Question How best to setup small office server

[baldog]

Hi Guys,

I'm in the middle of setting up our new office server, what are your thoughts on this, and would you do anything different?

Win 10 machine running file server,cctv and hyper v.
c drive mirrored ssd drives 256gb x2
d drive mirrored hyper v for vm's (1 currently maybe 3 in total) and vm storage 480gb x 2
e drive mirrored ssds for storage of files 1tb x 2
f cctv 3tb mechanical x1
g drive mechanical for incremental backups of all the other drives bar the cctv x 1

Using mirrored drives as if one drive fails another will pick up where it left off until a new drive is fitted. What software would be best for imaging the os drive and vm drive. Also what would be best for incremental backups?

Thanks!

 

[baldog]

I know I can buy a couple of pci-e sata expansion slots however is there a better way to connect 12 drives to one pc? Or is there a way to seperate it to another box but still use the cards as if they were in the pc? thanks

 

[USAFRet]

What will you be doing with these drives?


3 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4

Or 2 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG

 

[baldog]

Win 10 machine running file server,cctv and hyper v.
c drive mirrored ssd drives 256gb x2
d drive mirrored hyper v for vm's (1 currently maybe 3 in total) and vm storage 480gb x 2
e drive mirrored ssds for storage of files 1tb x 2
f cctv 3tb mechanical x1
g drive mechanical for incremental backups of all the other drives bar the cctv x 1

 

[kanewolf]

Mirrored drives are a false security, in most cases. Data is lost in the rebuild too often. The probabilities of an SSD suddenly failing are quite low. Put the money into other things, IMO.

 

[USAFRet]

The other part of the story:

Oops! We ran into some problems.

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[baldog]

Thought it might of been too many questions asking all at once

 

[kanewolf]

Thought it might of been too many questions asking all at once

No, just the opposite, the participants don't see all the info.

 

[USAFRet]

I agree. Mirrored drives are not the way to go.

What software?
I use Macrium Reflect. Full drive images, Incremental, Differential...all on whatever schedule you desire.

 

[baldog]

I was thinking using the mirrored drive if we have one go bad the other would continue, is that not the case in a real world environment?

 

[kanewolf]

I was thinking using the mirrored drive if we have one go bad the other would continue, is that not the case in a real world environment?

It can be, but what is the probability and what is the consequence of an outage? RAID only helps with a failed drive. As I said, a sudden failure of an SSD is very low probability. Doe your "server" have dual hot-swap power supplies? A double conversion UPS? ECC RAM? Those are also required for availability. If you don't have those things, then RAID1 is spending money in the wrong areas.

 

[baldog]

Ok that makes sense now!

 

[USAFRet]

I was thinking using the mirrored drive if we have one go bad the other would continue, is that not the case in a real world environment?

What is your tolerance for downtime? A C drive for something could be recovered in maybe 30 minutes.
And any mirror scheme would need actual backups anyway.

Physical drive fails are pretty rare. Of 30 or 40 drives I've had in constant use over the last decade, 2 fails. 1 HDD (5 weeks old) and 1 SSD (3 years old).
In both cases, a good backup routine allowed speedy recovery. No mirroring needed.

 

[baldog]

The machine would be hosting our phone system so would need to be back up and running as soon as possible

 

[kanewolf]

There are LOTS of variables to "availability". If you would provide what the use of this server is and what the criticality is, we might have some suggestions. It might be to have a second server, or it might be to have a cold spare 1TB SSD that you can load your system onto. There is an entire spectrum of choices.

 

[baldog]

I won't be onsite all the time so whatever is in place for recovery needs to be easy or a good tempo fix until i'm there. The server will host our voip phone system along with files which need constant access to between 8am and 7pm.

 

[USAFRet]

I won't be onsite all the time so whatever is in place for recovery needs to be easy or a good tempo fix until i'm there. The server will host our voip phone system along with files which need constant access to between 8am and 7pm.

And this is why more info upfront is always a good thing.

 

[kanewolf]

I won't be onsite all the time so whatever is in place for recovery needs to be easy or a good tempo fix until i'm there. The server will host our voip phone system along with files which need constant access to between 8am and 7pm.

That requirement, would be best satisfied by an out-of-band management capability like the iLO on an HP server or the iDRAC on a Dell. The generic term for this is IPMI interface.