Ditching Windows Home Server and Moving to Amahi HDA Solutio

[hassanally]

Hi All,

Firstly, congratulations on an excellent product, and congratulations on the updated Amahi 5.0 running on Fedora 12 - Much Kudos and Great Work!!

Second, I'm current a Windows Home Server user, though this weekend I decided to ditch the WHS platform and move over to a Linux based Home Server - Google then pointed me to Amahi and so here I am.

Though my decision to move over is confirmed; in terms of configuration, I have a couple of questions with regard to my specific setup that I'd appreciate if someone could shed some extra light on:

1/ My server is a Core 2 Dua T7200 with 2GB RAM and a 1TB Internal SATA-II Drive. I know the machine supports Linux without any problem, so that's cool. I also have about 4 to 5 external USB drivers - ranging from 250GB to 1.5TB.

While I am a software engineer by trade, I do a lot of work in production media, and as a result have a large amount of files that I store - primarily DV and HDV recordings from various productions that I do editing and graphical work for.

Previously on my WHS I had what essentially looked like a massive 5TB setup and the various shares which I could use from a single storage pool. A big advantage was that I could easily add more storage to the WHS, simply add a drive and add it to the storage pool using the WHS Console Application.

Now, I appreciate that LVM on Linux allows me to do something like this, but I've seen mixed responses regarding LVM, can someone please advise me on whether using LVM would be a sensible solution, as in my understanding I can add extra storage to that quite easily (though some instructions would be appreciated).

I could possibly use the non-LVM solution, but that would mean a lot of "drives" or various mount points that I'd have to carefully manage, with the LVM and Easily Expanded Storage that it offers, I feel that'd be easier.

Are there any pitfalls or problems with regard to LVM and Amahi that I should be aware of before I do my fresh build - or is it a pretty straightforward process?

I appreciate the development team are busy; but I would really appreciate some assistance in this regard.

2/ I've heard and read that the Windows 7 Libraries cannot use the Samba Shares that Amahi exposes; is this still the case with Fedora 12 or has this been resolved. This isn't a significant issue from my part; but it would be nice to have the remote Amahi storage available and searchable in my Win 7 Libraries.

Finally; no matter what anyone says; Amahi is an excellent venture, and one I am glad to be a part of now, I feel it is a project that should be supported and in light of that, I will be making up some installation videos that will perhaps assist a newbie once I have got my Amahi HDA up and running.

Warm Regards and Kudos to all involved.

Shabbir

[Khelmar]

Are there any pitfalls or problems with regard to LVM and Amahi that I should be aware of before I do my fresh build - or is it a pretty straightforward process?

Fedora 12 automatically sets up LVM, so it's really easy to start. The only pitfall is that if one of the drives falls out of the volume (i.e., gets damaged), the system may be unable to boot in the future. I don't know about managing LVMs after set up, but I did have one die after a 1Tb external drive fell on the floor and broke.

[moredruid]

for an LVM tutorial lookie here:
http://moredruid.org/tiki-index.php?page=LVM+in+linux

I hope you're not planning on using the USB disks in LVM because the drive order may change on boot (and if you store something precious on it it will, ruining your data ofcourse).

Regarding the mixed responses on LVM... hmm I guess the complexity (at first glance) puts people off. Regarding reliability etc. I wouldn't hesitate, it's the only thing we use here in an enterprise environment (read: ~650 servers - Sun/Linux/HP-UX).
I use it personally just because of the flexibility it offers, although it's currently giving me lots of headaches @ work (mirrored logical volumes over 2 clusternodes)

[hassanally]

for an LVM tutorial lookie here:
http://moredruid.org/tiki-index.php?page=LVM+in+linux

I hope you're not planning on using the USB disks in LVM because the drive order may change on boot (and if you store something precious on it it will, ruining your data ofcourse).

Hi moredruid;

Thanks for the tutorial link, much appreciated

I didn't realise that using LVM with External USB drivers is a big no-no. However, the drives will remain connected to the same USB ports - wouldn't that ensure that the drive order remains the same? (sorry a bit of Linux Newbie in this regard).

Look forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards,

Shabbir

[moredruid]

hassanally,

no there is no hard guarantee that that is sufficient, and since we're talking data (lifeblood) you need that hard guarantee.
It might be possible by enumerating devices by hand in udev by UUID, but still I'd recommend very much against it.

for LVM the drives would need to be powered on continuously anyway so there's no real benefit to using USB wrt power consumption.
You can't unplug a disk and use it on another system either since data may be "fragmented" (spanned) across 2 disks.

So if you want the flexibility to move your disks around LVM is not an option for you.

Just shoot if you have other questions

[hassanally]

hassanally,

no there is no hard guarantee that that is sufficient, and since we're talking data (lifeblood) you need that hard guarantee.
It might be possible by enumerating devices by hand in udev by UUID, but still I'd recommend very much against it.

for LVM the drives would need to be powered on continuously anyway so there's no real benefit to using USB wrt power consumption.
You can't unplug a disk and use it on another system either since data may be "fragmented" (spanned) across 2 disks.

So if you want the flexibility to move your disks around LVM is not an option for you.

Just shoot if you have other questions

Hi

Thanks for that excellent advice; you're right - data is tooooo important to mess with - one of my (many) reasons for moving away from Windows Home Server.

I'll avoid LVM; and instead just use the USB drives as regular USB drives - mounting them strategically to make my life easier

Much appreciated

Also - congratulations to the entire Amahi Team on the 5.0 Release - Awesome

Warm Regards,

Shabbir