This might seem redundant, but I want to make sure I understand. I want to have redundancy on my WHS. My current plan is to have two 750 gb hard drives. Should I add a third for the OS, stores on the second drive, and backs up on the third?
WHS doesn't "back itself up" anywhere. All Folder Duplication does is it stores all files in that duplicated share on 2 different physical hard drives (so if one drive fails, you still have your file on another hard drive). As Ken said, WHS determines on which drive(s) it stores files. It will store files on any drive (including the primary drive, when necessary).
If I have no control over where it stores the files, will it create backups on a different drive?
Again, it doesn't create "backups" of data stored on the server. It creates duplicates of files that are in a share with Folder Duplication enabled.
My main purpose is to have WHS configured in a way that if one hard drive goes bad, I can replace, and not lose anything. Can you suggest a configuration?
If raid isn't supported, and we can't choose the location, can you explain how WHS determines back up location. I really wanted to move all or most of my storage off of my desktops, and have them stored primarily on WHS and backed up there also. Am I looking at this wrong? Is WHS only good for backing up my desktops, and not capable of backing up itself?
That is correct. WHS does not backup itself. I think the problem here is that you need to understand that "backups" and Folder Duplication, while similar in concept, are not the same.
If so that seems like a waste of a good opportunity. I would like to keep my desktop clean except for programs, and a few currently used files. No long term storage.
Thank you or your assistance. I know this is probalby covered elsewhere in the forum. I have been spending many hours searching the forums and reading documentation. There is a lot of info here, and everytime I think I have something figured out, I read a post that just confuses me again.
****UPDATE: I just found this in an earlier post by Ken. I guess I was getting confused by the differences between the first release, and the changes made in SP1. Here was his suggestion to another person. "If I were building a server from scratch today, I would buy a 500 GB drive and two 1 or 1.5 TB drives (whatever gives the best price per GB at the e-tailer I buy from). I would use the 500 GB drive as the system drive, and the larger drives as secondary drives in the storage pool." He also stated that WHS now transfers data directly to the first drive in the storage pool, not to the primary system drive, if I understood him correctly. I assume, that file backup could be set, and that would go to the second drive in the storage pool?
This seems like what I am wanting to do. If this is still a good suggested configuration, I will get a third smaller (500GB?) drive for the system drive.
You can have your drive configuration however you like (as long as your primary drive is at least 80 GB). I have a 400 GB as my primary drive and a 500 GB and a 1.5 TB as my secondary drives.
