Tranquil PC Safe Server – Drive Extender + RAID Mirroring

By on January 22, 2010 in Uncategorized

Tranquil PC have an interesting series of posts building over on their blog regarding a new “Safe Server” project they’re developing for the home server market. Their point is simple – Windows Home Server has great internal technology for duplicating your shared folders, called Drive Extender. But that technology does not protect the system drive itself – so what happens if your system drive goes pop? The answer currently is a new hard drive and a server recovery, meaning that all of your user accounts, add-ins and other settings all need to be re-configured.

Tranquil PC have a different idea, which is currently in test on their five bay SQA-5H home server. Use one of those drive bays as a RAID 1 mirror for the system drive.

Tranquil R&D team have agonised over how to create / supply a hardened Home Server product – ie one that is as ‘SAFE’ as possible, safe from ALL HDD failure, even protecting the Primary HDD.  This short series will explain the issues, the opportunities, and the final solution – the “Safe Home Server”.

Sounds interesting? Check out the thinking:

Safe Home Server – part 1 – How safe is your Home Server ?

Safe Home Server – part 2 -  Drive Extender

Safe Home Server – part 3 -  The Safe Server Module (SSM)

Coming….

Safe Home Server – part 4 – Monitoring Safe Server Module

Safe Home Server – part 4 – How to upgrade a SQA-5H / RS5 with the SSM

Safe Home Server – part 6 -  New products / upgrades announced


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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • TheGuy

    This sounds promissing… I like it and will invest in a SSM for my SQA-5H.

    Super safe…nice.

  • David
  • http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk Matt

    Hi David. You are almost right. The device is very similar to those you have highlighted, but neither of them will fit into the SQA-5H carrier, and I understand there are other minor differences too.

    Thanks for the info

  • David

    from googling this evening it would seem the jou-jye is a re-branded A-data XPG, part number XPGENCL

    http://www.adata.com.tw/en/newscenter.php?news_id...

    the only thing i'm not sure on; will the jou-jye / a-data boot

    perhaps the "minor difference" is the ability to boot
    might get the jou-jye to have a play in my WHS

  • http://www.creativehand.co.uk jody

    part 4,5 and 6 are now out

  • kevin

    look at the price you have to be joking.

  • http://www.creativehand.co.uk jody

    but, it does include 2 x 500GB 2.5" drives

  • http://www.creativehand.co.uk jody

    +- £130's value in hard drives – if you look at it that way, its not that expensive, the adapter on Scan was £35 + postage

  • David

    i get the impression the drives are these:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500GB-Toshiba-MK50…

  • David

    postage?
    don't pay postage at scan ;)

  • kevin

    The whole system seems expensive for home use. What's the big deal primary HD dies. Just replace HD then do a restore. Just need to re-install your addins say 30mins finished. Also remember if like me your primary HD is 1TB you are loosing 500GB in one slot. 2TB even worse.
    Business use i can see the potential where you may have other software installed, database etc.

  • http://www.creativehand.co.uk jody

    i use mine at home, and have exchange installed, as well as other software which would all require manual installation, if it was just addins, then yes, i would probably agree, but for convenience (for those that want a redundant solution for the OS drive) this seems like a good deal, so as soon as I run out of space, i'll order this instead of a stand alone drive, move my 1,5TB OS drive to the storage pool, and replace it with the 500GB thats included. With the SQA5H, I have 5 slots, plus can add an extra 5.

  • David

    the big deal is that the OS drive failing is a pain-in-the-bum
    as an example…
    i used to use fixed 3into4 drive modules.
    when a drive died it was a right royale pain to exchange
    i then bought 5into3 modules with external exchange drive trays.

    the idea of be able to swap a failed OS drive and have an online re-build will be very appealing to many
    the lack of hassle the ssm affords will be worth the expence

    though, to be fair, when i shortly upgrade my WHS mobo the replacement will have on-board RAID. may use this instead.

    BUT, the idea is very nice for those that don't have the option of RAID

  • JohnCz

    I wonder if a solid state drive wouldn't be a cheaper route to go then the cost/complexity of adding RAID hardware/drivers/management and additional Hard Disk. You can get a 32GB SSD for as little as $100 (and prices continue to fall).

  • jody

    the general consensus is that SSD is not an ideal medium for a WHS due to the constant read/writes, and having 1 SSD still wont give the redundancy that an OS in Raid would

  • David

    having read the SSM article there is little complexity
    as for cost, to me, the saving in time is worth the slight cost overhead

    consider that the OS drive for WHS needs be >= 80gig

    so, the condition above would require two 128gig SSDs

    the SSM is a fantastic idea, especially if the SSM can replace a 3.5inch disk in a drive tray

    the SSM runs two drives in RAID 1; would this produce a performance boost?
    anyone?

  • Peter

    It looks like a neat solution.
    Obviously two 500GB 2.5" Drives are not cheap, so it isn't a cheap solution, but as someone who spends his working days dealing with "Corporate IT" I'm reluctant to spend any more 'leisure time' than is necessary solving failure modes at home!

    Well done Tranquil for consistently supporting & enhancing the WHS platform.

  • David

    one thing i’ve pondering though ….

    would the raid feature on most mobo chipsets provide a similar function?

    something to try when i build my new server

  • Martin Richards

    Hmm, having had the system drive fail on a squash server, I can see the need for this. Not only was the OS re-install a major pain, it of course took out all the MP3s etc! I was severely not impressed…

    (yes I know I should have duplicated those too but what does it matter, you can always re-rip them can't you? Only it takes a LONG time too feed that many CDs into the drive…)