Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions
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Unless I have completely misunderstood the information presented on the Adaptec website, it seems as most controllers would be compatible between each other. Hence I could also get a newer one, should the 51645 become unavailable.
Although I am slightly confused by what a HostRAID should be (is that software raid on a pci-raid controller?), it probably doesn't affect the 51645.
To be prepared for a controller failure, would it still make no sense to install the OS outside the array? The likelihood of the OS drive failing is probably a lot larger than that of the controller. But would that damage the array or have any impact on it, or could you just swap the OS drive without the array recognizing any difference?
Actually, coming back to this, @Dashrender suggested not installing the OS away from the array; by that you meant install it directly on the RAID6, right? As opposed to just having a single OS disk plugged into the raid controller rather than the mainboard sata port.Bootable arrays: before replacing the controller with a different model it is necessary to first install the operating system drivers for the new controller otherwise the operating system installed on the bootable array cannot start. In order to load the operating system drivers for the replacement controller just add the "new" controller to the system without arrays attached to it and install the driver before you remove the "old" controller.
That's from Adaptec. With only a single PCI slot, that seems like an impossible task.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
Unless I have completely misunderstood the information presented on the Adaptec website, it seems as most controllers would be compatible between each other. Hence I could also get a newer one, should the 51645 become unavailable.
That is generally true.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
Unless I have completely misunderstood the information presented on the Adaptec website, it seems as most controllers would be compatible between each other. Hence I could also get a newer one, should the 51645 become unavailable.
Although I am slightly confused by what a HostRAID should be (is that software raid on a pci-raid controller?), it probably doesn't affect the 51645.
To be prepared for a controller failure, would it still make no sense to install the OS outside the array? The likelihood of the OS drive failing is probably a lot larger than that of the controller. But would that damage the array or have any impact on it, or could you just swap the OS drive without the array recognizing any difference?
Actually, coming back to this, @Dashrender suggested not installing the OS away from the array; by that you meant install it directly on the RAID6, right? As opposed to just having a single OS disk plugged into the raid controller rather than the mainboard sata port.Correct, the main OS you'll interact with should be on the array. That said, the hypervisor, XS, should be installed on a USB stick or a SD card. These are easy to replace in case of a failure, and are suppose to be easy to clone prefailure to have a backup. So the system will boot from USB or SD card.. then access the RAID controller. in the case of the a failed RAID controller, boot into the RAID card software, import the array from the drives into the card, then reboot, booting to XS this time, now install drivers for the new RAID controller if needed, now XS should see the array and you can start your VMs.
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So it seems I should really get to know another OS. In that case I'll probably have to put the entire thing off for a while as I won't be finding the time in the months to come.
Which would be the easiest to learn from the good ones suggested here?And just to understand the decision-making a bit more, why is it so terribly stupid to run a client OS on a server if I have zero need for server OS capabilities? I'd assume there is a risk of it messing with the controller or anything of the sort, but if you care to elaborate, all the better.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
So it seems I should really get to know another OS. In that case I'll probably have to put the entire thing off for a while as I won't be finding the time in the months to come.
Which would be the easiest to learn from the good ones suggested here?Really - installing XenServer is brain dead simple. It often takes longer to download the ISO than it does to install XenServer. As for a Linux distro - for no reason what so ever, I say give Cent OS a try. Like XS, install is super easy, similar to Windows - the installer walks you through everything you need to do. The only non default you MIGHT need to make is ensure that SMB protocol gets installed, but you might not be able to do that through the installer anyhow.
After the ISOs are downloaded, I'm thinking 4 hours and you could have both XS and CentOS installed. Then you need to find out how create a SMB share - simple google search - and do it.
And just to understand the decision-making a bit more, why is it so terribly stupid to run a client OS on a server if I have zero need for server OS capabilities? I'd assume there is a risk of it messing with the controller or anything of the sort, but if you care to elaborate, all the better.
