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adding Advanced Format drives to WHS v1

post #1 of 5
1/9/13 at 8:39am
Thread Starter 
I've got a HP MediaSmart ex470 with 2 drives in it and it's been running well for years. I've reached the point of needing to add storage capactiy... Seems like everything out there these days are advanced format drives. I read though this article:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/12/22/using-advanced-format-hard-drives-with-windows-home-server/

And it seems pretty straight forward since I'm just adding pool drives. Just add the jumper and plug in the drive. (I'm looking at WD Red 2 TB drives) Has it been that simple for everyone else? Any potential pitfalls? Is there any way to verify that the drive and my data is ok? I'm a little worried about adding the drives, putting data on them, and them at some point down the road when I really need that data I find out there's a corruption issue or something due to the advance format...

Thanks.
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post #2 of 5
1/9/13 at 11:16am
I've used a couple of AF drives in my whsV1 server for a while and it has worked for the most part. One drive reported Unhealthy a couple of times, just taking it out of the pool and adding it back in again resolved the issue though.

But it left me uneasy and I can't say I have quite trusted the server to work for much longer so I just bit the bullet and upgraded to whs 2011 using the StableBit DrivePool add-in as a replacement for drive extender. Works great so far ans also allows me to add +2TB drives which is nice.
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post #3 of 5
1/9/13 at 12:46pm
All the jumper is doing is telling the drive to align the sectors on the 4k boundary since the OS is old/dumb enough not to do that for you automatically. When it comes time to write the 4k sectors back, it then doesn't have to write two 4k sectors that the original 4k sector overlapped. This kills the drive's performance and will be very noticeable. Either use the jumper, or align the drive. Either way, don't worry about your data any more than any other drive (AF or not). I ran my WHS2003 server for some time before upgrading to WHS2011 with DrivePool as andersa did.
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post #4 of 5
1/9/13 at 2:20pm
I had this same dilema a couple of months ago when the Red drives came out, so I had some communication with WD. I asked if the Red drives would be a good fit for WHS V1 if I did the jumper trick.

They told me that the only drives that work with the jumper are model EARS drives mentioned in the article you linked above, which as near as I can gather have been out of production for a year or more. The newer Green drives have EARX or EZRX model numbers. The jumper trick won't work with Red drives either.

Like andersa, I also ran my WHS V1 with an advanced format, un-jumpered WD Green EARX model drive for quite a while (about a year IIRC). It always worked but it made me nervous so I replaced it. Right now I am running a HP EX495 with the original 1.5tb Seagate drive along with two 2tb WD Green EARS drives. It runs great for now and I still have a year or so before I outgrow it, at which point I will likely upgrade to WHS2011 as others have done.
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post #5 of 5
1/10/13 at 7:28am
Thread Starter 
Doh! mad.gif

I pulled the trigger and got a Red drive before seeing your post that the jumper method doesn't work on Reds. Does the alignment tool work for pool drives? On these old threads related to the Green drives it sounded like the alignment tool wasn't the best for pool drives.

Wondering if I've now accelerated my move away from WHS V1....
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