Windows Home Server Alternative

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humvee

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# 40026 24-Aug-2009 00:41

Has any one tried this alternative to windows home server - Unraid by Lime Tech? http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/unraid-os

Its linux based and has 1 big advantage over windows home server, You only lose 1 drives space for parity/redundancy as opposed to 1/2 the space you have.

Just like WHS you can mix and match drive speeds and sizes, apparently if the server fails you can also remove the drives and read then 1 at a time as well

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Ultimate Geek
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# 249966 24-Aug-2009 06:39

I dont think this shouldn't be in the Windows Home Server fourm. I would suggest this be in the Linux fourm.

Morgan French-Stagg

morgan.french.net.nz

humvee

193 posts

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# 249973 24-Aug-2009 07:45

I was wondering that, but was not sure where to put it, and I felt here was the closest to the right place as I really want to know about Unraid VS WHS and which option I should chose for my home server

freitasm

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# 250033 24-Aug-2009 10:48

Reading it through it's clear to me this is a NAS solution, not close to what Windows Home Server providers.

WHS will give you automatic backup of Windows clients, automatic management of backup storage with cycle, managed access to user folders, managed access to media content, remote access over the Internet, UPnP configuration of routers if needed, Add-in framework (there are lots out there already).

If the main drive fails you can just reinstall WHS in recovery mode, recreate the users and all the data will be rebuilt. The drives are not stripped, so if you unplug a drive you can still read the contents if anything else fails.

It's cheap and available as OEM from Ascent and others.

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humvee

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# 250038 24-Aug-2009 11:17

freitasm:
WHS will give you automatic backup of Windows clients, automatic management of backup storage with cycle, managed access to user folders, managed access to media content, remote access over the Internet, UPnP configuration of routers if needed, Add-in framework (there are lots out there already)

And their in lies my dilemma what I really want it the more efficient redundant storage provided by Unraid but I also want the cool backup features WHS offers.

Comparing storage space between WHS & Unraid

Lets take a realistic selection of drives I would expect to be in my home server in 6 months time
3x320gb
2x1500gb
2x2000gb

Available Space:
WHS = (320+320+320+1500+1500+2000+2000)/2 = 3980Gb
Unraid - (320+320+320+1500+1500+2000+2000) - 2000gb (parity) - 320gb (optional cache) = 5640Gb

So as you can see unraids more efficient use of space results in an additional 1.6TB of space being available I struggle to justify this difference. as more drives are added the difference only gets bigger. Unraid does of course cost nearly as much as WHS (NZ$173 at current exchange rate). With unraid you can also remove drives and read/recover them individually if required which is a requirement no matter what solution I chose

Does any one know when the next version of WHS is due? and are they likely to offer more efficient raid? If they did that would make my choice really easy

freitasm

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# 250040 24-Aug-2009 11:19

The next WHS will be based on the Windows Server 2008 core, but it's not due for a few months.

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RustyGonad

483 posts

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# 250044 24-Aug-2009 11:30

WHS doesn't use RAID - it only "duplicates" folders.

That is you select which folders you want to "Duplicate" it then ensures that the contents of these folders are spread across at least 2 drives.

I'm not getting into an argument about whether or not its better than RAID (from a redundancy point of view its not), but it is highly efficient at space utilisation. Much more so than RAID.

So you select the stuff you want "redundancy" on, which uses "folder size x 2", everything else only takes up the actual space it uses. That is IT IS NOT disk space/2.

It manages by using a "Storage Pool" - it is very very easy to add/remove space to this pool. Far, far easier than any RAID solution I have seen/used. For home users its very easy to use and manage, unlike any of the free linux solutions.

The downside it that it costs $250.

Cheers,

humvee

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# 250053 24-Aug-2009 12:16

I am working on the scenario that I would want everything redundant/protected/copied, so while being able to selectively turn of redundancy is a good idea this feature doesn't help me.

I am really keen to hear from anyone who has used BOTH WHS & Unraid, how did you find them? which do you use now? what spec server were you running them on. If you were starting from scratch today which would you use?

browned

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# 250054 24-Aug-2009 12:17

humvee: Comparing storage space between WHS & Unraid

So as you can see unraids more efficient use of space results in an additional 1.6TB of space being available I struggle to justify this difference. as more drives are added the difference only gets bigger. Unraid does of course cost nearly as much as WHS (NZ$173 at current exchange rate). With unraid you can also remove drives and read/recover them individually if required which is a requirement no matter what solution I chose

With the prices of HDD dropping faster than we can all say "SSD's are too expensive right now" I think your hangup on space is a non issue. 500GB costs about $125 now and even 2TB drives are less than $400. With 2.5TB and perhaps 3.2TB drives coming next year these prices will all drop again.