This revolves more around Doing IT at home. Ultimately it most likely won't matter if you do choose to use a client OS (technically Linux Mint is a Client OS - but I'm willing to bet many people would still rather see you run that instead of Windows for the OS on this setup). We don't know the ultimate goal of this box for you, but using a OS designed for serving up things to others (File Sharing) most generally has fewer other things running on it, fewer ways of being hacked, uses less resources and power.
You said IT isn't your primary job/career, and this is a pretty typical NAS type solution for Audio/Video problems as it appears you want to use it for. Yet you've wound up on an IT site, actually you're second one I think. Believe me I'm not trying to chase you away, I'm kinda curious how you came to find SpiceWorks for your solution instead of an audio/video, BD ripping website? Though because you have, we tend to steer people toward what we believe are proper IT solutions instead of band-aid style ones (think FreeNAS). One of the best things I've gathered from these forums is an understanding for getting rid of technical debt. For example, you mentioned that the machine you're using as a base had Windows 7 on it, so you have a free upgrade to Windows 10. But what happens when it's time to replace this machine with the next one? You'll either have to buy a Windows 10 license for it to keep the status quo, or learn something new. Since you're starting a new project now, why not just start now with a solution that you most likely will never have to migrate away from. Chances are that XenServer and CentOS will still be around in 10 years, updated of course (as you should be updating this hardware along the way) and will make life cheaper if not also easier when that time comes.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
So it seems I should really get to know another OS. In that case I'll probably have to put the entire thing off for a while as I won't be finding the time in the months to come.
Which would be the easiest to learn from the good ones suggested here?I don't know that they vary that much in difficulty to learn. But the Linux family are the best known and documented, CentOS is likely the easiest to get good resources for and is generally the most beneficial to have experience on, so win/win.
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@Dashrender
You're quite correct. I wasn't actually sure whether either of those sites were made for what I wanted; let alone that anyone would care about a simple home file server. In academia, as almost anywhere else in life, I'd say its important to listen to those who really understand what they are doing. There is so much info/tutorials out there where people just pass over their "knowledge" of what they have read somewhere, without understanding anything behind the scene/GUI. Kind of like, if I now started to give advice to others on why Raid 6 is such a good idea, how to go about it, etc.. - even though it may work for my purpose, I feel very few users outside these very particular forums have a true understanding of eventual risks, downsides and so on. For instance, aside from a very general article on, I think Cnet, that Raid5 is becoming useless, those forums are still full of people "bragging" about their raid5 setup (quite similiar in size to what I have in mind, not something really small either). Just reading over at spiceworks and some of SAM's articles/comments, I knew that wasn't an option, yet I still had no idea (and had not read anything about it) that a very simple thing such as a BIOS update would screw over fake Raid10 (which, I assumed, was very safe). I didn't even have a reason to do that bios update, I just saw a new one coming out.Most solutions offered here, honestly, are overkill for what I want and need. But better be overwhelmed and aware of risks, then having a false sense of security.
I know you are all correct and I hate ignorance, but to be perfectly honest - and I hope you don't count that as dismissal of any advice (which it isn't), there is still a great sense of unease for me when thinking about these setups and I would much rather just go about and slap that ol' windows onto the array or even just run it from a seperate disk. I would feel much better if this was a general foray into a new OS without my storage depending on it. Because as secure as these OS' are, the risk of user error is certainly larger on my side. I know this mindset is in conflict with that of true IT guys - that lack of curiosity and exploration surely won't be understood (and, I would have the same idea in my discipline) - but at heart I'm still very content to be just a slightly advanced consumer, not an admin, if that makes any sense.
