heyitsheather Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 My Windows Home Server has finally kicked the bucket, power supply failed. I can't complain, its been running almost continuously since 2008 and seeing as how its the version based off of Server 2003, no longer supported for patching. I'm building its replacement out of old spare parts, a Core 2 Duo E6850, 4GB RAM and 4 1TB HDD's. My question is in regards to storage. The home server used the drive extender that was popular with the WHS OS. This new machine will be based on Windows 8.1. Should I use the motherboards onboard RAID to setup a RAID 5 config across the 4 drives or should I install the OS on 1 and then utilize MS Storage Spaces within Windows which I have never done. I've been told many times in the past that most onboard RAID on consumer level boards is not hardware based RAID but more software dependent setup reliant heavily on the CPU. My leaning toward the RAID 5 is with the associated fault tolerance. The machine will be used to host my Plex media server and its associated library, act as a file server, test web server running IIS and host backups from various family PC's via the file history tool in Windows 8.1. Thanks for the feedback. Oh, the board is a Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R rev 1.1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannlich Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 I vote storage spaces. I use it in my home servers running 2012 R2 - works like a charm and is just so easy to configure, use, recover data, expand, etc. I've been really impressed with it, so far. The_Observer 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinetheo Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Newer intel raid is not 100% software. It has a real on board chip and is more easily recoverable with the OS on it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conna Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 I would go with SS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Storage Spaces is more flexible in configurations, but I would do a RAID 5 @ 3TB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted June 13, 2015 MVC Share Posted June 13, 2015 Dude check out drive pool from stablebit.. Blows storage spaces away.. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool I just don't personally see a point to raid 5 in the home.. Its just a waste of space.. Write performance normally blows, it has recovery problems - you have problems moving the files to other controllers, etc. etc.. If you want to hedge from having to restore from backup on hardware failure. Then tell drive pool to put folders on more than 1 disk in your pool, or you can pick specific files even to have copy on every drive in your pool, etc. Raid also requires same size drives, etc. For a home setup this is so much easier!! And way more flexible - you can add drives to your pool without even having to remove the files that are on them. You can use the pool or directly access the files on the disks. You can use different sized drives, different speeds, usb and sata or estata, etc. etc.. Also their support is nothing short of fantastic!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyitsheather Posted June 13, 2015 Author Share Posted June 13, 2015 Dude check out drive pool from stablebit.. Blows storage spaces away.. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool I just don't personally see a point to raid 5 in the home.. Its just a waste of space.. Write performance normally blows, it has recovery problems - you have problems moving the files to other controllers, etc. etc.. If you want to hedge from having to restore from backup on hardware failure. Then tell drive pool to put folders on more than 1 disk in your pool, or you can pick specific files even to have copy on every drive in your pool, etc. Raid also requires same size drives, etc. For a home setup this is so much easier!! And way more flexible - you can add drives to your pool without even having to remove the files that are on them. You can use the pool or directly access the files on the disks. You can use different sized drives, different speeds, usb and sata or estata, etc. etc.. Also their support is nothing short of fantastic!! Thanks BudMan, worth looking into, though I have another problem to solve first as the CPU fan header isn't working, have tried with 2 working fans that were tested on other boards, fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPreston Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 RAID 6 with a proper enterprise Hardware RAID card for the win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyitsheather Posted June 13, 2015 Author Share Posted June 13, 2015 RAID 6 with a proper enterprise Hardware RAID card for the win. With the age of the hardware being used, my goal is to not spend any cash unless really necessary, such as the 4 pin fan power to molex adapter I picked up this afternoon to fix the cpu fan problem. I did end up going with Storage Spaces, using a 320GB HDD for the OS and then 4 1TB's for the storage pool. Thanks everyone for your feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Observer Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 another vote for storage spaces, only cause it allows you to move the HD to another windows machine and still work. If your raid card dies you need another one and same model from my understanding, but i could be wrong. Dude check out drive pool from stablebit.. Blows storage spaces away.. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool I just don't personally see a point to raid 5 in the home.. Its just a waste of space.. Write performance normally blows, it has recovery problems - you have problems moving the files to other controllers, etc. etc.. If you want to hedge from having to restore from backup on hardware failure. Then tell drive pool to put folders on more than 1 disk in your pool, or you can pick specific files even to have copy on every drive in your pool, etc. Raid also requires same size drives, etc. For a home setup this is so much easier!! And way more flexible - you can add drives to your pool without even having to remove the files that are on them. You can use the pool or directly access the files on the disks. You can use different sized drives, different speeds, usb and sata or estata, etc. etc.. Also their support is nothing short of fantastic!! I use this, great software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philcruicks Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 I'm using storage spaces on server 2012, and it works great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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