Main Server: Cooler Master Elite case Gigabyte G31M-ES2L motherboard Celeron E3200 running at 1.0GHz with 0.9v 2GB RAM LSI SAS8704EM2 Hardware RAID card 3x 1.5TB WD EARS in RAID5 (3TB) Run headless, and administered via VNC Yes!.. it runs Vista Ultimate 64bit.. deal with it It's been rock solid since the day it was built and I have no intention of changing the OS. Average power draw <60watts. Will be upgrading to 3x 3TB disks in RAID5 soon, to give 6TB total. This is may main file server. It is used to serve media files to my main desktop, and both mine and my wife's desktop machines back up to this server using Acronis. Secondary Server (NAS): Thecus N3200 Pro 3x 1.5TB WD EARS in RAID5 (3TB) Will be also upgrading this to 3x 3TB in RAID5 (6TB) This server mirrors the main server's contents exactly, and is synced every night using AllWay Sync, so it's main use is as a back up of the back ups . This also acts as a file server for my wife's desktop. This NAS Server is now housed in the garage for extra redundancy should there be a house fire or break in. So that's a two tier back up system, each tier with redundancy, and each server in a separate building. Bring it on fate! I'm ready for ya!
look at mr pookey using RAID for his backup i kid, i kid. seriously nice setup. we had vista on my fiancees old machine and never had a single problem with it. i never understood where vista got its bad rep.
Just to answer that last comment; Vista got it's bad rep because it was the 'never meant to be' OS. It was bad news to the public and businesses before it's first beta was even released. There was too big a market share held by the OS that brought NT and 9x together, XP, and nobody wanted some new, expensive system that wouldn't work with half their hardware or software. Vista cost hardware companies unimaginable amounts of money because they had to develop drivers to support their products on it, and this was the OS that wasn't even supposed to get written, because Microsoft were still desperately trying to move to a subscription based software distribution model after XP's initial release and success. Here are a few other reasons why Vista got it's bad rep: - Much too large an install size - Resource hog (laptop battery life) - At the time it was designed to just about run on 90% of the worldwide computer industry's hardware and run well on only about the top 10% of production machines - Missing components that were promised in the final release and subsequently, in the service packs and were eventually canned And let's not forget the bugs, security vulnerabilities and generally user hampering features of the early versions, before the countless updates and major service packs. You don't see where Vista got it's bad rep? Look again... I can't see how anyone can actually like it.
Get the pitchforks, fire sticks and the village people People who had never used it started bashing it, the ball got rolling and never stopped. It wasn't a bad OS, just ill timed and rushed
It was a bad OS. It's bearable now, but only after all this time, endless patching and the industry catching up with it and eventually accepting and supporting it. It completely failed though, Microsoft even admitted that. A couple of my courtesy/hire laptops run it. The only reason they haven't been 'Seven'd' is because I fully restore them using the built in recovery partition every time they come back from a job. I suppose I could upgrade them and still have that functionality, but Vista works on them for what they're used for. I rarely use them, only when I'm really stuck.
everyones entitled to their opinion. i admit i dont have extended experience with vista, but i do serve as tech support for everyone in my family (dont we all? lol) and i know ive had very little difficulties with it. after 3 years on vista, when i finally moved my fiancee onto her current machine with 7 she made the comment that it feels almost the same as vista. from a functionality point of view id have to agree. they feel very similar IMO.
It probably was, but you have to remember, I'm not really using it as a OS. I never really "use" the server for anything. It just sits there serving files and writing backups via the RAID card. Anything can do that. It may be a bad OS but it's proven to be stable at least, and that for me is it's only requirement.
You need to look at your RAID definitions again. Pookey is running RAID5 not as fun as RAID 6 which offers a 2 drive failure, but RAID 5 is pretty bulletproof. RAID 0 is a idiots choice of storage in any form.
Had Vista running from day 1 without service pack without issue. I just had a PC that actually had the balls to run it. Most of the people who complained as far as I saw were people trying to run it on crap hardware with 512/1024mb RAM. RAID5 is pretty good until you either have a dual disk failure or a controller failure then it can be a nightmare. I run unRAID which uses slackware linux. Best thing about it is if the whole PC, multiple drive failure, etc you can just pull the drives and copy data off them as it's a standard linux file system.
Ok, I actually really like that - nice find! Think the next stage will be a rack mount though, just for the sheer volume of drives! Most likely something like X-Case RM 424 The laugh is i don't find myself upset by the cost of one of those, a decent HBA and a SAS expander card but two lots of 12 x 2tb drive is what upsets me!
