Mass Storage Questions...

[Beefcake550]

I went the WHS2011 with Drive Bender route and I am very happy with that choice. I'd agree that Win8 is a good choice once it's out....but for now....

[jorton]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Sorry, the 5.x requirement is unRaid 5.x.
The linux kernel used in unRaid 4.7 did not have the drivers for the M1015.
So you will need to go with unRaid 5.x (most likely the latest Release Candidate would be best).
I'm on unRaid 5b11 and you could try 5b12a or the RCs.
DO NOT try 5b13 or 5b14 as they had issues with the M1015

Got it now, thanks.

[Skirge01]

How did everyone here get past the 2TB limit of ESXi? Did everyone just limit their drives and partitions to 2TB?

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

How did everyone here get past the 2TB limit of ESXi? Did everyone just limit their drives and partitions to 2TB?

If you pass thru the HBA/Controller Card, then you do not have the 2TB limit.
Currently have 3TB parity, 1x 3TB data, and 6x 2TB data drives on my M1015 which is passed thru (dedicated) to the unRaid VM. I have another 8 2TB drives hanging off an MV8 card which is also passed thru (dedicated) to unRaid VM.

[davephan]

I backup using Acronis and Ghost. I manually take full images about once a month with Acronis (for redundancy). I have Ghost setup to automatically take a full image once a month and incremental images once a day. Only the Windows 7 C drive and system partition is imaged and stored on a secondary drive. The image files are automatically copied to the unRAID server using SyncBack freeware.

The systems can be recovered "bare metal" to the same computer hardware or different computer hardware.

I haven't tested Microsoft backup solutions in many years. Maybe the recoveries are more reliable now. In the past, I periodically tested Microsoft backup software over the years and found that recoveries frequently failed.

The problem with WHS is you cannot take an image of it and recover it with an image. If the WHS computer ever needs to be recovered, it is a painful scratch rebuild process. You cannot easily recover to a "known good" working point in time, which you can do with an image based recovery.

Dave

[ewelin]

I will say that a whs rebuild sucks! My primary drive failed... my server would start up, but ran so slow, I couldn't do anything. I went out, bought a replacement hard drive, put it in, did the recovery install... All was moving along slowly until it came time to recover the shared content. That took almost 2 full days!!!! At the end of it, the WHS box is up and running again, but man that was painful, and the WHS box is my SageTV server :-(

I'm now exploring my options as I don't want to go through that path again. So I'm thinking SageTV server would end up on win7 or win8. I'm thinking of moving to WHS 2011, but the one thing I never liked about WHS is that I can't have my parents or in-laws PCs backed up efficiently.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by graywolf

If you pass thru the HBA/Controller Card, then you do not have the 2TB limit.
Currently have 3TB parity, 1x 3TB data, and 6x 2TB data drives on my M1015 which is passed thru (dedicated) to the unRaid VM. I have another 8 2TB drives hanging off an MV8 card which is also passed thru (dedicated) to unRaid VM.

Just to be clear here... you have a 3TB partition that ESXi can see? I could only get it to see 2TB on my M1015 (with pass thru), no matter what I did. It was a major project roadblock and I haven't gone back to try again yet, since I needed to find time to try one of these methods to overcome the issue. I'm really curious how you did it.

Originally Posted by ewelin

All was moving along slowly until it came time to recover the shared content. That took almost 2 full days!!!! At the end of it, the WHS box is up and running again, but man that was painful, and the WHS box is my SageTV server :-(

Yep... exactly why I won't use something like DE again. Storage Spaces, unRAID, and FlexRAID are the ones I'm currently interested in.

Originally Posted by ewelin

I'm now exploring my options as I don't want to go through that path again. So I'm thinking SageTV server would end up on win7 or win8. I'm thinking of moving to WHS 2011, but the one thing I never liked about WHS is that I can't have my parents or in-laws PCs backed up efficiently.

For obvious reasons, Windows HOME Server isn't meant to do backups of computers not on your network. Check out Crashplan for that, though.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by ewelin

I will say that a whs rebuild sucks! My primary drive failed... my server would start up, but ran so slow, I couldn't do anything. I went out, bought a replacement hard drive, put it in, did the recovery install... All was moving along slowly until it came time to recover the shared content. That took almost 2 full days!!!! At the end of it, the WHS box is up and running again, but man that was painful, and the WHS box is my SageTV server :-(

I'm now exploring my options as I don't want to go through that path again. So I'm thinking SageTV server would end up on win7 or win8. I'm thinking of moving to WHS 2011, but the one thing I never liked about WHS is that I can't have my parents or in-laws PCs backed up efficiently.

