News - Microsoft removing Drive Extender from next version of Windows Home Server

[Defiant]

It does seem crazy, maybe time pressure to cut it rather than fix it? About time they provided a Home server software setup that doesnt require someone with IT knowledge to adapt it for more storage.

I refuse to join this cloud crap thats circling the globe at this time, got to be mad putting all your personal data and info on a service that they can revoke or access under some crap ass law that they recon gives them the right.

I do think MS have done a dis-service to the home network this time

[asm495]

Almost 2,000 (at time of writing) requests for DE to be reinstated on Vail...

https://connect.microsoft.com/Window...signin1.0#tabs

[[GSV]Trig]

I'll be sticking with v1 then

[neonplanet40]

I'll be sticking with v1 then

Ditto

[neonplanet40]

Almost 2,000 (at time of writing) requests for DE to be reinstated on Vail...

https://connect.microsoft.com/Window...signin1.0#tabs

Says page not found

[Moby-Dick]

I think I'll stick with v1 and start saving for a drobo elite that I can use as home NAS and iSCSI san for my homelab.

[Singh400]

Almost 2,000 (at time of writing) requests for DE to be reinstated on Vail...

https://connect.microsoft.com/Window...signin1.0#tabs

Signed, thanks.

[jim]

I half expect them to give in now. I sincerely hope that they do.

[spoon_]

well its not RAID1, its RAID5.

That is the point of WHS, its replicated storage for people who don't know the difference between RAID5 and RAID1, or who cba to do any boring admin work.

Hmm I was under the impression that WHS either didn't offer any redundancy or it did by mirroring your data therefore eating 50% from your "pool" if you like.

If I still don't get it like some people suggested, how much space I would need to have 1TB of redundant data?

I think I'll stick with v1 and start saving for a drobo elite that I can use as home NAS and iSCSI san for my homelab.

What puts me off from Drobo is the stupid dashboard. Complete fail when it comes to enterprise environments, no one is gonna mock about trying to manage it without web browser.

Also iSCSI performance gives plenty to think about...

[jim]

Hmm I was under the impression that WHS either didn't offer any redundancy or it did by mirroring your data therefore eating 50% from your "pool" if you like.

If I still don't get it like some people suggested, how much space I would need to have 1TB of redundant data?

You have a choice. You can duplicate shares, or you can not bother duplicating them.

If they're duplicated, then each individual file is stored on two separate physical disks. You don't necessarily know which disks the two separate copies are on, but they will be on one of them.

If you have two 1TB disks, then ignoring the OS installation, you can get 1TB of redundant data. Realistically, 930GB due to binary, then a few GB for the OS, so 900GB of data duplication.

[saltyzip]

I am a home user of WHS and for one I am glad they are ditching DE.

It has been the biggest thorn in WHS side in my opinion, especially as my primary use for WHS is as a video streaming device. DE just slows everything down, glad to be shot of it.

Why do something in software when hardware can do it better and more reliably and to an agreed standard.

As long as the implementation of the hardware raid, is user friendly enough, and there is no reason it shouldn't be, why is everyone complaining?

Raid 5 will no doubt be the standard implementation, so every WHS will need 3 Drives as default, and you can still expand as the need arises.

[jim]

I am a home user of WHS and for one I am glad they are ditching DE.

It has been the biggest thorn in WHS side in my opinion, especially as my primary use for WHS is as a video streaming device. DE just slows everything down, glad to be shot of it.

Why do something in software when hardware can do it better and more reliably and to an agreed standard.

As long as the implementation of the hardware raid, is user friendly enough, and there is no reason it shouldn't be, why is everyone complaining?

Raid 5 will no doubt be the standard implementation, so every WHS will need 3 Drives as default, and you can still expand as the need arises.

That's absolute rubbish, to be honest. I wouldn't touch RAID 5 with a bargepole. If I want to change my drive configuration, I have to wait hours and hours for it to rebuild? If a drive fails, I have to spend 10 nervewracking hours waiting to see if another one gives up the ghost during the rebuild? My files are inaccessible outside of the RAID environment. I can't use drives of varying sizes at the same time.

It is far from better.

