I have been using Windows Home Server at home since Beta 1 and have absolutely loved it. There are plenty of things to love, but I won’t bore you with its features, as you can read any one of the very thorough reviews online for that. But one of the features that make WHS so great for your average user makes its performance as a file server lousy.
That feature is Folder Duplication. When you have more than one harddrive installed and in the drive pool, you have the option of enabling Folder Duplication for your shares. This simply creates a copy of all shares where duplication is enabled on at least 2 of your harddrives so that in the event of a single drive failure you don’t lose any data. Sounds great, and does exactly what it is supposed to do.
So what is the problem? The problem is that anytime your data changes, WHS must balance those changes across your drive pool so that everything that needs to be duplicated, well….. is. And that’s when the performance problems start happening. This balancing is done at the OS level, and uses resources like memory and CPU. I don’t know exactly what goes on during this process, but it’s enough that the speed of file transfers to and from the WHS across the network are typically cut in half or worse. The other problem that I have always had was that WHS never stopped balancing storage. So it was constantly in a state of hindered performance.
During the beta testing, I experimented with a RAID1 array. Since my drives were mirrored at the hardware level, I didn’t need to use Folder Duplication and file transfers to and from the WHS were as speedy as they were as the same hardware running Server 2003. I always assumed that the duplication service would be optimized in the RTM release and these problems would go away, or at the very least significantly improved.
Almost 2 weeks ago, I finally got my RTM copy from my wholesaler and reinstalled WHS on my server. I installed with two 250gb SATA drives in the pool. Once finished, I copied my 90GB data set back to the shares with folder duplication enabled. As of today, it was still balancing storage. And the whole time, everything that I do that involves my file server was slower than it was under RC1 on a RAID1 array.
So today I reinstalled WHS but this time on a RAID1 array. It took a few hours to copy my data back to the shares and then less than an hour later, it was balanced. I have read a few reviews on Newegg and various forums that say you cannot install WHS on RAID arrays, and I can see how some people can get that impression.
My server is a Dell Dimension 9100 that uses the Intel ICH7 controller with built in RAID support. The WinPE installer that WHS uses supports loading drivers for onboard controllers when it can’t find your harddrives on its own. But once you install the drivers and let the installer run for 20-30 minutes or so you will be greeted by a Blue Screen of Death. This is where the automated install of Windows 2003 Server (the heart of WHS) takes place. Since this is nearly a clean install of Windows Server and the drivers that you loaded at the first part of setup don’t get passed, Server 2003 can’t see your drives and it blue screens.
The simple fix is to restart the system, and when you see the Server 2003 installer starting, press F6 when prompted so that you can install the drivers for your disc controller again. You’ll then be on your way to completing the installation of WHS.
The only downside is that you will need to have a broader knowledge of hardware and RAID controllers so that when the day comes and one of your drives dies, you’ll be able to successfully replace the bad drive without wiping out all of your data on the other. Also, should you ever outgrow your drives and need more storage space, you’ll need to upgrade all of the drives in your RAID array which will require the use of some sort of imaging software like Ghost or True Image.
But for the ultimate performing WHS box, install to a RAID1/5/10 array and/or simply don’t use Folder Duplication. You can also install a drive in the WHS that isn’t added to the drive pool and then run nightly backups to that drive.
Good luck and if you don’t already have a WHS, get one.
Show/Hide commentsHey Wutup there. This applies to any Windows OS your installing with the latest hardware. On the newer hardware, Microsoft doesn't have the latest drivers so half of the time the OS will not recognize the hardware. You should always download the latest driver from the manufacture and copy to a floppy disk. Start your install and F6 as soon as you see it flash on the bottom of the screen.
Unfortunately windows server 2003 and older does not know how to install from a flash drive, you'll need to put the drivers on a floppy disk. Only Vista and Windows 2008 server will allow to pull the drivers from a flash drive or a external drive.
Another side note. The old version of ghost does not recognize SATA drivers so you'll need to put a switch when running the program. Sorry the don't remember the switch.
As far as raid goes, I think raid 10 is over kill especially from home use. Raid 5 is good enough and is fast. Go raid 6 if your worried about performance if a drive goes out. If a drive does in Raid 5 does performance drastically goes down.
Great article. I just installed WHS on a Dell Dimension 9100. I had to use the RAID/ATA option because WHS would blue screen if I didn't (even after usine the F6 trick and loading the ICH7 disk drivers).
I installed a 1TB drive and I like WHS so much, I would like to convert the system to RAID1 with the addition of another drive. As I understand it, in order to do RAID1 on a Dell Dimension 9100, you need to have signed drives.
My question is how do you go about converting a single drive WHS installation to a RAID 1 WHS installation on a 9100?
Thanks
Yes, great article indeed however one issue. I keep banging on the F6 key when it asks but it ignores me. Now per another comment on this that W2k3 doesn't support USB on startup, I have no Floppy drive, and no CD-ROM drive so not sure if it's smart enough to know this and since it's ignoring my USB drive just keeps going because it sees no way to load drivers.
W2K3 certainly supports USB during setup. Sounds like you have a problem with your USB keyboard not being detected or available during POST. If you are able to get into your bios settings with that keyboard, then it should work during Win2k3 setup. If not, try a PS2 keyboard.
Win2k3/XP may have a hard time loading drivers for a USB floppy though. I have seen this problem many times. If will work during the F6 part, but later on in the install, it wont read the usb floppy anymore. Your mileage may vary, but I always keep a regular floppy around because of this.
Just wanted to say thanks. I was growing pretty frustrated with my inaugural WHS server build on an nvidia-based RAID. I had drivers loaded to a USB drive and the initial set-up process went fine but I kept getting BSODs after the reboot. A floppy with the latest XP drivers and F6 did the trick. Thanks!
Yes, great article indeed however one issue. I keep banging on the F6 key when it asks but it ignores me. Now per another comment on this that W2k3 doesn't support USB on startup, I have no Floppy drive, and no CD-ROM drive so not sure if it's smart enough to know this and since it's ignoring my USB drive just keeps going because it sees no way to load drivers.I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article.In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me.
sobreelpoker
Show/Hide comment form
