Trying Windows Server 8

[meep]

I'm investigating Windows Server 8 as a potential centralised media storage and playback solution. I've started a blog here that will doubtless include many comparisons to UnRaid that people might be interested in;

 

http://mediaserver8.blogspot.com/

 

I've been using UnRaid for a couple of years now and it's a great system. However, it's got one significant drawback in my particular environment: I cannot achieve my objective of having a single box to manage all media storage & playback.

 

The plug-in architecture of v5 is great and I've got Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, CouchPotato, SqueezeServer & Plex Media Server all running happily. However, the big issues for me are;

 

1. No audio/video playback capabilities

2. Poor virtualization support (required recompile on each version release)

 

I'm fully aware that the above are not in any way features that could be expected from a system like UnRaid - it does its job of providing protected parity storage exceedingly well.

 

However, for me, this means I'm currently running an UnRaid box, an iMac for video playback (Plex) and an old Dell PC serving as whole house audio system.

 

I'm hoping to consolidate everything into one box. Will I be lured to the Dark Side? Time will tell.

 

In any case, I'll be keeping my UnRaid system going but putting it out to grass in an easy retirement acting as storage for archive materials and backups only.

 

Wish me luck!

 

[stephenm00]

Fixed

Edited April 21, 2017 by stephenm00

[meep]

Hi stephenm00

 

1. Interested in Hyper-V virtualization that's available on the server. Also, server supports the new ReFS file system, dedupliction and good monitoring tools.

 

2. Any size discs can be added to any defined storage pool.

 

However, there is a bug reported in Server 8 Beta whereby if any smaller drive in a storage pool fills, the remaining space on other drives becomes unusable/inaccessible.

 

I expect this will be fixed in final release  but for now will be using equally sized drives in pools.

 

I have 5x more 1TB drives in UnRaid at present and will be moving these to the MediaServer once I'm happy that it's stable. (I have several 500GB drives that will find a home in UnRaid system for backups & archive).

[publicENEMY]

interested.

[Rajahal]

Neat!  I'll follow your blog as well, thanks for the announcement!  I too have had the urge to consolidate everything into one box.  If I used my server only for media storage, then I think I would probably go that route.  However, I also use my unRAID server for desktop/laptop backup, photo archiving, business backup, and as a seedbox.  I'm OK with my HTPC going down for a day or two, I can live without TV and movies.  But I'm not OK with all of my backup and archive locations going down at the same time - my work and play need to stay separated, so separate boxes server that purpose better in my case.  Still, I'm very interested to see what you come up with!

[GFOviedo]

Neat!  I'll follow your blog as well, thanks for the announcement!  I too have had the urge to consolidate everything into one box.  If I used my server only for media storage, then I think I would probably go that route.  However, I also use my unRAID server for desktop/laptop backup, photo archiving, business backup, and as a seedbox.  I'm OK with my HTPC going down for a day or two, I can live without TV and movies.  But I'm not OK with all of my backup and archive locations going down at the same time - my work and play need to stay separated, so separate boxes server that purpose better in my case.  Still, I'm very interested to see what you come up with!

 

I concur!

[meep]

I've just completed a series of performance tests where UnRaid running on much older hardware stands up very well to Windows Server 8 Storage Spaces with parity protection.

 

Read all about it here http://mediaserver8.blogspot.com/

[jbrodriguez]

there's a post here, about some windows 8 storage spaces' shortcomings.

 

worth taking a look a it, i guess

[Influencer]

I use to have my media stored on my HTPC, but while I found it to work fine, I HATED working with homegroups, and windows, until now, didn't offer the consolidated solution so planning hard drives and allocation was 90% planning, 8% getting it to work and 4% fixing mistakes(yes that equals 102%, my mama always told me to go big or go home)

 

Not to mention I run my server on low-voltage everything, most of my drives are spun down all the time, I know windows can spin down drives but its much more intuitive on unRAID. Running a HTPC/server, if running 24/7 like my unRAID box is, just uses more power than necessary. It was actually one of the main reasons I built my server.

 

I figured I was sitting here listening to a not-quite silent htpc that although not bothersome to me(2 kids 3 dogs) the sound could probably annoy others, it was pulling unnecessary power for most of the day as it wasn't being used but was still running, the beefy GPU and a dual-core CPU, plus a harddrive running all the time, just didn't seem very efficient to me. Now I didn't get down to the science of things but I know it was using more power than my server is.

 

All that aside, I'm following your blog. I'm interested to see how it all turns out. I personally used Windows 8 preview for about 5 minutes before getting sick of it. I just didn't feel like learning the new UI right now, lol

[meep]

Influencer

 

I share many of your concerns and I'll be doing a power comparison test & post sometime soon.

 

 

[Influencer]

I look forward to it!

[Rajahal]

What's going on here? It looks like Windows Server may be caching the data and writing all data or maybe just parity at the end which is slowing the operation down.

 

unRAID will cache data in RAM whenever possible. I expect Win8 will as well. Since you are using test data that is smaller than the total available RAM in both cases, these caching functions are skewing your results. I would be curious to see what would happen if you repeated these tests using 10 GB test data instead of 1 GB test data.

[opentoe]

there's a post here, about some windows 8 storage spaces' shortcomings.

 

worth taking a look a it, i guess

 

Windows 8 is still in BETA. Not sure why articles made end all decisions on a BETA product. Time will tell, but Windows is certainly going in the right direction.

[Influencer]

Its not really an end all decision. The author simply stated that there were serious architecture flaws, which I would agree with. If total availability is smallest disk times the number of disks, some people could really lose out. Can't add my 500 GB harddrive to the pool because I'll lose 1.5TB from two others. This could possibly be fixed quickly, but then again possibly not.

 

With leaked release dates of Summer for RTM and October for general consumers, thats not a lot of time to fix major issues. I'm not saying I don't like it, I definitely do, I think that it will get better, but flaws are flaws. From the article posted I get the feeling the author just didn't like the storage pool option, which beta or final, that opinion probably won't change.

 

And when I say I like it, I mean I like the storage pool bit, I DO NOT like metro,