burble Posted September 20, 2015 Report Share Posted September 20, 2015 Aha. I just could not for the life of me work the ESXI bit out Okay so if I have 4 hdds, one would be the 250gb it ships with and OS (windows Server 12 or Windows Server essentials?) would go on that and any apps (Plex, Sickbeard/sickrage etc?) I was thinking I would use one to put images and backups on and 2 for pure media/data etc Sound reasonable - if not how do you suggest I do it? Raid 5 sounded like a good idea but too slow? Personally I wouldn't go for the drive setup you mentioned. if you have images on one drive then those images are only on that drive. if that drive goes then the images go. Fine if you're not bothered about losing them but not what I'd do. I'd create a single RAID array using all the drives and I'd have all the drives the same size. Bin off that 250Gb drive. If you had 4 x 3Tb drives and set them up as RAID 5 then you'd get 9Tb usable capacity and could lose a drive without losing data. That's 9Tb for everything, you don't need to consider which drives the data is on. RAID 5 would probably be fine for you, it isn't the best performing RAID level but as the RAID controller in the Microserver isn't the best you might not find much difference between RAID 5 and something else. I can't remember what RAID levels that controller can do 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2015 Only Raid 0 and 1 it seems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 Hmm, not a great choice. I'd strongly advise against RAID 0 though, you'll lose everything if a single drive does. RAID 1 is expensive in terms of discs though, if you have 4 x 3Tb drives then you'll end up with 6Tb usable. RAID 1 is infinitely preferable in this situation though. RAID 0 has it's uses but this isn't one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 You could always add a DASD into it with RAID built in but that removes the point of having one of those boxes with the disks inside of it. If you did that you might as well go for a quick mini PC some of which are more powerful and as cheap anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 You could always add a DASD into it with RAID built in but that removes the point of having one of those boxes with the disks inside of it. If you did that you might as well go for a quick mini PC some of which are more powerful and as cheap anyway. Such as? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 Hmm, not a great choice. I'd strongly advise against RAID 0 though, you'll lose everything if a single drive does. RAID 1 is expensive in terms of discs though, if you have 4 x 3Tb drives then you'll end up with 6Tb usable. RAID 1 is infinitely preferable in this situation though. RAID 0 has it's uses but this isn't one of them. Does a server HAVE to be in a RAID array or am I missing the point of having one if I don't? I do like the look of xpenology with its gui interface etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 (edited) No, you don't have to have a RAID array but I don't see the point in having a server and not having one. Being reliant on a single drive is something I'd want to avoid. I haven't used XPEnology myself but I've got a Synology DS1813+ at home which provides about 14Tb extra storage to the Microserver. It's a pretty neat unit, does the job nicely. It isn't the fastest thing in the world but it's more than adequate for my needs at home. A word of warning - if you go with XPEnology be careful when doing updates as I believe you need to boot the system from a USB stick (or MicroSD card I guess) and when you update the Synology OS you usually have to update the software on that USB stick too. The XPEnology forums will be able to tell you all about that. Edited September 21, 2015 by burble 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 Got you. If I use Xpenology then I could use the Synology Hybrid Raid solution (software RAID) and be free from the 0/1 shackles of the onboard controller, yes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 In terms of storage at the lower end you could look at something like this. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/startech-4-bay-external-hard-drive-hdd-array-raid-tower-esata-usb-30-enclosure Drobo do some as well that some highly regard but they cost plenty of pennies. There are lots of corporate class devices as well but they will be several times the cost of the device above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted September 21, 2015 Report Share Posted September 21, 2015 Got you. If I use Xpenology then I could use the Synology Hybrid Raid solution (software RAID) and be free from the 0/1 shackles of the onboard controller, yes? Good question. I don't actually know but my gut feeling is yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2015 I can't wait to see this thread updated when the next quarter electricity bill comes in. You know its funny. Before this thread I had never thought about how much energy my pc consumes (past tense - RIP). Starting paying attention when I started sourcing new components for the potential new build. And then today I changed 4 halogens in the landing and started getting irritated by the energy they would burn when it was brought home to me that they are on for far less time and consume less than the machine that was on 24/7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted September 27, 2015 Report Share Posted September 27, 2015 You know its funny. Before this thread I had never thought about how much energy my pc consumes (past tense - RIP). Starting paying attention when I started sourcing new components