Windows Home Server experts?

[undesign]

Any Windows Home Server experts around?

I've just setup my HP Microserver, primarily for media storage (photos, music, videos) and streaming to a few devices in the house. So far everything has gone smoothly - installation, seeing PC etc. I'm starting to hit the n00b-wall though with the more detailed setup and planning.

I've added two 2TB drives - one for media storage, the other one to run as a simple duplicated backup of the first. Nothing fancy, if it copies any new data once a day I'm happy. For now I've decided to stay away from RAID, the inbuilt server backup, mirroring etc. Just want a simple automated copy from one drive to another option. Can I install something like SyncbackSE on WHS to achieve this?

The more I read the more confused I become.

Thanks!

 

[russellO]

You can use Microsofts own SyncToy 2.1 to sync files/folders.

Why don't you try something like FlexRAID? "FlexRAID is a highly scalable and smart storage system that turns independent hard drives of various sizes, makes, and models into storage pools and storage pools into storage clouds."

It does not stripe data across drives so you can pull out any media drive and pop it into another PC and be able to access the data on it. It uses a parity drive to rebuild data if a drive crashes. So in your case, 1 drive is the parity drive and 1 the media drive. You can easily add another drive without changing anything or losing data.

I haven't tried it yet because I need some $$$ to buy another drive for parity.

 

[undesign]

Thanks, will give it a go.