Hi All,
I hope that I'm posting this in the correct place....I'm looking for some guidance/advice from the community regarding my original build. I built my Windows setup five years ago and it's ticked along virtually error-free since I brought it online. The specs are as follows:
i5-2500K 3.3MHz quad core, 6MB cache, 6446 benchmark
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (2x4GB)
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 board
WHS 2011 on 64GB SATA III SSD
Predominantly streaming on gigabit
In retrospect, there are two things that I wish I'd done differently - larger OS SSD and a redundant storage pool - both of which bring me to my current dilemmas/questions:
1. Anyone have experience migrating WHS 2011 to a new SSD (assumedly via restore from backup)? The OS has been a workhorse for me, but I'm not sure if it's temperamental with a migration...."if it ain't broke" is kinda what comes to mind....I am running thin on available storage after adding supporting applications, etc
2. While I'm at it, would moving from WHS 2011 to Windows 10 be a terrible idea? There are two motivating factors (at least in my mind) that lead me to believe that it's not the worst idea in the world. One, WHS 2011 is clearly an end of life product with no reasonably-priced MS replacement. And two, I'm planning on upgrading all of the mechanical drives, as they're pretty well patchwork since I built/expanded capacity shortly after the quakes in The Philippines and Japan (and drives were pricey). That being the case, I'd somewhat start from scratch and build a RAID array (my MB supports it) or a parity pool via Storage Spaces (if I transitioned to W10). I'm a bit reluctant to utilize the RAID functionality on the MB since it too is retired, and I'm concerned that I may not be able to access the array if I lost the MB. I could obviously add a RAID card. My understanding with Storage Spaces in W10 is that, while I'll sacrifice performance, I'd be able to access the drive contents on a new system if I have a system crash. One additional detail is that I really only use this "server" to serve media to around the house....meaning, I'm not too concerned about retiring a server OS for a desktop OS given my needs.
3. A final question that's somewhat unrelated to the previous two - would I see any appreciable gains moving to 16GB RAM? When I'm serving, it's almost always a single stream (that's possibly transcoded) and never more than high-bitrate 1080p.
Thanks!
J
I hope that I'm posting this in the correct place....I'm looking for some guidance/advice from the community regarding my original build. I built my Windows setup five years ago and it's ticked along virtually error-free since I brought it online. The specs are as follows:
i5-2500K 3.3MHz quad core, 6MB cache, 6446 benchmark
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (2x4GB)
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 board
WHS 2011 on 64GB SATA III SSD
Predominantly streaming on gigabit
In retrospect, there are two things that I wish I'd done differently - larger OS SSD and a redundant storage pool - both of which bring me to my current dilemmas/questions:
1. Anyone have experience migrating WHS 2011 to a new SSD (assumedly via restore from backup)? The OS has been a workhorse for me, but I'm not sure if it's temperamental with a migration...."if it ain't broke" is kinda what comes to mind....I am running thin on available storage after adding supporting applications, etc
2. While I'm at it, would moving from WHS 2011 to Windows 10 be a terrible idea? There are two motivating factors (at least in my mind) that lead me to believe that it's not the worst idea in the world. One, WHS 2011 is clearly an end of life product with no reasonably-priced MS replacement. And two, I'm planning on upgrading all of the mechanical drives, as they're pretty well patchwork since I built/expanded capacity shortly after the quakes in The Philippines and Japan (and drives were pricey). That being the case, I'd somewhat start from scratch and build a RAID array (my MB supports it) or a parity pool via Storage Spaces (if I transitioned to W10). I'm a bit reluctant to utilize the RAID functionality on the MB since it too is retired, and I'm concerned that I may not be able to access the array if I lost the MB. I could obviously add a RAID card. My understanding with Storage Spaces in W10 is that, while I'll sacrifice performance, I'd be able to access the drive contents on a new system if I have a system crash. One additional detail is that I really only use this "server" to serve media to around the house....meaning, I'm not too concerned about retiring a server OS for a desktop OS given my needs.
3. A final question that's somewhat unrelated to the previous two - would I see any appreciable gains moving to 16GB RAM? When I'm serving, it's almost always a single stream (that's possibly transcoded) and never more than high-bitrate 1080p.
Thanks!
J
