Hi Folks,

I'm really interested in this but I'm from the reviews and HP site, I'm not able to get an answer if this is MSS will support hardware drive reducnancy ala RAID?

Let's say I add three 500gb SATA drives and start to store data on it and then after two months of usage one of the drives go bad. Can I simply yank out the BAD drive and stick in the a new one and it'll rebuild/repair itself ALA RAID level 5 or is it the data redundancy (SOFTWARE) based...?

Also, the DROBO seems like a good device too, here:
http://www.drobo.com/drobolator/

But I would miss out on the Ethernet connection, ESata, PHOTO and ITunes sharing... But the DROBO supports hardware based data/drive redundancy while I'm on the fence with the HP MSS?

Price wise the HP is a MUCH better deal as it includes the drive and the added hardware features that are missing on the DROBO, but, hardware data redundancy seems pretty well implemented...


Please let me know? Again sorry for the NOOB ?

Hi, welcome to the forums, and good question!

I'm sure others can expand upon the benefits of Drive Extender in much more detail than I will, but suffice it say that YES, your data would be protected in the circumstances you describe.

WHS handles data duplication via software called Drive Extender. The user chooses on a per-share basis what they would like backed up, and when multiple physical disks are in the system, WHS will duplicate data across them. Only the data in that share is duplicated, so unlike mirrored RAID you don't have to dedicate an entire volume of wasted space. For example:

You have 100 GB of videos that you don't want to duplicate.
You have 20GB of photos that you want to duplicate.
Your server would have 140GB of space consumed.

There are whitepapers that fully describe Drive Extender if you want more detail, or feel free to ask more questions!

Alex

BTW, My name is Alex too!

Thanks for explaining to me about the DRIVE extender software, but, am I wrong to feel a little safer with HARDWARE redundancy across all drives rather than just the one SHARE/VOLUME?

I can see myself simply creating one large share and leaving it as such just to ensure fail safe data recovery. I can see the benefits of maximizing hard drive space of selecting only one or a few folders to be failed over, but to me (IMHO) it seems a bit "risky" vs. HD space conservation...?

Or maybe simply, I just have to get over this irrational fear?

Thanks in advance for your explaination...



-Alex

If the data is duplicated across more than one physical disk, where does your concern arise from?

I'm no RAID expert, but in RAID5 your data is distributed across the physical disks, with one disk kept for parity. If you lose a single disk, you can recover data. However, until you re-build the array your data is lost. Lose the RAID controller, most likely lose ALL your data.

With WHS, if you lose a drive, just replace it and your data is recovered. If the motherboard dies, pull the disk out, insert it into any XP or Vista system, and read the files right off the filesystem. Pretty slick, huh?

I'd encourage you to read more about Drive Extender before you make your decision, start here:
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/ ... whitepaper

One thing to remember is that the drobo may be hardware, but it isn't the same as a true hardware raid.

I was considering a Drobo for some time, but went with the WHS route for a couple of reasons.

1) Cost.
For the price of just a drobo, I can get the HP MSS with a 500 GB hard drive.

2) Full Windows PC backup.
Needless to say, I REALLY like the knowledge that my home PCs (3 windows based machines) are backed up every night. The sad kicker to the above is my Wife's PC drive died before I was able to aquire a MSS. (sigh)

3) Similar capabilities to the Drobo.
Both systems allow for a volume of data to be backed up on multiple drives so that if any drive fails, all data is secure. Just remove the bad drive and add a new one to replace it.

The only "gotcha" here is that if the drive that has the WHS install dies, you will have to re-install on the new disk, but from what I have read, this is a very simple process. And all your data is still secure.


As a note, I replaces my old PC that was running a TRUE hardware Raid 5 array with the MSS. So far, I am very happy with it.[/b]

Sweet! I didn't know that! I'll have to check out that link.

Yup, the disks are NTFS formatted and readable on a PC.

I'm one of the few percent of MSS users that doesn't get much help from "drive extender" technology. Most of all my space is HD video. We're talking 8-12 gigs a piece. It's quickly filling up. I would really like my movies to be protected, but mirroring hundres of gigs is just not space conscious.

A RAID 5 array is a better choice, however, if a drive fails you gotta rebuild and that can take a loooong time with TB's of data. What I'd really like to do is use duplication on certain files or sub-folders rather than the entire share. There are some movies that are important to me and some that are not so important. Some are too big to burn to DVD DL.

So that's my dilema.

And on the Drobo, I looked at that thing too. Here's my concern:
1. It's expensive
2. It isn't RAID. It uses a similar drive expander technology
3. It isn't as fast because it's soley USB (rather than SATA like the MSS)
4. It only holds 4 slots whereas the MSS can hold lots (9+ ?)

Maybe if the Drobo comes down in price, I might pick one up and add it as external storage or something to the MSS.

SB,

Totally AGREE with you on the COST, I haven't tried out EITHER of the systems so I wasn't sure about the HOT SWAPPABILITY of the MSS, DROBO clearly shows that this is NOT an issue... But again, I DEFINATLELY agree on the cost and benefits. $549 includes 500GB, Ethernet, ESATA and WEB Sharing for PHotos and ITunes... Gotta love it... I guess, this really is a no brainer and I shouldn't worry too much about the software raid vs. hardware raid...

The drobo does a file balancing similar to drive extender technology. With the MSS, you simply tell it what folders you want to duplicate and if that drive fails, the files are on another disk. Hotswap and it handles the rest.

Now if there are files on that other disk that were not told to duplicate, those are gone. But at least you can maximize your disk space this way.

Just to let you know with true RAID5, if a drive fails the data is not lost until you rebuild the array, you just loose the redundancy. So if another drive was to fail then you would be in trouble.

WHS redundancy is a lot like Disk Mirroring (RAID1) except it is on a folder level. With RAID1 you have the same advantage too of being about the yank the drive out, connect it to another computer and then access the data on it as if it is a stand-alone drive.

^^^

Adding to that, you can also setup RAID5 with hotspare if your controller supports it. That greatly reduces the chances of a second drive failing before the array is shot.

However, the rebuild time still sucks.

Thanks for the corrections, that's what I meant to say but it came out poorly, you both expressed it much better.

Ok, I'm still not getting the answer I'm looking for, so let me re-phrase the question(s) in yet another way, please?

Let's say I have the HP EX470 unit with 4 500gb sata hard drives attached.

1. How much storage is available to me, 2.0 TB or close, or will it be around 1.x TB with some system overhead?
2. Let's say I split the "virtural drive" into two folders, one with redundancy/duplication turned on and the other folder without it. Let's say that both folders have about 300GB for a total of 600GB of data used. Drive #2 is now flashing red (defective). I remove the drive and insert a new drive 750gb (original/defective being 500gb). What happens to my data stored in both folders and drives 3 & 4?
3. I heard that the limit of the WMS is 16TB (HUGE), is this correct?

Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions to be asking but I need to know before I plunk down serious $$$ for this unit...

Thanks in advance!



-Alex

If all you are using are the folder shares, and have duplication is turned on, then you would have around 1.x TB.


The data on the "duplicated folder" would be completely intact.
The data on the "non-duplicated folder" may be completely lost, or partially lost, or possibly be completely intact. Only the data that was on the 2nd drive is lost.


I have heard this as well, but I haven't seen the technical document that confirms this. It is probably correct though.


Not a problem!