The recovery time with an image and Windows 7 is about 30 minutes. That would shrink your outage time by about two days! Why not have a separate PC for mass storage running unRAID? The disk cost is too high with WHS. Half your raw disk space is wasted. With unRAID, you only have one drive used for parity.

Are your parents and in laws in the same house or next door? If so, you could setup automated imaging and back up the image files to your system. If they are farther away, then you could still back them up if the image files aren't too large. If you have Comcast, or some other bandwidth capping Internet provider, automatic transfer of files to your unRAID system might not be practical.

You might also consider taking an image periodically and using Carbonite or CrashPlan. The image would bring back the system, then the documents, pictures, and other files could be recovered with the on-line backup

My extended family take images of their computers. Periodically over the years, I have to fix the extended family's computers. Sometimes they only take images every 2 or 3 years! If you can get them to take images more frequently, that might be an option. It's tough to automate the imaging if they don't leave their computer on 24 x 7.

It's usually much easier to convince people they need to backup their data, after they've lost data with no hope of recovering the data. Most people don't consider backups important until they feel the pain of losing data.

Dave

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Just to be clear here... you have a 3TB partition that ESXi can see? I could only get it to see 2TB on my M1015 (with pass thru), no matter what I did.

This wasn't directed my direction but: I have two M1015's on pass through on my X9SCM. One to unRAID to a SAS expander so that I can have up to 24 drives - all currently 2TB. The other M1015 is on pass through to Win7 SageTV server. It has 3x3TB and 2x1TB recording drives. It actually is working better then the passthrough of my SASLP-MV8 on my other ESXi server to Win7. So I ordered a 5th M1015 to have as backup and I'm going to put the 4th M1015 back in to replace the SASLP-MV8 on the 2nd ESXi server. The 2nd ESXi instance has unRAID with another SAS expander for mass storage. 2nd Win7 SageTV server. Also WHSv1 with RDM'd drives so that I can snapshot my WHS instance and get an image backup of the boot and data drives while keeping the SageTV server separate and unaffected on its own VM.

[ewelin]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Yep... exactly why I won't use something like DE again. Storage Spaces, unRAID, and FlexRAID are the ones I'm currently interested in.

Yeah, I'm really interested in Storage Spaces. My SageTV server needs about 5tb of space due to lots of recordings and I like the idea of just having one storage pool. Not having to worry about assigning drive letters etc. It's also handy when looking for files, no hunting through multiple drives, just go to pool and find it.

Originally Posted by Skirge01

For obvious reasons, Windows HOME Server isn't meant to do backups of computers not on your network. Check out Crashplan for that, though.

I know... but when you have parent/in-laws who are not very computer savy and rely on me to trouble shoot issues... backups are required. For the longest time I simply would just use syncback and copy over their documents/photos to my server via FTP. That method works for data backup, but when a system fails and you have to recover, it's a massive pain with reinstalls. For a while I had a hamachi vpn network setup and i would backup their computers via that and whs every night. Not bad, until they empty their camara onto their computer after a long vacation and it takes hours to complete a backup. The other advantage of WHS is the remote access to files via the web. My wife loves being able to easily access things via a webpage.

Originally Posted by davephan

The recovery time with an image and Windows 7 is about 30 minutes. That would shrink your outage time by about two days! Why not have a separate PC for mass storage running unRAID? The disk cost is too high with WHS. Half your raw disk space is wasted. With unRAID, you only have one drive used for parity.

Part of the reason why I plan to move SageTV off of WHS. Initially my goal was to cut down on the number of computers running in my basement and have only one server that did it all. That worked great for a while, then my home automation program really needed to move off of whs so I put a 2nd computer back downstairs. Now I need to find time to move SageTV off of WHS.

Originally Posted by davephan

Are your parents and in laws in the same house or next door? If so, you could setup automated imaging and back up the image files to your system. If they are farther away, then you could still back them up if the image files aren't too large. If you have Comcast, or some other bandwidth capping Internet provider, automatic transfer of files to your unRAID system might not be practical.

You might also consider taking an image periodically and using Carbonite or CrashPlan. The image would bring back the system, then the documents, pictures, and other files could be recovered with the on-line backup

My extended family take images of their computers. Periodically over the years, I have to fix the extended family's computers. Sometimes they only take images every 2 or 3 years! If you can get them to take images more frequently, that might be an option. It's tough to automate the imaging if they don't leave their computer on 24 x 7.

It's usually much easier to convince people they need to backup their data, after they've lost data with no hope of recovering the data. Most people don't consider backups important until they feel the pain of losing data.

