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Advice needed for Media Server options

post #1 of 8
9/16/12 at 1:14pm
Thread Starter 
Greetings. I have been running a HTPC for the past several years along with several disc changers and about 12TB of storage. Although I DID mess with WHS a while back, it bascially cost me 2 drives of data! I want to add more space to my HTPC (currently useing external USB 8 Bay Sans Digital box (and have 4 local drives on top of that). I'm running out of storage and would love to be able to do everything under one box if possible (i.e. not run a server since I only watch locally on one set). My main goal is protection. Atm, I feel like I'm running around without protection. I'm not doing any backups.

My question is are any of you guys running Flexraid on your main HTPC? If so, please share some experiences. Is redundancy adequate with external drives? Any help is most appreciated.
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post #2 of 8
9/17/12 at 7:57am
Thread Starter 
Maybe my post was a little convoluted? Any ideas, thoughts and/or opinions?
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post #3 of 8
9/17/12 at 8:50am
I asked the same question on my thread but did not get an answer but I'm guessing that it should be OK beause FlexRaid runs on top of the OS without making any changes to the drive setup.
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post #4 of 8
9/17/12 at 8:55am

Hi, Darrin.

 

I built a separate 7.1 TB (usable storage) media server using FreeNAS. However, I'm sharing my movies and recorded TV with the HTPC and other computers in my household. So, I don't have any experience to offer for your situation. However, assassin has a set of guides for Media Servers, including FlexRaid. It'll cost you $25, but if they are as good as his HTPC guides, then it is money well invested.

 

http://www.assassinserver.com/

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post #5 of 8
9/17/12 at 9:00am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajamils View Post

I asked the same question on my thread but did not get an answer but I'm guessing that it should be OK beause FlexRaid runs on top of the OS without making any changes to the drive setup.

Thanks man. I guess I will need to do some more research on FlexRaid. Besides having protection in the form of redundancy, I'm also looking for some additional storage ideas/options. I'm running the Sans 8 bay but are there better options for adding more storage?
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post #6 of 8
9/17/12 at 9:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbrinson View Post

Hi, Darrin.

I built a separate 7.1 TB (usable storage) media server using FreeNAS. However, I'm sharing my movies and recorded TV with the HTPC and other computers in my household. So, I don't have any experience to offer for your situation. However, assassin has a set of guides for Media Servers, including FlexRaid. It'll cost you $25, but if they are as good as his HTPC guides, then it is money well invested.

http://www.assassinserver.com/

Looks very interesting. I'll have to check it out, thanks.
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post #7 of 8
9/17/12 at 10:23pm
I have been using FlexRAID on my WHS server for over a year now and love it. It doesn't matter what you are using your computer for weather it be server or HTPC or whatever else. FlexRAID is easy flexible and you dont have to rebuild the entire system just to add a drive. I have 13 HD's totalling 27.5TB, all setup with FlexRAID, i currently run everything off 1 3TB PPU (Parity Drive) if any hard drive fails, that is my redundancy. I do not have a seperate backup, although i back up my OS drive, and my important files to an external drive in case of catastrophic failure. You can use an external drive for redundancy. FlexRAID can be setup in 2 modes, snapshot, or realtime. snapshot will update the parity drive based on the schedule you setup, or realtime is of course on demand update. I have found snapshot to be a better option for me as my data does not change often, and it is a bit faster than the realtime protection.

On to adding more storage; if you have run out of room inside your HTPC, you can ways upgrade to something larger. You may also want to look into a HBA or RAID card with external an external eSATA port or something like that. I attempted the same thing back before i had a server. but i found building my system into a server was a better option, external HD enclosures tend to be noisy in living rooms.

Hope this helps.
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post #8 of 8
9/18/12 at 5:08am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by imadork8317 View Post

I have been using FlexRAID on my WHS server for over a year now and love it. It doesn't matter what you are using your computer for weather it be server or HTPC or whatever else. FlexRAID is easy flexible and you dont have to rebuild the entire system just to add a drive. I have 13 HD's totalling 27.5TB, all setup with FlexRAID, i currently run everything off 1 3TB PPU (Parity Drive) if any hard drive fails, that is my redundancy. I do not have a seperate backup, although i back up my OS drive, and my important files to an external drive in case of catastrophic failure. You can use an external drive for redundancy. FlexRAID can be setup in 2 modes, snapshot, or realtime. snapshot will update the parity drive based on the schedule you setup, or realtime is of course on demand update. I have found snapshot to be a better option for me as my data does not change often, and it is a bit faster than the realtime protection.
On to adding more storage; if you have run out of room inside your HTPC, you can ways upgrade to something larger. You may also want to look into a HBA or RAID card with external an external eSATA port or something like that. I attempted the same thing back before i had a server. but i found building my system into a server was a better option, external HD enclosures tend to be noisy in living rooms.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for that! I do plan on building a dedicated Theater room within the next year or so. With that being said, I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and build a server. Since I would like the option of having a LOT of room to grow (in the short term), my thoughts are going with the 20 bay Norco 4220. My question is why are you using FlexRaid on top of WHS? I can only assume it's the 1:1 parity (duplication) method employed by WHS for protection. Any advice you can offer on suitable mother boards would be most appreciated, thanks.
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