Storage

SBS System drives running out of space

by

I have seen this issue more and more lately…don’t get me wrong, Windows SBS is a perfect solution for smaller businesses that can’t afford a more robust infrastructure…however – the nature of Small Business Server can be its downfall: all applications and core services running on a single server. Thus the problem: a SBS system drive tends to run out of space quick. Consider the following applications\services running on a single box: Active Directory Domain … Read more…

ESX PSOD – Can’t Access TTY

by

It’s not a good day when an ESX host goes down…thankfully HA brought the VMs back up on another host, but still. Then when the host doesn’t boot back up after…it gets worse. Turns out there was an issue with the storage controller for the local drives – had to load the foreign config and bring the array healthy again. That worked successfully – and ESX started to boot…then I was greeted with this screen: …stuck in busybox. … Read more…

Data ONTAP Simulator on Hyper-V R2

by

Prior to updating to Server 2008 R2, I had a 1.0 VM running the Data ONTAP Simulator. I had never rebuilt or restored it after the host upgrade, so I figured I would give it a shot. I still had the old VHD – but there was a problem – there was also a snapshot, and I had no idea if it was current, or what. After I created the new VM and added the … Read more…

Fine Tuning Media Center 7 – Media Storage

by

There are several ways to create a media ‘store’ with an HTPC- Store everything on a single local drive (this drive will also hold the OS) Store everything on a network share Store everything on a second local drive Store everything on an external USB\eSATA drive I think the last 2 options provide the easiest and best solutions – especially for large amounts of media. The problem with storing everything on a single local drive, and … Read more…

Changing from IDE Emulation to AHCI

by

Recently, the second [Media only] hard drive in my HTPC started to fail – my Wife heard lots of good old clicking coming from it. So I checked the SMART status – which reported OK, but there was clearly something wrong with the drive. I also happened to be looking in the BIOS just to make sure everything was OK, and I noticed that all of the SATA ports were set for IDE emulation mode! … Read more…