Windows - Home Server 2011

[Guest]

Hi, so I am planning to do a server build with this OS and I noticed some of the requirements/limitations on the wiki page and I have a few questions about them. So it says 8 GB of RAM maximum, so does that mean if I install it on a system that has lets say... 16GB of RAM, it will only use 8GB of that 16GB with initialization or will it just not let me install the OS? Would the system break in some way? 

[Dautin]

It would only recognize 8 GB of the RAM.  

[GalacticRuler]

It will only use 8GB of your RAM. Nothing will break. You'll just be wasting RAM.

[Guest]

I guess two stick of 4 GB RAM will do the trick then. Anyone know the best ECC memory on the market at the moment? I heard Hyper X or something might have something, but that was a long time ago. 

[GalacticRuler]

How about this? http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-12800-Unbuffered-240-Pin-CT102472BA160B/dp/B006YG8ZNI/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1447029603&sr=1-2&keywords=ecc+ram

[Guest]

How about this? http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-12800-Unbuffered-240-Pin-CT102472BA160B/dp/B006YG8ZNI/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1447029603&sr=1-2&keywords=ecc+ram

I was told dual channel is better

[GalacticRuler]

Even cheaper. http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-DDR3-1600-PC3-12800-CT2KIT51264BA160B-CT2CP51264BA160B/dp/B00683X4PQ/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1447029854&sr=1-8&keywords=ecc+ram

[MuffinTopMike]

Home Server 2011 was great, but it is becoming a little outdated. The 8gb of RAM limit and you can't use drives larger than 2tb, to be honest it would be best to use Windows 10 and just install some software for network backups or whatever.

[Guest]

Home Server 2011 was great, but it is becoming a little outdated. The 8gb of RAM limit and you can't use drives larger than 2tb, to be honest it would be best to use Windows 10 and just install some software for network backups or whatever.

Yeah the RAM limitation is horrible. I can still use 2 TB drives though right? I'm thinking about adding another Ubuntu server, this one is just for testing and some other stuff

[MuffinTopMike]

Yeah the RAM limitation is horrible. I can still use 2 TB drives though right? I'm thinking about adding another Ubuntu server, this one is just for testing and some other stuff

Yes, you can use drives up to 2tb, but anything over that will need to be split into partitions.

[Guest]

Yes, you can use drives up to 2tb, but anything over that will need to be split into partitions.

Is that for the OS or is that for storage or?... I'm planning on using a RAID array for storage 

[MuffinTopMike]

Is that for the OS or is that for storage or?... I'm planning on using a RAID array for storage 

I'm pretty sure that is for both. Unlike newer versions of Windows that use the VXHD format, which allows them to use drives up to 16TB, due to its age, it still uses the VHD format, which can only support drives up to 2TB. So if you connect a 3TB drive to WHS 2011, it will split it into a 1TB and 2TB partition. You should still be able to use it but it doesn't look very clean having all these drives split up.

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure that is for both. Unlike newer versions of Windows that use the VXHD format, which allows them to use drives up to 16TB, due to its age, it still uses the VHD format, which can only support drives up to 2TB. So if you connect a 3TB drive to WHS 2011, it will split it into a 1TB and 2TB partition. You should still be able to use it but it doesn't look very clean having all these drives split up.

Very interesting... so for this VHD format, when did it come to an end? Is it still being used? When did they start using the new format? What versions are using the new format? 

[MuffinTopMike]

Very interesting... so for this VHD format, when did it come to an end? Is it still being used? When did they start using the new format? What versions are using the new format? 

Its not being used anymore, they replaced the old format with the introduction of Windows 8. Any versions of Windows since W8 would be using VXHD.

[Guest]

Its not being used anymore, they replaced the old format with the introduction of Windows 8. Any versions of Windows since W8 would be using VXHD.

Thank you so much for your help

[Guest]

Its not being used anymore, they replaced the old format with the introduction of Windows 8. Any versions of Windows since W8 would be using VXHD.

Does Windows 7 the main OS, not a server OS support 4 TB drives without splitting them up?

[MuffinTopMike]

Does Windows 7 the main OS, not a server OS support 4 TB drives without splitting them up?

It is kind of tricky, if you just plug in the drive then it won't work, it will recognise it as 2 x 2TB drives. However, you can format the disk in disk management as a GPT partition then it will work as one 4TB drive. But, to make use of GPT, you will need a the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and a UEFI Bios.  

[Guest]

It is kind of tricky, if you just plug in the drive then it won't work, it will recognise it as 2 x 2TB drives. However, you can format the disk in disk management as a GPT partition then it will work as one 4TB drive. But, to make use of GPT, you will need a the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and a UEFI Bios.  

So Windows 7, the non server OS, still uses the old format, VHD?

[Guest]

It is kind of tricky, if you just plug in the drive then it won't work, it will recognise it as 2 x 2TB drives. However, you can format the disk in disk management as a GPT partition then it will work as one 4TB drive. But, to make use of GPT, you will need a the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and a UEFI Bios.  

Is there a limit to what Windows 8 can handle with this new format? 

[MuffinTopMike]

So Windows 7, the non server OS, still uses the old format, VHD?

Yes, but through GPT partitioning, it is able to get around this issue and still use drives larger than 2TB. However, WHS 2011 had some big issues regarding GPT support which was pretty controversial at the time.

 

Is there a limit to what Windows 8 can handle with this new format? 

The limitation for VXHD is 16TB, but using GPT partitioning, the limit is something like 9.4 Zettabytes or 1 trillion gigabytes.