Sep
10
Home Server Expansion
Filed Under Computers, Home Server, Projects
When I built my Home Server, I was building on a very tight budget. As such, I built it with the knowledge that I would be instantly filling up every last bit of it. However, it worked out as a great test to make sure I was happy with the Home Server software and then the time was right to expand my storage pool.
I made the leap and picked up two additional Seagate 1TB drives from ZipZoomFly. I have been incredibly happy with the 1TB perfromance so far, and have zero complaints with the hard drives themselves. The only issue I ran into was ZipZoomFly’s slow delivery time, which now that I have the drives I no longer care as much!
Adding the new drives was a sinch! With my new hot-swappable drive bay I was able to install the hard drives into their cage trays and simply slip the drives into the computer. No taking the system down, no opening the case and messing around inside the system, simply pop the drive in and everything was good to go.
I now have three 1TB drives in the Windows Home Server storage pool, totaling 2.73 TB of formatted space!
I also have two additional 500GB drives that are in the system, however I am not adding them as part of the storage pool. I am torn between using them as either a) a separate drive for storing backups and virtual images, or b) using those drives as system drives when I build two new desktops for Sonja and I.
Both scenarios have their pluses, neither really have a downside. I will have to wait on a final decision for a later date. In the mean time, I have taken a couple of photos of the Windows Home Server dashboard showing my new available drive space!
The first is a photo of the WHS standard Server Storage view. The other two screen shots are WHS Add-In’s, Disk Management and Advanced Admin Console. I have been very happy with both of these add-in’s, and would highly recommend for any WHS system.