What you need to take into account is what is really important to safe guard with duplication and what is not important as you can download it again or get it from another source. I did have my WHS set to duplicate everything but most of the data is just not important.

With duplication on you can pull a damaged drive anytime and not lose data. Without duplication you can pull a damaged drive and plug it into another system and try to copy it back to the server if possible. No special raid or recovery tools needed. The WHS drives are format NTFS with a basic partitions. easy.

The number of times I restored my media center while testing Windows 7 made WHS worth so much more than it is. Not to mention backing up Mum's PC over the internet and she doesn't even know. And lets not forget the family photo album available to all I invite.

cheers
db

Home Server: AMD Threadripper 1950X, 64GB, 56TB HDD, HP Smart Array P420, Define R6 Case, 10GbE, ESXi 6.7, NextPVR, Emby Server, Plex Server, 2 x HDHomerun.
Lounge Media Center: NVIDIA Shield TV 16GB: Kodi18 with Titan MOD, Emby, NextPVR, 250GB SSD.
Kids Media Center: NVIDIA Shield TV 16GB: Kodi18 with Titan MOD, Emby, NextPVR, 120GB SSD
Main PC: Ryzen 7 2700, 16GB RAM, RX 570, 2 x 24"

humvee

193 posts

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# 250065 24-Aug-2009 12:52

browned:
humvee: Comparing storage space between WHS & Unraid

So as you can see unraids more efficient use of space results in an additional 1.6TB of space being available I struggle to justify this difference. as more drives are added the difference only gets bigger. Unraid does of course cost nearly as much as WHS (NZ$173 at current exchange rate). With unraid you can also remove drives and read/recover them individually if required which is a requirement no matter what solution I chose

With the prices of HDD dropping faster than we can all say "SSD's are too expensive right now" I think your hangup on space is a non issue. 500GB costs about $125 now and even 2TB drives are less than $400. With 2.5TB and perhaps 3.2TB drives coming next year these prices will all drop again.

What you need to take into account is what is really important to safe guard with duplication and what is not important as you can download it again or get it from another source. I did have my WHS set to duplicate everything but most of the data is just not important.

With duplication on you can pull a damaged drive anytime and not lose data. Without duplication you can pull a damaged drive and plug it into another system and try to copy it back to the server if possible. No special raid or recovery tools needed. The WHS drives are format NTFS with a basic partitions. easy.

The number of times I restored my media center while testing Windows 7 made WHS worth so much more than it is. Not to mention backing up Mum's PC over the internet and she doesn't even know. And lets not forget the family photo album available to all I invite.

cheers
db

To a point I agree, but the minimum "value" I would put on data that can be download again would be $3/2GB (Telstra's Data Charges) so based on this the value of 500gb of data that can be downloaded again is $750. So to me that says I should have redundancy for everything. My standard desktop pc build has included mirrored drives for 5+ Years now

RustyGonad

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# 250070 24-Aug-2009 13:00

Humvee - I think your missing the point of WHS.

If all you want is data redundancy, then WHS is the wrong product for you... Get something that does true Hardware RAID - however I would also suggest you "revitalise" your storage requirements, if redundancy is that imporant ie what happens if you lose two drives (Say your 2 x 2GB both have a manufacturing fault - this happens alot ie Seagate 1GB failures quite recently).

I'd go as far as to say that if the price of disk space is a high concern, then your data can't be that important. If it is don't use WHS.

I certainly wouldn't risk my family photo's for the sake of $140 bucks of disk.

WHS doesn't offer any easy way to backup the whole server. Other products beat it easily here. Its not meant to be a 7x24 high availability solution - what it will do is offer the average family at least twice the data protection than they already have.

Like db and others have said - it offers so many other things outside of data protection. Especially if you use Media Center, or Windows 7 desktops. If you want easy to use remote access to your home its the ducks nuts.

Why not download the 120 day trial and just try it out...

humvee

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# 250072 24-Aug-2009 13:02

I am erring towards WHS, The thing that will probally convince me is the bare metal backup/restore feature,

Shareing photos over the internet, remote access, being able to turn of duplication doesnt offer me anything I dont already have really. But the backup is cool.