Again, I hope this doesn't create the feeling of rejecting any advice; I won't. It's just what I could do in the next half hour and know it would work, and something obviously better, yet with a lot of unknowns in it. -
If you are more comfortable with Windows, then use it. With that much hard drive space, you should have a few GBs left over to Run VirtualBox and play with some Linux VMs until you get more comfortable with them.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@Dashrender
You're quite correct. I wasn't actually sure whether either of those sites were made for what I wanted; let alone that anyone would care about a simple home file server. In academia, as almost anywhere else in life, I'd say its important to listen to those who really understand what they are doing. There is so much info/tutorials out there where people just pass over their "knowledge" of what they have read somewhere, without understanding anything behind the scene/GUI. Kind of like, if I now started to give advice to others on why Raid 6 is such a good idea, how to go about it, etc.. - even though it may work for my purpose, I feel very few users outside these very particular forums have a true understanding of eventual risks, downsides and so on. For instance, aside from a very general article on, I think Cnet, that Raid5 is becoming useless, those forums are still full of people "bragging" about their raid5 setup (quite similiar in size to what I have in mind, not something really small either). Just reading over at spiceworks and some of SAM's articles/comments, I knew that wasn't an option, yet I still had no idea (and had not read anything about it) that a very simple thing such as a BIOS update would screw over fake Raid10 (which, I assumed, was very safe). I didn't even have a reason to do that bios update, I just saw a new one coming out.Most solutions offered here, honestly, are overkill for what I want and need. But better be overwhelmed and aware of risks, then having a false sense of security.
I know you are all correct and I hate ignorance, but to be perfectly honest - and I hope you don't count that as dismissal of any advice (which it isn't), there is still a great sense of unease for me when thinking about these setups and I would much rather just go about and slap that ol' windows onto the array or even just run it from a seperate disk. I would feel much better if this was a general foray into a new OS without my storage depending on it. Because as secure as these OS' are, the risk of user error is certainly larger on my side. I know this mindset is in conflict with that of true IT guys - that lack of curiousty and exploration surely won't be understood (and, I would have the same idea in my discipline) - but at heart I'm still very content to be just a slightly advanced consumer, not an admin, if that makes any sense.
Again, I hope this doesn't create the feeling of rejecting any advice; I won't. It's just what I could do in the next half hour and know it would work, and something obviously better, yet with a lot of unknowns in it.There are conversations to be had. I think forums like this are here specifically to argue points and get to the heart of what is best practice for a given situation. Bouncing ideas off of each other is great. Misinformation is the death of progress though and you will find a lot of it. Sometimes it's intentional other times it isn't. I myself sometimes think I understand a topic and find out later I wasn't considering as much as I should have been.
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@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@Dashrender
You're quite correct. I wasn't actually sure whether either of those sites were made for what I wanted; let alone that anyone would care about a simple home file server. In academia, as almost anywhere else in life, I'd say its important to listen to those who really understand what they are doing. There is so much info/tutorials out there where people just pass over their "knowledge" of what they have read somewhere, without understanding anything behind the scene/GUI. Kind of like, if I now started to give advice to others on why Raid 6 is such a good idea, how to go about it, etc.. - even though it may work for my purpose, I feel very few users outside these very particular forums have a true understanding of eventual risks, downsides and so on. For instance, aside from a very general article on, I think Cnet, that Raid5 is becoming useless, those forums are still full of people "bragging" about their raid5 setup (quite similiar in size to what I have in mind, not something really small either). Just reading over at spiceworks and some of SAM's articles/comments, I knew that wasn't an option, yet I still had no idea (and had not read anything about it) that a very simple thing such as a BIOS update would screw over fake Raid10 (which, I assumed, was very safe). I didn't even have a reason to do that bios update, I just saw a new one coming out.Most solutions offered here, honestly, are overkill for what I want and need. But better be overwhelmed and aware of risks, then having a false sense of security.
I know you are all correct and I hate ignorance, but to be perfectly honest - and I hope you don't count that as dismissal of any advice (which it isn't), there is still a great sense of unease for me when thinking about these setups and I would much rather just go about and slap that ol' windows onto the array or even just run it from a seperate disk. I would feel much better if this was a general foray into a new OS without my storage depending on it. Because as secure as these OS' are, the risk of user error is certainly larger on my side. I know this mindset is in conflict with that of true IT guys - that lack of curiousty and exploration surely won't be understood (and, I would have the same idea in my discipline) - but at heart I'm still very content to be just a slightly advanced consumer, not an admin, if that makes any sense.
