pstuart Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 James,Still waiting for a response from you via email... I'm sure you are busy launching these Anyway, are you using windows home server 2011? If so, does that limit your volume storage size on the media boxes to 2 TB partitions?Also, is the control of the system via Control4 IP or IR?Would you be willing to make a media version without the mass storage for those of us that have NAS's already? (Of course, mines dead)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamonddesign Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Will email you tonight. Its took about 10 hours to get this up and running (was why I was putting it off). Because its hardware raid with a customized (OEM) whs 2011 our drives are very very unique. Our C drive is like 300gb (a normal one is like 60) and our D has the rest (1 drive only for instance mine is 13tb). No 10 drive letters like what you may be used to with 2tb each. The c is formatted standard 4k cluster (WHS default) so the smallest file on that is 4k. I put documents on the server share on this drive for this purpose. The D drive has 64k cluster. That means the smallest file (be it a .txt file) takes up 64k of space. Its basically videos, music and photos on this drive (and household computer backups). That means that when you request a movie that is say 1000 times the size of 64k, it only needs to send 1000 clusters vs. 16,000. The drawback is whs (and windows in general) can't defragment the drives or much else so each smart server comes with a free copy of perfect disk 12 for whs 2011 (installed and preconfigured) to manage this setup. Thats just 1 example of the customization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormwatch Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Would the server be used as the media player as well? Or would you then need separate media player? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 Sorry for all the public questions, but how do you plan on backing up user content on those large volumes? In fact, what are people using for media library backup?Backup is now at the top of my list, cause I'm not recreating my media library a 3rd time.I misread the 2tb limit for volumes, looks like WHS 2011 can support up to 16TB+ volumes, the boot partition can't be larger than 2 TB (MBR instead of GBT) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Hi again James.In the "blurb", you mention you can run this NAS both say as a source for streaming to the Dunes. And as an AFP share for OSX. Both at the same time...Cool..Obviously you can mount the drive/share in OSX. But how much OSX compatibility is built in here? Are we talking being able to use this NAS for time machine backup's? As an itunes server? Can we move apple movies onto this NAS and stream them to an AppleTV? Better still... Can we use this NAS like an AppleTV version1 with the EV driver..? Now I know *this* would be pushing the friendship a little, but it sure would be incredible if this is true PM me the reply if you prefer to answer that way, then I'll delete this post if you want Cheers(Have I told you your company rocks?) If not. I'll say it again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therodog Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Though like wappinghigh, I'd like to know how well the NAS works and plays with OSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
me23 Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Thanks James, looks good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamonddesign Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 On the server, there are no 2tb limitations as the hard drives are controlled by the LSI/3Ware RAID card. Without that WHS cannot have a single drive letter larger than 2tb. You can back up the smaller C drive to another computer on the network or an external hard drive (esata or usb). Then trust the raid with the D drive. I've shipped one in RAID 6 format on request of a conservative customer. Its easy on my end, you just lose another drive of storage space.The NAS requires a media player and the server is designed to use one as well (or 4 for instance). The HDMI out is for adding navigator to another tv or adding the server desktop to an HDMI matrix switch etc. The server has USB 3.0 and works with the latest nimbie USB 3.0 100 disc spindle so you could copy 100 discs back to back without user interaction. The server has great apple integration (it can even back up osx computers) and the quick connector even has an apple version now. I haven't played with the apple integration much on the nas as I have very little mac products other than I know it has Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). Synology has this technology as well. It essentially allows communication with the nas like C4 has over CIFS. I believe a backup would be possible just like it is with the server. We (and some of our dealers) will be renting the Nimbie blu ray disc spindles for short periods if you have a large collection (CDs i assume) you want to back up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 There are itunes plugin's now that run in WHS. That looks cool..This one: IHOMESERVER can manage itunes from the Windows Home Server Console..So I wonder if you can navigate around WHS in James's special DD WHS server using an SR250 remote?....I still don't think this means you can get itunes DRM movies and TV shows into Mymovies...Can you? I mean *this* would be the panacea IMHO... :cool:If there was a plugin to do that, I'd make the jump to James's MyMovies solution in a heart beat. ..As it is, I'm just looking at his NAS solution..If/when a solution to get itunes DRM content becomes available for MyMovies...then what one could do is simply add James's DD Sever on top off his NAS...Then the Freenas RAID array could be used for added redundancy ..could it not? I (think) both come with rSync.....so I think they can sync with each other?? :cool:Or you could double your storage capacity, as a Dune with James's driver magic, could then be made to pull files either off the NAS or the Server.Or maybe James might come out (as has been requested), with a simpler version of his Server...without all the Raided drives..Sorry for thinking out loud James, but I'm just trying to come up with a future technology plan that doesn't get made "redundant" in it's own right... Cheers everyone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 ^ As a matter of interest. What "backup" programs can be run under WHS?... either directing to off site?.. or NAS?..I'm not talking backing up *too* a WHS..I'm talking backing up *the* WHS itself..Is there one built into the WHS program ? Or a plugin available to do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 16, 2012 Author Share Posted June 16, 2012 Wapping, depends on what you want to backup.WHS has a built in ability to back up its own OS via shadow copy to a disk image.But to be totally protected you would need to back up your content to external device(s) / network and you could use the built in backup solution to do that as well and on a schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamonddesign Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Ours has its own backup (part of WHS 2011). In fact if you don't do it you get a warning saying server backup is not complete (you can disable the warning). You can backup just the C disk (operating system and documents) or both the C and the D. You wouldn't want to back up the home computer backups on the D drive though because you'd be backing them up twice (i.e. you'd have a backup of your office desktop on D and then you'd have a backup of that backup which would be a bit wasteful on space).You can backup to a seperate storage box (an enclosure that isn't necessarily a raid box but simply a box with enough storage to cover your files). You can also use Rsync. We have dealers that quoted this using 2 servers or a nas and a server at 2 locations with the same files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 James your NAS <> Media Server combo looks totally awesome..the ability to rsync to an off site location is killer..James, I've spent the last 24 hrs pouring over Freenas and it's file system ZFS...I've sent you a PM, as I appreciate there is a fair bit of IP in all this. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.