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#1
OK, I am currently prepping an unRAID server to be my NAS for XBMC. However, has anyone or does anyone use Windows Home Server 2011 to serve their media files? I couldn't even get it to install as it needed drivers and I tried to install my mobo's SATA drivers but it didn't work. Bottom line, is WHS 2011 any good for XBMC?
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#2
i'm doing fine with WHS2011.
works like a charm.

for details check this thread.
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#3
My media files are on a WHS2011 shared raid volume and it works like a champ.
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#4
Do you find any problems not having Extender or do you use a hardware RAID?
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#5
There are several alternatives to Extender like Drive Bender, etc... if that is something you feel you must have. From an XBMC perspective, I don't see how it would have much of an impact.
This particular server is setup with the raid from the motherboard.
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#6
Yeah I guess from a point of view of XBMC it wouldn't matter. I guess I just need redundancy protection.
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#7
Update: I installed Windows Home Server last night. I must be a moron because I found it to be unnecessarily difficult to setup and use. I installed Ubuntu x64 and tried installing FlexRAID but had no luck at all. I finally installed Windows 7 x64 and FlexRAID and had a 10GB volume with 4 shares in about 10 minutes. I'm copying over my TV shows right now. How safe is data on FlexRAID? Like if Windows crashes or if I get new hardware, if I install FlexRAID on new hardware (same drives) is my data intact?

Any of you run it on Linux? That is my first choice as my gut tells me Linux is a better 24/7 OS to put away and forget about. The issue I had was having to enter a ton of command line commands to get it installed and then when I finally ran it it didn't see any of my drives.
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#8
If all you are doing is NAS on this server, why not try FreeNAS?
It's a purpose-built Linux with all the features you may need!! And it sets up in minutes too.
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#9
That's surprising. I found WHS 2011 to be incredibly easy to set up and use.
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#10
Monkeypox Wrote:That's surprising. I found WHS 2011 to be incredibly easy to set up and use.

I gave up when it wanted to do all this configuration crap on my router. When I installed Windows 7 on it, FlexRAID was a breeze to set up, although I would have preferred Linux.

Oh, and I did take a look at FreeNAS and couldn't even figure out how to install it.
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#11
The router config was for the remote access portion of WHS2011. Certainly something that is not required and easy to tell WHS you don't want that.
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#12
Well I would need remote access as this box will have no monitor and sit stored away somewhere hosting files.
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#13
Can anyone recommend a good guide to getting WHS up and running smoothly? I (think) I want to use FLexRAID with it although when I was creating my volumes in disk manager there was an option to create a RAID5. I just want my data protected, good performance, and good remote access since the box will be in the basement with no monitor or keyboard. WHS is attractive since all my media computers are Windows based and I'm sure the sharing would be very easy. In fact, if WHS lets me create a RAID5, what do I need FlexRAID for?

Oh, and another thing about WHS: It doesn't appear to give me any choice about what drive to install to. It only seems it will install to the drive in port 0 so I put my small 500GB hybrid drive there and used that. Well, after installing I looked and it installed on one of my 3TB drives. That was a problem and part of the reason why I tried Linux. Ubuntu is nice and all but I spent all night Googling and typing at the terminal. I just want to double click the file, install, and use.
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#14
Sorry, to clarify that is remote access for the WAN, not LAN. With WHS2011, you can configure your server to be accessible and access media files anywhere on the internet.

Even with this feature not enabled, you can still use remote desktop for your internal network.
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#15
FlexRAID allows you to storage pool your drives. What that means is you can take any number of drives and any capacity and present them on your network as one drive. For example, you have 2 2TB drives, a 250G drive, and a 3TB USB drive.

You can present those on your network as one drive of 7,250G is size. If you wanted, you can also create a "RAID" array by adding another 3TB drive to your machine used for parity. It will "protect" all those drives. In a traditional RAID setup, using the above drives, I believe you would only use 250G of those 2TB and 3TB drives in your array.

While I have never tried it, I think you can also include network drives on your storage pool and/or raid array in FlexRAID. I know for a fact you can include directories in your array/pool.

Another advantage of FlexRAID which is useful for media servers is the snapshot raid feature, which creates parity on a schedule. No need to run realtime raid if content isn't changing all that often. I snapshot my array twice a day, worst case is I lose about 12 hours of files, and only if the files are copied to the drive that actually failed.

This is a layman's explaination of FlexRAID. Check out the site for more detailed/accurate info. I'm not a fan of hardware raid for my uses. Been burned by the raid controller going on me. At home, my data isn't so important that I need the expense of enterprise level raid.
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