Again, I hope this doesn't create the feeling of rejecting any advice; I won't. It's just what I could do in the next half hour and know it would work, and something obviously better, yet with a lot of unknowns in it.There are conversations to be had. I think forums like this are here specifically to argue points and get to the heart of what is best practice for a given situation. Bouncing ideas off of each other is great. Misinformation is the death of progress though and you will find a lot of it. Sometimes it's intentional other times it isn't. I myself sometimes think I understand a topic and find out later I wasn't considering as much as I should have been.
Agreed! I find myself in the same boat. That is why communities like ML are great because we can interact with one another and bounce ideas around and deepen our knowledge in whatever the particular area we have questions about.
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I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further. -
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further.CentOS is great because its one version behind Red Hat which is enterprise level. I absolutely agree with everyone that if you are starting out there is a lot of benefits to using it and it's just as easy/complex as any other distro.
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@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further.CentOS is great because its one version behind Red Hat which is enterprise level. I absolutely agree with everyone that if you are starting out there is a lot of benefits to using it and it's just as easy/complex as any other distro.
CentOS is Redhat Enterprise Linux. They are at exactly the same version CentOS 7 is RHEL 7. They are exactly the same thing, except CentOS doesn't have the Redhat branding.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@Dashrender
For instance, aside from a very general article on, I think Cnet, that Raid5 is becoming useless, those forums are still full of people "bragging" about their raid5 setupZDNet has the famous one by Robin Harris.
If you think those forums are bad, those are random people, mostly hobbyests. Go on SW and you are supposed to be in a pool of exclusively IT Pros and you get rabid RAID 5 fans there in huge quantities even with like half a decade of daily information that they don't dispute in the least.
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@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further.CentOS is great because its one version behind Red Hat which is enterprise level. I absolutely agree with everyone that if you are starting out there is a lot of benefits to using it and it's just as easy/complex as any other distro.
Not behind at all, same product. They get the CentOS branding version out about 48 hours behind.
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May be thinking of Fedora? Which is what CentOS/RHEL are derived from.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further.Skipping XenServer will often make for "more work". I realize that this is for home and not business so the strong guidance of "always virtualize" still has to be tempered with "do what you are happy with doing." But some of the reasons that we say that everything should be virtual is that it makes things easier, not harder. Technically it is "doing more", but only technically.
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@coliver said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
May be thinking of Fedora? Which is what CentOS/RHEL are derived from.
Fedora is a few versions ahead, not behind. It's RHEL that is behind in that case.
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@scottalanmiller said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@coliver said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
May be thinking of Fedora? Which is what CentOS/RHEL are derived from.
Fedora is a few versions ahead, not behind. It's RHEL that is behind in that case.
Right, that's what I assumed @wirestyle22 was referencing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I'll at least start an installation with one of your recommendations, either on the server now are as a second boot option on my work pc. CentOS would also be good as a server system, or was this a general recommendation to be paired with XenServer?
I'd like to start small with only what's necessary, if that makes sense. If i find it easier than anticipated, I can still go further.Skipping XenServer will often make for "more work". I realize that this is for home and not business so the strong guidance of "always virtualize" still has to be tempered with "do what you are happy with doing." But some of the reasons that we say that everything should be virtual is that it makes things easier, not harder. Technically it is "doing more", but only technically.
Exactly. For example, when you reboot an OS that's installed on physical hardware, you have to reboot the hardware as well as the software. My IBM server takes over 7 mins to initialize the hardware. But, if I'm virtualized that time is zero or near zero. When I reboot a VM, I see a BIOS screen presented by the hypervisor and pop - my OS is booting. Also through the hypervisor I can mount ISOs for booting and troubleshooting. The hypervisor allows me to create virtual hardware to the VM so I don't have to worry about creating real DVDs or USB flash drives with installers on them. Another awesome advantage, backups. The VMs are just giant files to the hypervisor. If a VM is shutdown, you can just copy it anywhere you want, just like any other file.