Does anyone have a link or details of the next version of WHS? will there be a beta avaiable to try?

humvee

193 posts

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# 250076 24-Aug-2009 13:21

RustyGonad: Humvee - I think your missing the point of WHS.

If all you want is data redundancy, then WHS is the wrong product for you... Get something that does true Hardware RAID - however I would also suggest you "revitalise" your storage requirements, if redundancy is that imporant ie what happens if you lose two drives (Say your 2 x 2GB both have a manufacturing fault - this happens alot ie Seagate 1GB failures quite recently).

I'd go as far as to say that if the price of disk space is a high concern, then your data can't be that important. If it is don't use WHS.

I certainly wouldn't risk my family photo's for the sake of $140 bucks of disk.

WHS doesn't offer any easy way to backup the whole server. Other products beat it easily here. Its not meant to be a 7x24 high availability solution - what it will do is offer the average family at least twice the data protection than they already have.

Like db and others have said - it offers so many other things outside of data protection. Especially if you use Media Center, or Windows 7 desktops. If you want easy to use remote access to your home its the ducks nuts.

Why not download the 120 day trial and just try it out...

One of my other requirements is in server failure or multi drive failure scenario, the remaining drives can be removed and the data read off them one at a time. Both WHS and Unraid can do this. Raid 5 ,6 and 10 cant. I also need to mix drive sizes/speeds again WHS and unraid can, hardware raid cant

I was also looking at Drobo's but they don't meet the must be able to read individual drive requirement

I have been there done that with raid 5 and don't plan on doing that again, Recovering 1TB from CD/DVD would not be fun, Nor was waiting 3 weeks until I could get a suitable replacement raid controller.

Raid 5 is great for bigger businesses with tape drives, server level hardware (with guaranteed same model spares available or holding their own spares) but really fails in the home marked.

I have backups of my data on CD/DVD and I could restore from these - but I don't want to have to - it takes to long

I guess Im just being greedy and wanting it all - WHS features and Unraid Efficiency - I don't mind paying the WHS price or even a little more.

humvee

193 posts

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# 250080 24-Aug-2009 13:42

RustyGonad: if redundancy is that important ie what happens if you lose two drives (Say your 2 x 2GB both have a manufacturing fault - this happens alot ie Seagate 1GB failures quite recently).

As I understand how each system stores the data If in the above scenario where the drives are
3x 320gb
2x 1500gb
2x 2000gb

if both 2000gb drives fail at once the likely result in terms of % of remaining data would be

Unraid: 64.5%
WHS: 45.7%(unlikely worst case) upto 91.4% (unlikely best case)

browned

635 posts

Ultimate Geek
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# 250082 24-Aug-2009 13:55

humvee:
To a point I agree, but the minimum "value" I would put on data that can be download again would be $3/2GB (Telstra's Data Charges) so based on this the value of 500gb of data that can be downloaded again is $750. So to me that says I should have redundancy for everything. My standard desktop pc build has included mirrored drives for 5+ Years now

Now this is the last thing I thought I would be saying as an avid Telecom hater...but I recently moved to Big Time for $59 a month unlimited data and so far I have had no issues and no download speed problems.

But if you have 500GB of data to protect you would be best with 2 x 1TB disks for $500. Then you also have another 500GB (usable 436GB) free for new files. And by the time you use that 3 and 4TB drives will be cheaper by the dozen.

Really through if all you want is redundancy and nothing else then why not get a couple of external drives and just use Windows Vista/7 wbadmin command to backup. Save yourself a lot in power but you will need to manage/schedule the process yourself and restores are not so easy either.

cheers
db

browned

635 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 36

# 250084 24-Aug-2009 14:09

humvee:
RustyGonad: if redundancy is that important ie what happens if you lose two drives (Say your 2 x 2GB both have a manufacturing fault - this happens alot ie Seagate 1GB failures quite recently).

As I understand how each system stores the data If in the above scenario where the drives are
3x 320gb
2x 1500gb
2x 2000gb

if both 2000gb drives fail at once the likely result in terms of % of remaining data would be

Unraid: 64.5%
WHS: 45.7%(unlikely worst case) upto 91.4% (unlikely best case)

Do not assume the 2TB drives will have the exact same files on them. WHS does not mirror same size drives, it mirrors files so there are two copies on any of the drives available.

cheers
db

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