Dave

Both families have lost stuff in the past, but i've usually been able to recover most of it. That's why they asked for me to setup a backup solution. I just have kind of let them slide as of late, but I think it's time to revisit the topic and see what else I can figure out. Both families leave their computers on close to 24x7 so automation isn't a problem, it's just figuring out what automation tools and the best method. Ideally for recovery I'd like to just be able to restore an image and be all set. That's what's great about WHS here in the house, whenever we've had an issue, pop in the recover disk, get the last backup from the previous night, a few hours pass and the computer is back to running. I know that something like that probably doesn't exist for remote backups, but one can hope.

Asking them to do images is basically out of the question. It's hard enough to show them how to take pictures off of the cameras. I just thought I'd see if anyone had come up with any other nice solutions as I really haven't been following anything tech related for about 2 years now as I have been tied up with work and other projects. My WHS primary drive failure really smacked me in the face and made me realize I have to get back on top of this stuff though. Wasn't much fun with the SageTV Server being down 3 days.... which just happened to be a weekend.

[graywolf]

Just to be clear here... you have a 3TB partition that ESXi can see? I could only get it to see 2TB on my M1015 (with pass thru), no matter what I did. It was a major project roadblock and I haven't gone back to try again yet, since I needed to find time to try one of these methods to overcome the issue. I'm really curious how you did it.

Skirge01 - First off, my experience with ESXi is limited, so you might want to verify all that I say to make sure *I* did not misunderstand.

You have two options to pass drives. You can create raw device mappings 'fake vmware virtual drives' if you like, that pass-thru direct to the disks underneath. This still keeps the ESXi virtulisation layer there. No special requirements other than ESXi generally supporting your hardware.

Full pass through of the disk controller(s) to a specified guest. ESXi will then lose sight of those disks and your guest will see the disks and controllers exactly as if they were directly connected. This also removes (most of) the virtualisation layer. You can get smart info / disk temps etc.

To do the latter (VMDirectPath I/O) you need a CPU, Motherboard and disk controller trio that supports VT-d (intel) or AMD-Vi (AMD).

So to RDM a drive, you are probably limited to the 2TB since you can not create a virtual disk > 2TB.

But if you pass thru the disk controller, then you are not creating a virtual disk and ESXi isn't involved at the disk level, just at the controller level. The controller handles the disks.

Hope that makes sense.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by ewelin

Both families have lost stuff in the past, but i've usually been able to recover most of it. That's why they asked for me to setup a backup solution. I just have kind of let them slide as of late, but I think it's time to revisit the topic and see what else I can figure out. Both families leave their computers on close to 24x7 so automation isn't a problem, it's just figuring out what automation tools and the best method. Ideally for recovery I'd like to just be able to restore an image and be all set. That's what's great about WHS here in the house, whenever we've had an issue, pop in the recover disk, get the last backup from the previous night, a few hours pass and the computer is back to running. I know that something like that probably doesn't exist for remote backups, but one can hope.

Asking them to do images is basically out of the question. It's hard enough to show them how to take pictures off of the cameras. I just thought I'd see if anyone had come up with any other nice solutions as I really haven't been following anything tech related for about 2 years now as I have been tied up with work and other projects. My WHS primary drive failure really smacked me in the face and made me realize I have to get back on top of this stuff though. Wasn't much fun with the SageTV Server being down 3 days.... which just happened to be a weekend.

You could setup Ghost 15 on the computers and set it up to take a full image on the first day of the month with daily incremental images the rest of the month. The images could be stored on a secondary hard drive and could even be copied to your location if there was enough bandwidth. You could monitor the backups manually with LogMeIn remote control software. Or, you could have their systems automatically e-mail you with a freeware program called "blat". The e-mail could contain the log file so you could check it for problems. Other methods to automate the monitoring would be to write scripts to automatically scrape the log files for errors and only send you e-mails when the backup jobs fail.

There are commercial software packages like HP Data Protector or Commvault Simpana that we use at work. These would have an agent installed on the remote computer and the whole process could be automated and backed up at their location or your location. Both commercial software packages are very expensive and normally not affordable for home use.

You could also use a hybrid backup model between the two with periodic full images and on-line back of specific folders with Carbonite or CrashPlan. CrashPlan has a free version that would allow you to backup folder to your computer, but you need enough bandwidth at each location. Bandwidth caps like Comcasts' might be a problem.

We have many offsite systems at work where the backups are done at the local site with imaging and database backup, both written to disk. All backups are copied to removable hard drive cartridges. The local site people just change cartridges periodically. If the local site people don't change the cartridge often enough, we get an e-mail alert, so we can call them and remind them to change the cartridge.

Maybe a variation of that theme could be used for your relatives. They could have weekly imaging and folders could be copied with SyncBack freeware to a secondary drive. If you used a 2 - 3 tb drive, it would last quite awhile before the old backups would be deleted. The older backups could be automatically be deleted with scripts.

