FlexRAID on WHS

Ok, thanks. I guess I'll have to wait and do this later when I'm home and can install Firefox, rather than doing it remotely like I am now.

Looking forward to trying it out!

Ok, I got it set up, created parity, and veriried it, and all seems well.

One question though: I went ahead and created the folders that didn't exist remotely, then came home and installed Firefox so I could use WebGUI properly. Surprisingly, some of the folders I set up weren't there. I figured I must have set them up in the wrong spot. So I did that again, and got it all set up. Looking back now, I see some of the folders that I obviously created in the right spot (because they are still there in the FlexRAID setup) are gone again from the drives. I'm assuming that's WHS doing it's thing with putting things were it wants to, and all we care about is that the folders exist long enough to drag and drop them?

Strange that the folders are disappearing.

As long as you have them in your RAID config, that's all that matters.

Yeah, WHS clearly removed them, because I checked back and the correct entries are there in the WebUI, so the folders HAD to be there at one point.

I have another question (sorry, I'm just not clear on it all yet). I thought I scheduled a nightly rsynch to run in the middle of the night, but it didn't run. I made the ASSUMPTION that WebUI was just an interface, and that once I created the schedule in WebUI, that info was passed to the FlexRAID service. But I guess possibly the WebUI actually has the timing function internally, and therefore it has to be running at the scheduled time to invoke the rsynch? And therefore, both have to set up as a service for automated rsynchs?

Thanks again!

Yep, the WebUI does all the timing functions and has to be running for the scheduled jobs to be executed.

When I get some time later, I will add the ability to export the scheduled jobs to the OS scheduler.

In fact making the CMD interface and webUI able to understand each other is a must Brahim.

I have an array made in cmd client and I would love webUI to be able to manage it...

Having ONE FlexRAID service and two interfaces that in fact do not read/write a common set of settings (for this same server) is... let me put it this way... "unique". (not in a good way)

NLS wrote:how you configure WHS to not move data around?

The more I've looked into this the more confused and uncertain I've become. I keep coming back to references about stopping the WHS storage manager service but I'm not so sure that's a great idea. Has anyone figured this one out?

NLS wrote:In fact making the CMD interface and webUI able to understand each other is a must Brahim.

I have an array made in cmd client and I would love webUI to be able to manage it...

Having ONE FlexRAID service and two interfaces that in fact do not read/write a common set of settings (for this same server) is... let me put it this way... "unique". (not in a good way)

The last I checked, the settings are the same.
It is how those settings are managed that vary.
Believe it or not, but the WebUI actually uses the CMD client to communicate with the host underneath.

In fact, you can import an existing RAID configuration into the WebUI.
So, going from the CMD client to the WebUI is very straightforward (import the existing RAID and update the config).
The reverse is what 's not possible yet (but a very easy feature to add).

The clients are not designed to have the same set of features.
Therefore, you will have configuration overlaps.

Arguing for easy migrations between clients is one thing, but you can't argue for being able to easily interchange them at a whim.
Remember that the idea is to pick a client and stick with it until you decide to migrate to another client.

fair enough

It would be helpful if we could describe the preferred method for restoring DRUs upon disk failure in WHS.

Some things that might be helpful to define:

- remove bad hard drives before or after restore?
- path to restore under v1.2 & v1.3RC
- is it recommended to install v1.3RC for the purpose of restoring (assuming v1.2 currently in use)?
- any other important steps for restore with WHS

- also, steps for restoring deleted/lost files (where tomstones are presumably missing).

Thanks, I've been using v1.2 and this is very cool software!

A couple of questions:

Let's say I have a case with six drive bays (excluding my system drive). Four of these are filled with 1TB drives. I would like to use three of them as storage drives and one as a parity drive.

I quickly use up my storage so I buy two 2TB drives to fill my case. Will FlexRAID automatically make one of the 2TB drives the new parity drive or will I have to do this manually?

After a year I decide to replace the four 1TB drives with brand new 3TB drives, and at the same time move over to two-drive parity. Will this be a smooth process?

Thanks,

Nick

You have to specifiy where to store the parity data. But it's not difficult.

Few quick questions,

1. If I setup flexraid for my WHS drives that have existing data, nothing will be deleted?
2. Would it be better to wait for v1.3 rather than using 1.2 now?

ZrC wrote:Few quick questions,

1. If I setup flexraid for my WHS drives that have existing data, nothing will be deleted?
2. Would it be better to wait for v1.3 rather than using 1.2 now?

1. Nothing will be deleted.
2. Yes, you should use 1.3.

Version 1.3 is currently in beta only because of the FlexRAID-View functionality.
So, use the latest 1.3 build.

Brahim wrote:

ZrC wrote:Few quick questions,

1. If I setup flexraid for my WHS drives that have existing data, nothing will be deleted?
2. Would it be better to wait for v1.3 rather than using 1.2 now?