for the potential new build. And then today I changed 4 halogens in the landing and started getting irritated by the energy they would burn when it was brought home to me that they are on for far less time and consume less than the machine that was on 24/7 Indeed funny isn't it. My Mac Mini is on all the time and the storage connected to it but its not consuming much. I've changed all halogens to LED from the site below the NXT ones, they are great and at 5w and warm white as so close to normal halogens its hard to tell which is which. There is an energy calculator on the site as well so it will tell you if you will save anything or if its worth it. I've got a smart meter and I can see the drop from before I'd changed them all. simplyled.co.uk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipex Posted September 27, 2015 Report Share Posted September 27, 2015 We're the worst for doing everything you shouldn't do to conserve electricity. We leave chargers plugged in when they aren't charging anything, everything is left on standby, BT box is never in Eco mode as it annoys me waiting for it to boot up when it is, loads of TV's, games machines etc all running simultaneously, lights left on, heating on with windows open, you name it. The only concessions we have made to energy saving are LED lighting throughout, and always buying the highest rated A++ energy efficiency appliances, our house is also extremely solid and well insulated, none of your plasterboard walls rubbish here. Our dual fuel bill is set at £88 a month and we get a refund of around £200 every year, when we compare our usage to the national average for houses the same size we are are below average users. This is since changing all the lightbulbs to LED, if you'd told me before I'd changed them, I'd never have believed they'd make such a difference. I never got on with previous energy saving bulbs, they always took too long to get up to full brightness and were never very bright, they also liked awful, the newer LED bulbs look identical to standard bulbs, give full brightness instantly, and are just as bright. In fact, we always used 100w bulbs before, but with LED's we find we only need the 60w equivalent ones. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 We're pretty much the same - everything is on standby etc... As yet we haven't switched over the LED bulbs, I've changed one so far but am fully intending to do all the others. All the lighting in the kitchen extension will be LED. I never got on with previous energy saving bulbs, they always took too long to get up to full brightness and were never very bright, they also liked awful, the newer LED bulbs look identical to standard bulbs, give full brightness instantly, and are just as bright. Yes, this! I hated them. I didn't like the way they took an age to get up to full brightness and also how dull that light was. I tried one on my bedside light and pretty quickly binned it as I couldn't see well enough to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 I have the Gen 6 or 7 running free XPEnology, you can get the Gen 8 for £110 after HP cash back. http://www.serversplus.com/product.asp?s=SVHEW-819185421 T'is done To be delivered Wednesday Should get 16GB RAM from mate (I note the Gen8 requires ECC ram) and then have to get some HDDs WD Red 2TB are £70 and 3TB £85 so will probably look to get a couple 3TB ones to start with colleagues only has SAS drives so can't cannibalise those If 2012 were provided then yeah, you might as well use it. Depending how you setup the RAID array you could potentially lose the data if one drive goes tits up. It's all down to the RAID level you choose. If you chose RAID 0 (hint - don't) and you had 2 x 1Tb drives then you would get 2Tb of usable capacity which is great in terms of maximising the usable space but not at all good if you want some redundancy should a drive die. If you went for RAID 1 and had 2 x 1Tb drives you would end up with 1Tb of usable capacity as effectively the data exists on both drives - it's mirrored. Lose a drive and the other half of the mirror still has everything so no data loss. In my case I'm using RAID 1 with 2 x 2Tb drives. Not much capacity but this 2Tb is only holding the operating systems - the data is held on a Synology NAS. One common misconception about RAID is that it's a backup substitute. It isn't, it's for things like hardware redundancy and performance gains. If you delete something from a RAID array then it's just as gone as it would be if you deleted it from a normal hard drive setup. Windows 2012 and ESXi are different things. ESXi is what's called a hypervisor, it's the software that runs virtual machines. I have Windows 2012 installed as a virtual machine. Why? Well I need to run multiple servers and using ESXi I can do that all on one physical server. Probably OTT but I am getting into this. What I was thinking was I would use ESXi and have a couple of servers. 1) A "big" Xpen server in Synology Hybrid Raid config which I would use to run Plex, torrents, Sickbeard (if I ever get round to learning how to use it) and having it sync all the pix etc from my various machines and phone 2) A smaller Windows Server 12 Essentials Server - although this depends on whether I can set it up in a software Raid 5 config? - which I would use to sync data onto, having documents being backed up regularly onto this server. This would also house any images of the PC and if it is supported, Time Machine (something tells me Apple Time Machine and MS Server Essentials might not go together??) 