So, there are lots of ways to do the backups and recoveries. It mainly depends on how much money there is to throw at the problem and how much time you have to monitor the backups. If you don't have a lot of time to monitor the backups, then you need to design some automation to help you monitor the backups with less effort on your part.

Dave

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Full pass through of the disk controller(s) to a specified guest. ESXi will then lose sight of those disks and your guest will see the disks and controllers exactly as if they were directly connected. This also removes (most of) the virtualisation layer. You can get smart info / disk temps etc.

To do the latter (VMDirectPath I/O) you need a CPU, Motherboard and disk controller trio that supports VT-d (intel) or AMD-Vi (AMD).

That's what I was originally attempting to do, but maybe I screwed something up. I simply couldn't get the guest OS to see the drives. I'm also pretty new to this, so it's very possible that I missed a step. It's been a little while, but I could swear that one way, ESXi didn't see the drives and neither did the guest OS and the other way, ESXi and guest OS could both see the drives, but only <2TB.

I'm running a Supermicro X7DWE, M1015, and Xeon L5410. I've enabled VT-d in the mobo BIOS, as well as ESXi, so I'm confident I'm okay there. However, do I need to flash the BIOS on the M1015 from the IBM to the LSI in order for this to work?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I'm running a Supermicro X7DWE, M1015, and Xeon L5410. I've enabled VT-d in the mobo BIOS, as well as ESXi, so I'm confident I'm okay there. However, do I need to flash the BIOS on the M1015 from the IBM to the LSI in order for this to work?

For unRAID to see the drives - YES. Also you might need to flash your MB bios to newest for pass through to work correctly. I did when I tried this on my X7SBE I was on 1.0C? and updated to 2.0A if I remember correctly. I had enabled VT-d but pass through wasn't working for me I just don't remember if I got a warning or if I read somewhere that it wouldn't work with my firmware on the X7SBE.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

For unRAID to see the drives - YES. Also you might need to flash your MB bios to newest for pass through to work correctly. I did when I tried this on my X7SBE I was on 1.0C? and updated to 2.0A if I remember correctly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since I'm not using unRAID, I'm thinking this doesn't apply. I'm just trying to get them seen by a Windows OS. I'll see if there's a BIOS update for the mobo, though.

@jorton: You better get back here and regain control of your thread!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since I'm not using unRAID, I'm thinking this doesn't apply. I'm just trying to get them seen by a Windows OS. I'll see if there's a BIOS update for the mobo, though.

@jorton: You better get back here and regain control of your thread!

Correct. My comment was because I thought you were doing it for unRAID. I also did this for the M1015's passed to Windows but I assume it will work in RAID mode in windows.

[Skirge01]

I'll probably try again and if I fail to figure it out, I'll go ahead and put the LSI on there to see if that helps. Not that this really matters, but I also recall that if I created a RAID on the M1015, ESXi was able to see the entire array (9TB) without issue. Is it easy to flash the firmware? I haven't started Googling for a guide yet.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I'll probably try again and if I fail to figure it out, I'll go ahead and put the LSI on there to see if that helps. Not that this really matters, but I also recall that if I created a RAID on the M1015, ESXi was able to see the entire array (9TB) without issue. Is it easy to flash the firmware? I haven't started Googling for a guide yet.

This unRAID thread has all you need. At least for me it was all I needed. My only problem was finding a board that would allow me to flash it. Finally found that my desktop C2SBA+II works. My X9SCM definately would NOT. Although I have seen posts on that thread where someone used the bios of the X9SCM and efi to flash it so maybe it is possible just not documented well enough for me to do it.

[jorton]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

@jorton: You better get back here and regain control of your thread!

So I have confirmed that ESXi 5.0 runs on my Intel Core 2 Quad with 8GB ram and an Intel Pro 100/1000 CT PCIE NIC with no problems.

Also tested that unRaid 5 will work on it (not virtualized on ESXi) so I think I'm good there too.

Just waiting for my IBM M1015 8 port sas/sata controller to show up and I'll start testing with that.

I feel very small potatoes after seeing the 20+ drive setups etc in the unRaid forums. Starting to feel more comfortable with ESXI and unRaid so thanks to all posters for their help.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by jorton

I feel very small potatoes after seeing the 20+ drive setups etc in the unRaid forums. Starting to feel more comfortable with ESXI and unRaid so thanks to all posters for their help.

I've got 18 drives in my server and I'm not even using unRAID. The # of drives doesn't really impact the complexities, except for the fact that you need additional SATA ports the software can recognize. Just start small, figure out what you're doing and build from there.