HP Mediasmart Server...When does the storage capacity stop

Kiyosaki · **17th March 2008, 10:14 PM**

I've been looking at the HP mediasmart server and I see that it has four internal drive cages, 3 or 4 external USB ports & an E-sata port...

My query is this...I've seen on the threads here that WHS carries out an act of balancing when you transfer files to the device instead of manual RAID configurations. If, for example, I attached an E-sata external storage device to the server, would the balancing act incorporate all external storage as well or does this only apply to the internal storage?

GlenR · **17th March 2008, 11:13 PM**

It presents all available storage as one drive. Internal, external; SATA, IDE, USB, eSATA. From the user point of view it is just one large store. WHS moves the data between the drives without you knowing.

pantonious · **18th March 2008, 12:15 PM**

when you connect a HDD (external or internal) it will not be used unless you add it to the "Storage Pool".

When you do it, they are all treated the same, however they are connected to your computer.

Kiyosaki · **18th March 2008, 06:15 PM**

So if any of these drives fails (Internal or External), There's no way I can lose data? I'm assuming no???

Another query...If I have say 6 TB of storage (4 x internal @ 2 x lacie 1TB external) and formatted, they give me a total storage space of say 5.5TB, will WHS tell me I have 5.5TB to play with or does it reduce the size significantly because of the 'balancing' (raid) effect?

I hope this makes sense...

GlenR · **18th March 2008, 06:45 PM**

Assuming you have file duplication turned on then a disk failure will not result in a data loss. WHS makes sure the duplicate copy of a file is always on a seperate physical disk. This even applies if you lose the system drive. When you reinstall you get the option of a new installation or reinstall and, if you pick reinstall, WHS will keep all your files.

The only exception is your backups. They are not duplicated and if the system disk physically needs replacement you will lose your backups, but not your files. If the system partition just corrupts and you need to format/reinstall (not replace or format the entire disk, just the 20GB system partition) then the reinstall will still find all your backups as well as your files.

Make sense? I tested this for my review of WHS on this site.

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/tech...p=161#more-161

Kiyosaki · **18th March 2008, 07:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenR

Assuming you have file duplication turned on then a disk failure will not result in a data loss. WHS makes sure the duplicate copy of a file is always on a seperate physical disk. This even applies if you lose the system drive. When you reinstall you get the option of a new installation or reinstall and, if you pick reinstall, WHS will keep all your files.

The only exception is your backups. They are not duplicated and if the system disk physically needs replacement you will lose your backups, but not your files. If the system partition just corrupts and you need to format/reinstall (not replace or format the entire disk, just the 20GB system partition) then the reinstall will still find all your backups as well as your files.

Make sense? I tested this for my review of WHS on this site.

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/tech...p=161#more-161

Thanks, makes sense...by my logic, with file duplication on (which is what I would do), the storage capacity would potentially half itself. WHS doesn't compress the duplicated file at all does it?..Am reading your other thread now as well

CraigMBecket · **20th March 2008, 05:43 PM**

Kiyosaki,

One other thing you should remember is that WHS does not utilise all your drives unless the amount of data requires it. If the amount of data on the system can be stored on 2 drives it will only use two (plus the OS drive of course). I believe GlenR was the one who pointed this out when he used a disk manager add on.

Craig.