***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***

Caporegime
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Well 1TB ssds appear to have just ducked under $1,500, so it's only a matter of time. Other then that I don't know how I could speed my server up any more :p, without spending a hell of a lot of cash on SAS/SCSI.
 
Soldato
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Got a quick question. After having my WHS 2011 server collapse and mess up (post 274)

I've currently got 2 x 2tb drives in my server. One of which is used for both booting and storage and the other is purely for storage.

Since this is making re-installing a pain as i can't just reformat and have to faff about making sure my backup is up to date (its scheduled to run overnight but i've no confirmation of the last run and i don't want to take a chance)

As such i'm thinking about buying a 160gb drive to just install the OS onto. Is it worth getting an SSD drive or just a regular kind?
 
Associate
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SSD's probably not worth it you'll hardly notice a difference, though you can install on a smaller SSD so it might cost about the same as a 160GB HDD. You'd get away with a 30GB drive, or 60GB if you wanted to play it safe. You'd just have to use the CFG.INI trick.
 
Caporegime
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Bugger, had my first drive failure. Can't mount the disk due to an "I/O device error".

I'll pull the disk this weekend and try to rescue stuff off it, first issue with the drivepool as I'm not 100% sure what data is on the disk!
 
Associate
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I am running WHS2011 on a HP N40L MicroServer and for some reason server backups are now starting to take longer and longer.

I have server backups configured to just backup changes and it used to be reasonably quick. But recently what used to take about 20/30 mins is dragging on for hours and hours. Even when nothing at all has changed.

The progress indicator quickly gets to 66% (always this point for some reason) but then slowly steps upwards from there. It always seems to complete.

I don't run the server 24/7 and I typically run a manual backup.

I am tempted to format the backup HDD and start again and see if the speed returns (after the initial full backup of course).

Anyone else experienced server backup slow down to a crawl ?
 
Soldato
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I am running WHS2011 on a HP N40L MicroServer and for some reason server backups are now starting to take longer and longer.

I have server backups configured to just backup changes and it used to be reasonably quick. But recently what used to take about 20/30 mins is dragging on for hours and hours. Even when nothing at all has changed.

The progress indicator quickly gets to 66% (always this point for some reason) but then slowly steps upwards from there. It always seems to complete.

I don't run the server 24/7 and I typically run a manual backup.

I am tempted to format the backup HDD and start again and see if the speed returns (after the initial full backup of course).

Anyone else experienced server backup slow down to a crawl ?

Is your server backup disk full?? If so it will be making room by deleting previous backups first before taking a new one which will add to the time taken
 
Associate
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Bugger, had my first drive failure. Can't mount the disk due to an "I/O device error".

I'll pull the disk this weekend and try to rescue stuff off it, first issue with the drivepool as I'm not 100% sure what data is on the disk!

Good test of how good DrivePool is - but a tough way to find out.

Is it like WHSv1 where any file can be on any disk, or does it attempt to keep folders together on the same disk (size permitting)? Found this a bit of a nightmare on WHSv1 working out what was gone/intact - as whilst the other disks were fine, the folder might be split all over the pool. E.g. an album or DVD folder might be spread over separate disks in the pool.

Good luck :)
 
Associate
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Is your server backup disk full?? If so it will be making room by deleting previous backups first before taking a new one which will add to the time taken

Should have mentioned in OP but the backup still has about 250GB free.

I did a backup last night where the changes could only have been about 10 to 20GB and it still takes about 7 hours.
 
Soldato
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Another person here who can't install it to an SSD, which happens to be my only spare drive at the moment. Using a USB stick for installation, copied the contents of the DVD over to it, put the cfg.ini file on it with the standard contents below. The cfg is a proper .ini file with the cog logo etc as I used the old "cfg.ini" trick in notepad. Running out of ideas, used various USB ports, nothing is helping it just keeps telling me it doesn't meet the requirements for the HDD size.

[WinPE]
ConfigDisk=1
WindowsPartitionSize=61440

[InitialConfiguration]
Language=en-US
Locale=en-US
Country=US
Keyboard=00000409
AcceptEula=true
AcceptOEMEula=true
ServerName=HomeServer
PlainTextPassword=P@ssword
PasswordHint=Passing by
Settings=All
 
Associate
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For WHS2011 in isolation, then no. It's a bit quicker than a hdd, but not really worth it. Especially if you're losing a port that could otherwise be used for another hdd. In general I've never seen much of an improvement going to a faster SSD from say a Gen2 SATA2 to the latest models on SATA3 in normal use.

But you're using XBMC as well aren't you? Or if you need the extra capacity then yep it's probably more worthwhile.
 
Caporegime
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Yeah I realise its not going to give much in terms of server performance but as my media streamer the 830 will help. Just sounding out opinions on the drive itself really, having looked around they seem to come highly recommended.
 
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