Windows Home Server: adding hard drives using WHS' RAID-like disk spanning feature

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David Flynn28 April 2007, 11:24 AM

Part 6 of GALLERY: Windows Home Server Preview


One of the truly unique features of Windows Home Server is Microsoft's home-grown Drive Extender technology which lets you add a hard drive -- internal or external -- and have its space added to the total pool of user storage instead of appearing to users as a new drive letter. It's not RAID, however, and doesn't require the use of identical drives.

We tested this by plugging into the server a 60GB notebook drive mounted in a FireWire enclosure. Clicking a button on the Server Storage tab in the Home Server Console ran a wizard which erased the drive (after an appropriate warning dialog) and immediately buoyed our storage space by 60GB.

Make room, make room: if your server is running low on storage you can plug in a handy USB or FireWire drive for a quick fix, or whack in a new internal driveMake room, make room: if your server is running low on storage you can plug in a handy USB or FireWire drive for a quick fix, or whack in a new internal drive

Before and after: Drive Extender adds any new drive (in this case, a 60GB FireWire drive) to the total pool of storage rather than confront and confound users with an extra drive letterBefore and after: Drive Extender adds any new drive (in this case, a 60GB FireWire drive) to the total pool of storage rather than confront and confound users with an extra drive letter

Although data is automatically distributed across all available drives, adding a second drive lets you activate 'folder duplication' for any shared or user directories. This replicates the data onto the second drive as a precaution against the first disk failing. Using Windows Explorer we could see the duplicated folders written onto the external drive inside a hidden directory.

Peek-a-boo: poking around on the server box itself using Windows Explorer shows how a hidden folder labelled DE (for ‘Drive Extender') mirrors the folders for which we've enabled duplication after installing a second drivePeek-a-boo: poking around on the server box itself using Windows Explorer shows how a hidden folder labelled DE (for ‘Drive Extender') mirrors the folders for which we've enabled duplication after installing a second drive

(The above image also shows how Windows Home Server split our original hard disk into a primary partition named SYS -- a 10GB slab where the OS resides -- with the remainder as the DATA drive. Additional drives loaded with Drive Extender simply swell the size of the main DATA drive.)

To remove the external drive we ran a wizard which copied distributed files back to the primary drive, warned that folder duplication would be de-activated and then securely wiped all data from the drive, at which point it was once again usable as a standard NTFS disk.

Unplug and play: a wizard guides you through the task of removing a drive, including an alert if you'll lose folder duplication (available only with two or more drives) or if there's simply not enough space left on the primary driveUnplug and play: a wizard guides you through the task of removing a drive, including an alert if you'll lose folder duplication (available only with two or more drives) or if there's simply not enough space left on the primary drive

Next: the system requirements and Microsoft's push to get the community involved

 

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Andrew:

Having been the victim of a physical hard drive crash (click-click-click-grinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd), I'm curious how WHS would handle that assuming I have more than one drive attached.

I'm thinking of a scenario where I plug in, say, two or three hard drives of various sizes that I have lying around, and one dies. How would WHS respond? Would it detect the loss and replicate the files when I replaced the dead drive?

29 February 2008, 8:30 PM (10 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan:

I'm currently considering the HP Mediasmart (with windows home server) or the netgear ReadyNAS which comes with raid 5 capabilities.

With raid 5, backup of all your data is possible with only 1/4 of your storage space. This means if you have 4TB total space, 3TB can be your data, and 1TB manages backup. So in theory you can have 3TB backup on only and extra 1TB drive. Therefore, if you have 4 drives (1TB each), you can have 3TB of data and if one drive fails, you can swap in another drive and it automatically updates the new drive configuration without any data loss.

From what I have read of WHS, every duplicate folder requires the same space as the orginal folder. This would mean that to prevent loss of any data of 3TB you would need a total of 6TB of storage space, significantly more than raid 5 config.

Can anyone confirm that this is the case?

Thanks,

Dan

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (10 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous563674:

Hey Dan,

I just setup WHS last night at home and I can't 100% confirm your question but I will explain my build. I have 2 750GB SATA drives running in RAID 1 and 2 160 PATA drives in RAID 1. WHS is installed to a 5th drive, also a 160gb PATA. My aggravation so far is that WHS auto configures the install drive so that C is 20gb and D is the remainder of that drive. D gets setup with all of the shares and there is apparently no way to move them. I don't want to use folder duplication, I just want to store my data directly to the RAID drive. Apparently my only option is to add my RAID array to the available pool of storage and then WHS will be able to duplicate the data. This seems beyond redundant. My initial build was to have that D drive be a place to store non-critical stuff with no worries of it being backed up.. now I apparently have to worry about what happens if that drive fails.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (10 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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