WHS and external USB

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kiwipeter

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#67196 30-Aug-2010 09:28

Following on from my successful client restore experiment (boy, did that take a while to complete!) I am now keen to expand my storage drive pool.

I wonder if anyone has any advice on using an external USB drive (i.e. 2TB WD USB) to increase capacity? (I am out of physical space inside my 'server' chassis and would like a quick and easy way to increase it.)

http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4c7ad25101cb8f882741c0a87f3b0710/Product/View/XH1218

Is there a reliability issue with having an external drive? Any USB issues?

Thanks.

freitasm

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#374418 30-Aug-2010 09:54

I have four 500GB and two 1GB USB drives on my WHS with no problems.

I don't recommend WD though. Some models go to sleep and only come back with a reboot.

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timbosan

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#374428 30-Aug-2010 10:10

The only thing you need to be aware of using USB is the speed will be an order of magnitude slower than the internal drives, but if your just using the drives for backups and restores then that's fine. If your planning to stream content off them you may have issues.

I have a WD external USB drive (1TB) that I use to backup my WHS, but I have never used it to extend the drive pool.

Is there the option to use e-SATA (like a spare PCI slot)? Or does the machine have a optical drive that can be sacrifed to make way for another internal drive?

kiwipeter

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#374537 30-Aug-2010 21:31

Well, the chassis will allow me to mount another drive if I remove the optical device, but this is not ideal.

I guess I could also swap cases to a larger one, thereby solving my immediate need and hopefully give some degree of future-proofing...

Will investigate some tower cases.

Thanks.

richms

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#374631 31-Aug-2010 02:29

I dont have optical drives in most of my machines now, a 3.5" card reader is all I need. Its not a big deal to use an external for the initial OS install or else open the case and sit one ontop of the computer for a short time to get it installed and the lan drivers installed.

Richard rich.ms

timbosan

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#374695 31-Aug-2010 09:14

richms: I dont have optical drives in most of my machines now, a 3.5" card reader is all I need. Its not a big deal to use an external for the initial OS install or else open the case and sit one ontop of the computer for a short time to get it installed and the lan drivers installed.

+1. I don't bother with the optical drive in my WHS as apart from the initial install it is not used. I hav also used a USB DVD-ROM to install WHS with no issues.

I don't know the details of your case, but another option if you have 2 x 5.25" drive bays is to buy a 3 x 3.5" drive caddy, like this:

http://procase.co.nz/backplane_modules/snt_2T3.htm

kiwipeter

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#375707 2-Sep-2010 12:33

Thanks all for your helpful advice. I agree - the DVD drive could be removed post install and the space used for more disk.

That Procase drive cage looks good. Will investigate supplier and costs.

Cheers

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timbosan

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#375714 2-Sep-2010 12:41

Couple of things I forgot to add, I recommond you stay away from the EARS drives that Seagate have, they didn't perform well at all in my WHS system and I eventually replaced them with WD 7200.11 drives. I tried all the settings I could but read many others had the same problem.

Second - what about external-SATA? Do you have any free PCI slots? They would give you external storage at (almost) the same speed as internal drives.

richms

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#375760 2-Sep-2010 14:25

timbosan: Couple of things I forgot to add, I recommond you stay away from the EARS drives that Seagate have, they didn't perform well at all in my WHS system and I eventually replaced them with WD 7200.11 drives. I tried all the settings I could but read many others had the same problem.

I think you have the brands backwards there, seagate have the 7200.11 and WD do the 4 letter things on their green drives. The green drives seem to suck other than for media storage

timbosan:
Second - what about external-SATA? Do you have any free PCI slots? They would give you external storage at (almost) the same speed as internal drives.

I have had corruption issues on many PCI cards. If you get one, DONT get the Jmicron chipset - seems to be many issues, the silicon image ones work ok IME.

Richard rich.ms