1. Nothing will be deleted.
2. Yes, you should use 1.3.

Version 1.3 is currently in beta only because of the FlexRAID-View functionality.
So, use the latest 1.3 build.

Thanks for the quick reply, everything is now setup and it is now processing. But due to having 14 disks totaling around 7TB its taking a while. For the scheduled task, how often should I verify/resynch/validate the array?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 07/03/2010 08:46:59

I know the lack of a backukp system for the system drive is a negative. Is this how people are getting around it:

Image the C drive and put the tombstones on the D drive under flexraid protection?

Has anyone restored said partition and tombstones to test out this theory? I would think there would be problems as the system drive is probably IDed throughout the registry and I would think WHS would throw errors once restored to a new disc.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 07/03/2010 15:45:37

Unfortunately this is one of the things that are flawed in WHS (and part of why I am leaving it when I can).

1) Tombstones ARE in D: physical partition (i.e. second partition of first disk). You cannot move them. Don't confuse this with D:\shares that has all other data disks mapped on it.

1) You cannot normally restore to a new disk (except MAYBE after extensive registry hacking), since WHS stores/needs every disk's unique ID.

2) Even then, a backup is periodic. After the last backup, things constantly happen on a WHS (even if you don't actually write new data - and imagine if you do), so a restore would just leave you in an inconsistent state - probably irrecoverable as WHS doesn't have a system to force rebuilding of tombstones and internal indexes except "WHS reinstall".

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 08/03/2010 00:54:39

icon123 wrote:
Image the C drive and put the tombstones on the D drive under flexraid protection?

Has anyone restored said partition and tombstones to test out this theory? I would think there would be problems as the system drive is probably IDed throughout the registry and I would think WHS would throw errors once restored to a new disc.

I did. You are right, it doesn't work without tweaking. After restoring WHS system disk image to another drive it boots, but it doesn't recognize its C: and D: drives. It finds them but it doesn't see D: as a part of the pool.
I think it most likely can be fixed through registry changes. Probably limited to this branch where it stores drive information:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Disks\
But, I never tried to fix it.

The reason I experienced it is I installed WHS on Intel ICH10 RAID1 on Asus P5Q Pro motherboard. Then I started to enable additional SATA controllers. And it stopped working.
It could not boot from Intel RAID with 2 additional controllers. Everything worked before with the same controllers when RAID was not activated on ICH10. It could not load ICH10 RAID boot BIOS. So I decided to move the RAID to SiliconImage controller on the same board so ICH10 would not be a boot drive. Same 2 mirrored disks but different RAID volume name so WHS didn't recognized it.
After all I replaced 2 controllers with one - SuperMicro 8-port PCIe 8x controllers, and it worked fine. I detailed problem here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1498324

So, while I think that it is possible to restore WHS on new system drive with registry tweaking I decided to use RAID1 - it just looks simpler. Well, simpler after I figured out motherboard/controller incompatibility problem. That Supermicro controller costs ~$100 plus 2 SAS-SATA break-out cables $15 each. I wanted at least 13 SATA disks though. 7 mobo ports + 2 controllers 4+2 disks made it possible without ICH 10 RAID but didn't work with RAID enabled.

But, if you decide to go image creation/tombstone backup way I think it should work. Some people on wegotserved.com did restore WHS system drive to another drive. WHS doesn't really move files around so FlexRaid tombstone backup should work.
I reported one case in this thread when files were moved across the drives, but I think it was MyMovies for WHS. I have no problems once I disabled MyMovies monitoring service.
To handle new files added since last tombstone backup I added a command to FlexRaid batch file - dir /s d:\shares > T:\FlexRaid\mwhs-dir.txt. T: is on another server. This way I know folder listing so I can re-add new files since last backup. And I keep individual drive listings too so I know where each file is: dir /s C:\fs\E\DE\shares > T:\FlexRaid\mwhs-dir-E.txt

Thanks for chiming in. The raid 1 approach is slick, never thought about that. So worst case, without imaging or raid 1 system drive. You will have to do the restore or upgrade option (I don't remember what its called right now) on the WHS install and use the flexraid restore for the tombstones. This way you don't have to wait forever to get your tombstones rebuilt. Is this correct? If so, I can live with that as I don't customize the server too much. Mainly SageTV, which after an install of sagetv, my backup of sagetv should be able to be copied over it just fine.

I think after WHS system restore there will be no drives in storage pool. And when you add a drive WHS will format it. The difference between reinstall and restore is the restore scans your disks and recreates tombstones (which may take forever).
So, I don't think FlexRaid restore tombstones helps in this case. Probably there will be will be no opportunity to use it. Really need to make WHS believe that new system disk is the old one. Search wegotserved.com forum, it should be possible.