FlexRAID Drive Pool and RAID for WHS 2011 spoilers

[Brahim]

http://www.openegg.org/2011/10/18/flexraid-drive-pool-and-raid-for-whs-2011-spoilers/

[Cavemanz]

That looks absolutely awesome
Whats the ETA on this? I have a Windows Server 2008 R2 setup with WHS2011 in Hyper V. Gonna run passthrough on all the harddisks.
If its due soon, timing couldnt have been better

[jjw7mc]

Wow, this looks awsome, cant wait to try it on my WHS

[will_santana]

WOW!!!

just love the drive status screen

huuuge improvements coming

really antecipating the next update

keep up the AMAZING job

[]s

[benogil]

I see this has made wegotserved, and, of course, the Linkedin WHS group. Anxiously anticipated.

[jlock45]

Me cant wait to get me hands on this! . Does anyone know when it will go public please?

Thanks

[Track]

Brahim -- is this the 'new' build that people were talking about, the one with Cruise Control? 

And, does it work better/only on WHS? I happen to have a copy of both WHS 11 and Windows 7..

Thank you!

[m0t0k0]

There is an issue in some systems (like mine) where editing an existing file... erm... trashes the file.
You understand that such an issue means "no go" before resolved.

It is possible that if no solution is found in timely fashion (this my take mind you), he will release a beta with this warning so to see which systems HAVE the issue and which not.

We'll see. He is doing tests right now.

Quote from NLS

Yes it will be the new build with cruise control .
The current build is pretty good so you could try that. But it will not allow your WHS 2011 Shares to be on the "pooled" drive.
The next release will allow WHS shares to be on the "pooled" drive

[themaddhatter]

Wanted to see if there was any ETA on getting this setup yet?

Before 2012 maybe?

Am running stablebit on WHS, and it works fine, but there is no parity, so if I lose a drive, I lose all that data.

Yes, I could duplicate, but then I have to duplicate 8 TB, and with 2 TB drives going for a king's ransom right now, that really isn't in the cards...

[m0t0k0]

themaddhatter you are more than welcome to participate in the open beta. I'm currently using it on my WHS 2011 box for pooling my drives and it works a treat you can find the latest download here

http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,219.0.html

Please read all the documentation in the first post

Also you will need to check out the FlexRAID wiki @ http://wiki.flexraid.com/

If I was you I would read through the beginners guides at a minimum before you install (their is some useful WHS specific advice in there)

Welcome to the forum

[themaddhatter]

themaddhatter you are more than welcome to participate in the open beta. I'm currently using it on my WHS 2011 box for pooling my drives and it works a treat you can find the latest download here

http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,219.0.html

Please read all the documentation in the first post

Also you will need to check out the FlexRAID wiki @ http://wiki.flexraid.com/

If I was you I would read through the beginners guides at a minimum before you install (their is some useful WHS specific advice in there)

Welcome to the forum

Thanks a lot m0t0k0!

Will bone up on the lit, and give it a shot this weekend.

What I am running:
- HP proliant microserver w/ 8GB ram
- WHS 2011
-64GB SSD OS drive
-(5) 2TB HDD in machine
-(4) 2TB HDD in esata probox

Currently, have 4 drives in a pool, but what I ultimately want to do is run 8 drives in flexraid (one as parity) and one drive for discreet backup of most critical data (stuff that changes regularly) on a 2x/day backup

Will report back how it goes 

[m0t0k0]

I too have a microserver, did you use a hacked bios to give you full sata speeds on all sata channels?

Did you use the unattended install to get you OS onto such a small SSD? I had mine on a 120GB SSD but decided it was better used in my HTPC. I wonder if I could get it to fit on a 30GB SSD

Do you know if you are going to go for snapshot or real time RAID?

[themaddhatter]

I did do the BIOS hack to open up the SATA going to the optical slot.

Of course I bought my microservers (running 2: one with WHS; one as an HTPC)  like 6 months before they upgraded the processor... ...figures

For the SSD, I had a laptop drive (like a 250 WD black) that was acting a little flaky.

I dinked around with backups and saving and none of that worked.

Eventually, I used GParted, shrunk the partition down to the size of the data (like 30 GB), and copied that partition and the little unallocated one on the drive before the C: using GParted onto the SSD.

WHS didn't know the difference.  I checked the standard "setup for SSD" rhetoric, and the drive is working fine.

It might not be right, but it worked 

[m0t0k0]

Is there much difference between the old and new processors I looked before and the only thing I could see is they upped the clock from 1.3 to 1.5 so I don't think it would really be noticeable.

I too have the old one

I struggled with an SSD and I ghosted the image over like you did but then I found that you can use an answer file for the installation to make it ignore the minimum HDD size requirement, I struggle with this too. The only way I could get it to work was to install from USB with the file at the root of the USB (apparently you can install from DVD and have file at the root of a USB but I could not get it to work)

If its working that's the main thing
I will be sticking a tuner card in after Mr Christmas has come. What card do you use in your HTPC you would need a GFX card for HD stuff. Can you fit a tuner card in there as well?

[themaddhatter]

Yeah I had looked into the whole configuration thing about fooling WHS on install with the scripts, but honestly, I didn't want to have to go through a few million updates.  I am running on a 3G network *sub-DSL speed* as I am VERY rural right now, so windows updates and OS downloads are brutally slow.

For a video card, here is what I am running

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102882&Tpk=100292DDR3L

Cheap, good output, plays well with the system.

My HTPC is running W7 Ult 64 with that card, 8GB ram, a blue-ray player/dvd burner, and a 320GB laptop drive for OS.  I still have the four slots in that empty.  My intention is that when HDD come back down to reality (hopefully Q1 or Q2 of 2012) I will slap some drives in there to possibly use as a networked backup spot for data off the server (will schedule backups on key folders there).

We will see how the FlexRAID goes 

I am moving some folders around on the server right now, and have already installed the beta, just need to clean house then will build the array.  I goofed on the first pass, as I had some shares connected on my DRU, and I got a "not enough usable parity space", so doing some housekeeping then give it another go.