3) I would look to set up a backup of the servers onto the 2TB USB3 external HDD I have 4) point the servers at a cloud backup solution (Back Blaze as suggested earlier) If this a good robust solution? What are the flaws in my rationale? Do I need to start with 3 drives from the outset for SHR or RAID5 to work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Yes, this! I hated them. I didn't like the way they took an age to get up to full brightness and also how dull that light was. I tried one on my bedside light and pretty quickly binned it as I couldn't see well enough to read. I have tried a shedload of LED bulbs via eBay from China as we hated the colour - especially the missus. In the end I kept a set of cool white ones in the hallway as we have this on a lot but now I will try to slowly swap out the landing ones (GU10) and the many many many many MR16 ones in the bathrooms, kitchen and my office if we can find natural white than matches normal bulb colour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 The cheap eBay ones can look poor, but the ones on the site I posted are almost exactly the same as a standard Halogen. I've just got rid of the final 3 halogen at the weekend and the conversion will only have LED GU10s on the link below. http://www.simplyled.co.uk/product/gu10-led-nxtgen-series-iii-dimmable-ww/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Thanks yeah - it's just cost of them. I have about 30 MR16s to swap out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Just change the ones that are on the longest each day as that is where you will get the biggest savings. I've not change some GU10s in the bedroom as they are rarely on as we use the sidelights more. But all of the MR16s have now been done it was about 18 for us and the bills have moved nicely down as a result. When you consider a room is now the same as 1 halogen that was on before you can can see the savings. Click the calculator on the main page and see how long it will be to pay the lights off. 6x LEDs on for 2hrs a day and they pay for themselves in a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 (edited) Yep that is the principle - we leave the landing lights on when out or when I am working and kids asleep hence I insisted they are the very white LEDs. Anyway I digress. Currently trying to read up on "MS Storage Spaces" to see how that compares with the SHR for the "data" server if I keep the 250gb OS drive and 2 x 3TB drives Edited September 28, 2015 by Waylander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Windows 2012 would do the job nicely but it's overkill plus it isn't exactly cheap. Windows 7/8.1/10 would do just as good a job for Plex. No, you won't waste a drive for the OS. The Gen8 has a RAID controller so it can create one single large volume encompassing all the drives which you can then partition as you require. The advantage of ESXi is that I can run multiple operating systems on the same physical server. So on my box I have ESXi, a Windows 2012 R2 server, Windows 10 client and a couple of Linux boxes. The other nice thing is that if I bought a new box and wanted to move the virtual machines over to it, it's just a case of installing ESXi and copying a bunch of fies over from the old server - no need to reinstall the operating systems. ESXi is indeed free and easy to use. Okay I have been reading up in earnest about Windows Storage spaces (having got my head around SHR) Can I ask a really noob question about multiple OS on the same physical server. How exactly does that work. I mean say I want one OS to have loads of space (specifically Xpen) and I want the other to have less as it is only dealing with images/backups/data do I have to pre-decide which Virtual server accesses what? I'm struggling to get my head around them using the same physical space - although I guess it is no different from dual booting OS on a laptop/PC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 You would decide how you want to configure your RAID and then you create virtual machines in ESXi. Each hard disk on a machine is a file /a VMDK file) which is a virtual hard disk. This file lives on the RAID array and the virtual machines uses this files as one of its drives. It means you can attach VMDK files to any machine so if for instance an OS crashes, just attach the data VMDK to another machine and you'll be able to access it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 All of the above - too bloody hard Take something simple, make it 15 times harder, call it a hobby 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Waylander, your ability to make the process of signing up for online storage, or installing a box to hold data, seem akin to the complexities of the NASA New Horizons programme never ceases to amaze me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted September 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Lol you're obviously both right. Thanks guys. Basically I got really caught up in my reading last night and it was eager puppy dog stuff to want it all, all singing all dancing. As xpen still seems to be the os of choice for media and can do the data stuff I guess I'll bin the esxi route and keep it simple®..... So is this a sensible resilient strategy?: For data and pix I intend to have local copy on pc/laptops, backup for each user from my documents to OneDrive or dropbox. Then sync with server and cloud backup of server. Usb external hdd to backup server. For videos its server and cloud. Even so having more than 1 hdd, if I used the synology hybrid raid I wouldn't lose all the data on one drive in case of single disk ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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