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Does splitting 4TB Drives in half for backup affect performance?


Andy

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  I have DrivePool installed on my WHS2011 box and it is running great.  I have three 4TB hard disks in the pool.  I understand that WHS2011 limits the server backup function from reading from partitions bigger than 2TB.  

 

  My question is simply this:  If I were to format each of my three disks into two equal (2TB) partitions, then create the pool from those partitions... would that be wise?  My reasoning for doing this is that I could then use the Server Backup to backup the "poolparts" that I want to further protect to an external drive.

 

 My gut reaction is that this would not be the best solution.  Would there be a risk that "duplicated" folders could end up on the same physical drive, but on separate partitions?  Is there a performance hit for doing this... especially when it comes to balancing across partitions as well as the striping feature?  The software may be smart enough to not have these issues but I don't know for sure.  

 

  If anyone could help enlighten me on the topic I'd sure appreciate it.  Also my apologies if this issue has already been addressed.  I did search for it and came up empty.

 

-Andy

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doens't matter, the backup volume limit is 2TB, http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/28051-clarification-of-the-2tb-limit/

If you are in the US watch newegg, you can purchase acronis true image for like $20.  Peronally I use the built in back up for the OS drive, and syncback pro for the shares.   And I'm farily certain DP knows if two volumes are on the same drive, so for dupilciation, yourfine.

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I guess as dbailey said there is a 2 TB server backup size limit, with some 'qualifications'.  (I think that's on the "writing" side, not the "reading" side.)  But here is my 2 cents on why I think it's moot, from experience: 

 

If you have to replace the WHS system disk, you have to replace it with a disk at least as large as the existing one.  But what this seemed to mean in reality is that you need a replacement disk as large as the total image size generated based on your server backup selections.  So, if you include more than just the "System" and "OS" in the server backup setup, your new replacement system disk has to be large enough to accomodate your additional selections (D:, E:, etc.) even though their data may be located on separate physical disks. (This behavior appears to be just bad programming.)  So I just use duplication as my principal "backup" for pooled data, and my WHS server backup only includes the "System" and "OS", not D:, E: etc.  If you want additional backup besides 2x or 3x duplication (which remember does place duplicated files on separate physical drives), I use a separate backup program scheduled to run on the pooled drive (or each separate drive within the pool, your option).

 

Restoring the system drive in WHS 2011 was easy and fast except for that replacement disk-size snag.  You only need  a 160 gig disk to restore just the OS.  But I had an E: drive included in the server backup which forced me to use a 2 TB drive to restore the OS disk.  This was a real nuisance that "wasted" a larger drive and also the time it took me to figure out why smaller disks weren't being accepted during restore.  I went back later and removed D: and E: from the backup settings, and restored the system disk to a 250 GB drive to get my 2 TB drive back.

  - Randy

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I guess as dbailey said there is a 2 TB "server backup" size limit, with some "qualifications".  Here my 2 cents on why I think it's moot, from experience: 

 

If you have to replace the WHS system disk, you have to replace it with a disk at least as large as the existing one.  But what this seemed to mean in reality is that you need a replacement disk as large as the total image size generated based on your server backup selections.  So, if you include more than just the "System" and "OS" in the server backup setup, your new replacement system disk has to be large enough to accomodate your additional selections (D:, E:, etc.) even though their data may be located on separate physical disks. (This behavior appears to be just bad programming.)  So I just use duplication as my "backup" for pooled data, and the WHS server backup only includes "System" and "OS", not D:, E: etc.  If you want additional backup besides 2x or 3x duplication (which remember does place duplicated files on separate physical drives), I would use a separate backup program scheduled to run on the pooled drive (or each separate drive within the pool, your option).

 

Restoring the system drive in WHS 2011 was easy and fast except for that replacement disk-size snag.  You only need  a 160 gig disk to restore just the OS.  But I had an E: drive included in the server backup which forced me to use a 2 TB drive to restore the OS disk.  This was a real nuisance that "wasted" a larger drive and also the time it took me to figure out why smaller disks weren't being accepted during restore.  I went back later and removed D: and E: from the backup settings, and restored the system disk to a 250 GB drive to get my 2 TB drive back.

  - Randy

 

I haven't had the pleasure of doing a restore, I tried a baremetal once for giggles, and had some issues as my MB is UEFI, but that's only an issue with a bare metal,  You can install WHS to your OS partition, then do a restore from there, this I did serveral months ago without issue. can' recall if I did just the C or both C and D.  Like you I have client backups on my D. 

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Actually I have nothing on D:, the client backups are pooled on F, G and Z.  It was the inclusion of a separate E: drive in the server backup that made the OS disk size requirement jump to 2 TB.  I.e., C: + D: on disk 0 is very small, about 100 GB total, mostly empty space.  WHS Restore should be smart enough to leave out E: in its disk size requirement because you don't have to restore the E: drive when restoring the OS disk.  Anyway, I'm only using "server backup" to provide a restore of the OS unless MS fixes this size calculation problem in the future.  A nice simple fix would be for WHS to allow multiple server backup profiles that create separate images, e.g. one profile to backup the OS, another profile to backup the other volumes.  I haven't set up more than one external disk for server backup - maybe the multi-profile capability is there with multiple backup disks, I haven't investigated.

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Actually I have nothing on D:, the client backups are pooled on F, G and Z.  It was the inclusion of a separate E: drive in the server backup that made the OS disk size requirement jump to 2 TB.  I.e., C: + D: on disk 0 is very small, about 100 GB total, mostly empty space.  WHS Restore should be smart enough to leave out E: in its disk size requirement because you don't have to restore the E: drive when restoring the OS disk.  Anyway, I'm only using "server backup" to provide a restore of the OS unless MS fixes this size calculation problem in the future.  A nice simple fix would be for WHS to allow multiple server backup profiles that create separate images, e.g. one profile to backup the OS, another profile to backup the other volumes.  I haven't set up more than one external disk for server backup - maybe the multi-profile capability is there with multiple backup disks, I haven't investigated.

MS included a better backup option in WSE2012, but at a $400 price tag, um, no thanks.

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Hey thanks for the advice guys. That link helped clear up some of my misconceptions.  I also own a copy of True Image Premium 2014 that I was going to put on my PC, but I might just try it out on the server...  for some reason I assumed it wouldn't work on server software (companies like to demand a premium for that sometimes). Thanks again!

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