WHS 2011 with NAS Box

[pdjmwj]

Hi, Looking to build a new WHS 2011 box to replace my WHS V1.

I have a standalone NAS box, Thecus N3200PRO, that I was wondering how it could be used with the new build. I currently do not use it.

I was thinking about buying an HP Proliant MicroServer but I want to use RAID 5 which it does not support. I also have no issues with building my own and have it priced out as well.

Questions:

How can I use this Thecus NAS with my WHS 2011?

Can I put one drive in the WHS 2011 box for OS then connect the NAS via ESATA and use it like the drives were installed?

If this is possible I could build a very small WHS box and leverage the NAS for storage.

I am looking at i3 options for WHS also. Is this a good CPU for WHS?

I also am looking at AMD Fusion APU options? Any thoughts on this processor?

Thanks in advance....

Paul

 

[pdjmwj]

Wow, no one has any thoughts on this arrangement. Guess I should sell the NAS.

 

[scooter69]

Well, I'm not sure if an attached NAS will work for your storage drives with WHS 2011, but using an i3 CPU and a board that supports it is overkill. Unless you have it just laying around, save the cash for some fast drives. For my build; I'm using a $40 MSI board, an $0 Intel E5200 socket 775 dual core, (the dual core is overkill too, but I already had it) and $28 4GB RAM, (that's over kill too as 2GB works great). I'm trying myself to get info on weather I should RAID1 two 2TB drives for the storage and a 500GB for the system or not. Hope that helps some.... Did some reading, from what I understand WHS 2011 DOES NOT have Drive Extender, but once you get your server going you should be able to just plug drives in, be it internal OR external. From what I understand, WHS will want to format the drive, (a NAS would be seen as "One Drive") so be ready and able to abort adding it into the drive pool and back up your info first. WHS will ask you if you want to format and not just do it automatically. All that being said, I'm no expert on WHS, so give it a try and see, just back up you NAS before hand.

 

[scooter69]

Check out this tread, looks like it might be jus what your looking for. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/271233-32-home-storage-server