Help with filesever please. (1 Viewer)

[erichzann]

Sure with snapraid you have tell it when to update the redundancy data but if that happens on a schedule and you only realise after the update that you want to recover a lost file then I assume it is too late?

When I say I use mirroring I really mean I only do 1 way I.e. from media server to backup so deleted files are there to be recovered.

 

[smarty12345]

All this is great info. I knew I was asking in the right place.

My thinking was to use a software raid app like flexraid or snapraid so I can used the parity backup option. This seems like a good middle ground of redundancy without the need of mirroring discs.

Though I like the idea of converting video on the fly for tablets and smartphones, In all honestly I doubt I would do that.
Im not even sure about how that works. Im guessing it only really works well on the local network? trying to stream from say, my home to my work place over the internet would probably be an issue ?

Based on the comment above about and speed of sata (from 1.5gbs up to 6.0gbs) not being an issue, I would assume the more important thing then would be to get a gigabit network in place?

 

[kiwijunglist]

Sure with snapraid you have tell it when to update the redundancy data but if that happens on a schedule and you only realise after the update that you want to recover a lost file then I assume it is too late?

You can always undelete from the recycle bin as running a scheduled update will not remove things from the recycle bin.

Also if you are using a mirrored system and you want to undelete something after you have mirrored the files you would run into exactly the same problem.[DOUBLEPOST=1368671374][/DOUBLEPOST]

Based on the comment above about and speed of sata (from 1.5gbs up to 6.0gbs) not being an issue, I would assume the more important thing then would be to get a gigabit network in place?

Gigabit network would make more of a difference compared to faster sata ports as a non gigabit network connection would be the slowest point in the chain. However, you don't even need gigabit network to play a high bitrate HD file over the network. If you think about it a movie is 2 hours long and the file size would be anywhere between 700mb (SD) to 50,000mb (HD bluray). A standard network connection can copy 50gb in 2 hours easily and you don't need a fast hard drive for that either.

If you want to transcode files on the fly then you would need to run some sort of media sharing software on the fileserver. I can't remember if transcoding can be offloaded to the fileserver's video card, or if it is entirely done by the CPU, either way if you are transcoding then you will need a slightly faster hardware in the fileserver.

PS. I use snapraid to cover against single hard drive failure. I run a backup one or twice per week or after I add a lot of movies. I don't use snapraid with any files that change frequently, eg. live tv recordings / my music folder. The idea is, that if one of my many 3TB HDDs die then I will only lose any files that have been added to that individual 3TB HDD since my last backup. I wouldn't care if I lost 1-2 movies, but I would care if I lost 300 movies.

I wouldn't put any files that change frequently on the snapraid array or stuff like photos which I prefer to have 2 copies of on two different computers. Snapraid can work with partitions as well so you could just partition off 500gb for your photos + music.

 

[TheBatfink]

If it hasn't been said already, Stablebit drivepool is a nice tool that can pool drives (obviously) and provide redundancy to specific files and folders etc if you don't want to go the Raid route. Works well and integrates into WHS2011 dashboard (if thats the route you want to take). Also can recommend Stablebit Scanner for keeping an eye on the drives http://stablebit.com/

Personally I run a HP microserver (works fine for just file serving never attempted transcoding). I stuck the system drive in the optical bay and then run 3TB WD Red drives x 4 in the normal bays. Pretty low power solution with a fair amount of storage (and the drives have 3 year warrenties).
For backup, have the exact same system and hardware duplicated and just backup one to the other incrementally with syncback (use simple bat files to wake up the second server and put it back to sleep after the backups).

Only downside at mo is WHS2011 won't auto backup Win8 clients which is a bummer as its a really nice feature when used with earlier OS's. Combine that with the WHS2011 lightsout plugin and you can get all your clients incrementally backing up each night waking and sleeping them again. Full metal restores are a breeze and single file restores etc are so easy. I like WHS2011 - 2012 I found hard work when all you want to do is serve files.

 

[4Fred]

Though I like the idea of converting video on the fly for tablets and smartphones, In all honestly I doubt I would do that.

Im not even sure about how that works. Im guessing it only really works well on the local network? trying to stream from say, my home to my work place over the internet would probably be an issue ?

I use MpExtended and WebMediaPortal, it's easy to setup and works pretty well. I mostly use if for Live-TV but it's also works for TV-Series and Movies. Yesterday during lunch the hockey game Usa-Russia was on TV and I streamed from my MePo to our Mac mini using chrome and it worked fine.
One of the best things with mpextended is the ability to choose quality in the stream so you can match quality with available bandwidth. I've also used it in hotels and some other places on different computers and always got it working.
On my phone I have AmpDroid Pro and it's pretty cool when you are in a pub and you turn on the TV or show someone a movie n the phone
It uses upload capabilities of your internet connection and sadly mostly that is really low for most people, I have 10 mb upload so for me it's not a problem.