My server, take 1 (August 2009) Hardware: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @ stock, 4GB OCZ Reaper HTC (800MHz DDR2), Gigabyte mATX motherboard, 2 x 1TB Samsung F1s in software RAID1, 320GB Maxtor drive for boot Software: VMware vSphere Hypervisor 4, CentOS 5 VMs, Openfiler VM doing software RAID1 using the two Spinpoints mapped as raw drives, then mounted back to vSphere on iSCSI to be used as a datastore for VM images ... after a little accident with the cooling (damn you Swiftech barbs!), I decided to see where it had dried - hooray for using UV green coolant. Before dousing with distilled water: After: Full finished build:
Very nice Craig. Swiftech barbs, eh? Yeah, been there I've had the stuff sitting here to liquid cool my i3 powered file serving box for months now, just haven't gotten round to it yet. I'm going with; 1/4" tubing 15W DDC pump w/res top Low profile Apogee "LP" block 120mm HWLabs BIGT rad Koolance flow sensor & digital module Bitspower rotary compression fittings throughout Deep Blue Feser One coolant All sitting there, ready to go. I look forward to the evening when I get a chance to install it. At the moment I can't take that machine offline for too long so I'm afraid I will start it and not get it finished in one evening, which would cause all sorts of hassle the next day.
My server take 2 (May 2011) Hardware changes: Migrating RAID to 4 x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives in RAID5 via an LSI 9260-4i card, with the drives mounted in front-facing drive caddies. Case replaced with a Coolermaster Sileo (with noise reduction padding) and liquid cooling replaced with a Xigmatek Thor cooler.
Nice kit Personally I've moved away from liquid-cooling servers - for noise and piece of mind, as I'm always scared that the thing will leak and I'll lose my network (I run separate VMs for DHCP+DNS+NAT router, backup fileserver, folding, backup webserver)
1. Incredibly unlikely that two disks expire at the same time... I mean, think about it... highly unlikely. 2. I back up my RAID5 server to another RAID5 server. Why do I do this? Because as I keep saying, and have been saying for years (but people fail to understand) RAID is NOT back up... it's redundancy. The point of RAID5 is not to act as back up.. you still need to back up a RAID server. The whole point of it is that a single drive failure will allow you to continue working until you rebuild it. I repeat. RAID is NOT back up. It's redundancy. If anyone builds a RAID5 server and thinks they have back up, they're sadly, and all too often mistaken (unless they are backing up their desktop machines to it.... just having your stuff on a RAID5 server and nowhere else is NOT back up). Like I said... I back up to a RAID5 server... then that is mirrored to another RAID5 server. That system far exceeds the redundancy and safety of RAID6, or indeed any solution that relies on one server (no matter how configured). In order to lose my data the following events would have to occur. Desktop drive failure. Simultaneous failure of TWO drives in my main server, and simultaneous failure of TWO drives in my mirror server. That's 5 disks failing at precisely the same time. I don't know the odds of that happening, but it's probably somewhere up there with being hit by a meteorite.
A lot more likely that you think actually, due to most people using the same drives. Seen it a few times with RAID1 first drive dies then the second drive fails during the rebuild. Best way to avoid is to NOT use the same brand/make of disks to reduce possibility of 2 disk failure. Spot on with not being a backup thu. Accidentally delete a file or get a corruption and RAID is of no use at helping you there.
It's still very, very unlikely. I've never seen it in over 25 years. Besides, I have my RAID backed up No you haven't fixed it. I'm afraid that is YOUR opinion. RAID is NOT back up. If I had only one RAID array here, and accidentally deleted a file from it, then without a back up, it's gone. How is that back up? RAID will not protect you from accidental deletion (or even intentional deletion you later realise was in error), nor will it protect you from corruption due to a a RAID controller going faulty, ESPECIALLY if that RAID controller has no on-board memory for the disk cache, as most cheap ones, and on-board ones don't. If the latter happens, you can pretty much guarantee that the RAID is hosed. How is this back up? LOL The only time a RAID array is back up, is when you actually use it to put your back ups on it. If you just have a RAID disk with your films, music and other stuff on it, it is NOT backed up. The only thing RAID will protect you from is drive failure. Drive failure is not the only reason you lose data. Therefore, RAID, by definition, is not back up, but redundancy. Back up means having a copy of your data elsewhere, on a totally independent drive. ...and before you start telling me that RAID1 is just a mirror, yes I know... but it won't protect you from anything but a drive failure, so is NOT back up, but again it's redundancy. If RAID was an acceptable back up solution, please tell me why companies who's data is invaluable to them, don't just stick it on a RAID6 or RAID10 server? Why do they bother having multi tiered back ups of their server's contents? Surely, if what you are saying is right, the very fact that it's on a RAID server should be enough, shouldn't it?
Well my Server isn't done yet but here is a teser. And what it should look like when finshed. The mobo window has changed a bit since I made this model. Back angle Hardware: Motherboard: Gigabyte 880GA CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 @3.0GHz GPU: GTX 460 HDD: 1x 320 HDD (OS), 2x 2TB HDDs (Case can hold HDDs 16 total. I'll buy more as money comes) PSU: Corsair 100W Optical Drive: Blu-ray Player RAM: 4GB G.Skill PC 1600 Cooling: 2 - 3x140mm Rads CPU Block GPU block RAM block HDD blocks (2 for now, 16 total) You can watch it here: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=212644