[aidanjt]

10 hours? I have a 4TB RAID5 array on my Linux boxen, and it only takes 5 hours to sync. You're talking about what if the 2nd disk dies? That in itself is a *highly* improbable event. But to bring things into prospective, file and folder duplication can't tolerate ONE disk failure, much less two (RAID6 can!).

Also, no amount of mass storage subsystem magic is going to replace a proper backup. If it's important, back it up. And I certainly wouldn't put my faith in an experimental file duplication system that even Microsoft has admitted is flawed and has abandoned.

[saltyzip]

The new Drive Extender from what I read and was planed for Vail stored data in proprietary blocks and therefore a file might be spread over multiple drives. Therefore if one drive went down it could take out a lot of files due to this fragmentation of storage approach, possibly corrupting all your files, if it was full of lovely bluray ISO files.

The existing DE system is flawed due to performance implications, the new proposed DE is also flawed due to this fragmentation approach which no doubt was causing Microsoft big headaches to ensure duplication/redundancy can be assured.

Rather than spend 100,000's pounds trying to find some DE approach that actually works, which they obviously aren't getting anywhere fast, they are ditching it for a RAID approach, which is already tried and tested.

It may not appear so user friendly, but remember WHS is not supposed to be a self install on any old bit of tin, it is supposed to be purchased with specifically designed tin, such as HP MediaSmart.

Let HP and Microsoft supply the needed interface to assist with the RAID manipulation, to make it more Home User friendly.

Before shouting it down, lets see what they have in mind first.

[Saracen]

Does it matter? RAID5 (even bios/soft RAID) will fill in for both file duplication and drive extender, and do it better and more consistently. Nothing of value was lost.

That suggests you don't understand the purposes and uses for DE.

First, DE is designed to be easy to use and manage, RAID 5 isn't. Second, DE is designed to be very versatile in the drives you can use, supporting, for instance, internal and external drives, and both USB and Firewire. Let's see you do that with RAID 5. Next, you want to add extra storage a year or two after you set the machine up, you just add whatever the current best value is in capacity. It may be that when you set the machine up, 500GB was what most people bought, but now, it's 1.5GB, so you buy a 1.5GB drive and add it. Can RAID 5 do that?

But it's more versatile in use, too. For a start, I can specify what I want duplicated on the server on a folder by folder basis. Some types of data I just wanted stored and served, other types I want duplicated as part of a backup strategy.

And finally, if the WHS machine dies, I can just take the drive out, put it in another machine and read the files off it. Good luck doing that with a single disc from a RAID 5 array.

For some types of use, WHS and DE is a great solution. It's not a universal panacea, and there are times when RAID 5 (or, indeed, other RAID levels) are a better bet, but not all the time. It's horses for courses. And far from, as some have suggested, DE being a solution for those that don't understand RAID 5, I've been using RAID 5 for years, and certainly since well before HEXUS existed. My main server is still using a 6-disc RAID 5 arrangement, with 5 live discs and a hot spare, all in hot-swap carriers. And, for that matter, I have two identical spare RAID 5 boards, and several spare carriers and mounting bays, and a couple of spare drives sitting in a cupboard, just in case. And two other RAID 5 systems. So it's not that I don't understand or can't build or run a RAID 5 system. It's that WHS/DE gives me some options that RAID doesn't. And, by the way, that's my home setup I'm talking about, not a corporate one.

[Saracen]

....

It may not appear so user friendly, but remember WHS is not supposed to be a self install on any old bit of tin, it is supposed to be purchased with specifically designed tin, such as HP MediaSmart.

Let HP and Microsoft supply the needed interface to assist with the RAID manipulation, to make it more Home User friendly.

Before shouting it down, lets see what they have in mind first.

Sorry, but no. For many of us, DE is a large part of why we went for WHS in the first place. Remove that, and MS remove for reason for using WHS. Personally, I have zero interest in a WHS based on RAID. If I wanted an OS slapped on top of a RAID system, I can do that already, and without paying MS for the privilege.

MS obviously can, and probably will, do whatever they feel like. But if they abandon DE, as it seems they have (short of a u-turn) they will alienate a large chunk of the existing WHS community, many of whom will, I'd guess, either stick with WHS v1 for as long as practical, or move to a non-MS solution. I certainly will. WHS without the functionality of DE is, for me anyway, not worth having and certainly not worth paying for.