


So a complete turn of events; out with WHS and My Movies (I'll list my complaints about them soon!)...

...in with unRAID and Mount Image.

EDIT: Oh, I am considering runnning a very small and energy-efficient low-powered Atom server with WHS on for archiving of RecordedTV and CCTV (cos I've always wanted that round my house). If it all runs on one 2Tb drive then it'll be small, low-powered, quiet and I may keep that in a kitchen cupboard for ease-of use. Sod any types of RAID for that one though

[northan]

(10-11-2010 06:16 PM)elootos Wrote:  Next up on my hitlist is My Movies. Now it's never quite worked as well as I hoped and now I am trying to install it as a 'standalone' on each PC but it keeps trying to look for the old 'server' for its database. No matter how I try and how I google there is no easy answer. The Movie Management just won't run without knowing where the WHS 'server' is that I've already destroyed. Bloody thing.

So My Movies has been binned now as well.

yea I had that problem too for a while, even when reinstalling the program.
The secret is to type 127.0.0.1 in the connect to box.
I did this a couple of times for it to work, its the local my movies ip or something.
I still love my movies. so easy to use.

How is your work server handling btw?

[elootos]

(10-11-2010 07:32 PM)northan Wrote:  

(10-11-2010 06:16 PM)elootos Wrote:  Next up on my hitlist is My Movies. Now it's never quite worked as well as I hoped and now I am trying to install it as a 'standalone' on each PC but it keeps trying to look for the old 'server' for its database. No matter how I try and how I google there is no easy answer. The Movie Management just won't run without knowing where the WHS 'server' is that I've already destroyed. Bloody thing.

So My Movies has been binned now as well.

yea I had that problem too for a while, even when reinstalling the program.
The secret is to type 127.0.0.1 in the connect to box.
I did this a couple of times for it to work, its the local my movies ip or something.
I still love my movies. so easy to use.

How is your work server handling btw?

yeah tried that IP more than a few times. Its the IP of your own PC looking back in on itself. Also tried 'localhost' and the actual IP of the PCs, still a no-go. The My Movie forum comes across as a little stubborn as well IMO.

What also annoyed me were the frequent updates flashing up on all pcs, plus the need to update the server database. Too many system tray bubbles for my liking; everytime I looked there seemed to be one there. And it crashed more than a few times. Plus it never read all the films in the folder properly and it locks the folders so you cant edit them or the files inside even when I'd stopped the service. AND the database management seems bit clunky and over the top. Very small niggles but Ive never been too happy with My Movies in over 5 years. Still a great bit of software but if I can avoid it I will.

My method now of using the default Movie Library is just nice 'n clean. The way it was back when I started digitising all my media years ago in MCE2005.

Basic folders with folder.jpg and .xml files done by Yammm.

Work server? Still working on that one! Got a RAID card but it isn't quite as invisible to software as you'd think. Despite the negativity associated with software RAID I think it's the better option these days. Linux software like Ubuntu, ClearOS and unRAID are the best options. Horses for courses.

[elootos]

OK, the plan is such:

• unRAID server for all my films only coming on when I need it via a WOL shortcut on the Media Center's desktop (and running all spare drives ~6Tb)
• small, lightweight & green WHS for archived RecordedTV, Photos etc and other Windows functions coming in and out of standby with Lights Out (running one 2Tb drive)
  

Why limit yourself to just one server

Also there's an Add-on for unRAID to backup your WHS data so only one drive in it will be required

Anyone got any suggestions for the smallest way to build a WHS??