Amahi Server Storage: Upgrade & Management Guide
Managing Your Amahi Server: Drives, Shares, and Storage
Having successfully installed the open-source Amahi server as a free upgrade from Windows Home Server, the next step involves effective management of your system’s resources.
Drive Management
Understanding how your drives are handled is crucial for optimal performance. Amahi provides a user-friendly interface for monitoring drive health and capacity.
You can view detailed information about each connected drive, including its model, size, and current status. This allows for proactive identification of potential issues.
Share Configuration
Creating and managing shares is essential for accessing your files across your network. Amahi simplifies this process with intuitive controls.
Shares define which folders are accessible to different users or groups. Permissions can be customized to ensure data security and privacy.
- To create a new share, navigate to the Shares section within the Amahi web interface.
- Specify the folder you wish to share and assign appropriate access rights.
- Consider using different shares for various types of data to maintain organization.
Storage Pool Administration
The storage pool aggregates the capacity of your drives, providing a unified storage space. Efficient management of this pool is key to maximizing storage utilization.
Amahi allows you to expand the storage pool by adding new drives as needed. It also supports various RAID configurations for data redundancy and improved performance.
Regularly monitoring the storage pool’s health ensures data integrity and prevents potential data loss. The system will alert you to any detected issues.
Through the Amahi interface, you can easily adjust the storage pool settings to meet your evolving needs. This includes modifying RAID levels and allocating space to different shares.
Expanding Storage Capacity: Adding a Hard Drive
The initial phase of increasing your storage involves the physical addition of drives. Begin by powering down the server completely, then connect the new hard drives you intend to utilize.
It will be necessary to format the newly installed drive. Therefore, ensure a backup of any critical data is completed beforehand.
Once the hardware is prepared, power on the Amahi server. Access the server remotely using an SSH connection from another computer.
If a dedicated SSH client isn't available, the Anyterm application, found within the Amahi repository, provides a convenient alternative.
To facilitate mounting and formatting, install a set of essential tools. Execute the following command with root privileges:
yum -y install pmount fuse fuse-libs ntfs-3g gparted util-linux-ng
Verify that the system has recognized the new hard drive by running this command:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ | egrep -v "part|scsi"
Look for entries beginning with "ata-", which indicate IDE or SATA drives. Entries starting with "usb-" denote USB hard drives. Note the portion following "-> ../../sd", as this corresponds to the drive letter within the /dev/sdX directory.
With the drive letter identified, launch the cfdisk utility from the terminal as root, specifying the new drive as its sole argument.
Confirm that you are selecting the correct new drive, avoiding any existing drives containing valuable data. All data on the selected drive will be erased during the subsequent formatting process.
Assuming a configuration with only two hard drives, the first is typically designated as /dev/sda, while the second is /dev/sdb.
For instance, to launch cfdisk, use the following command:
cfdisk /dev/sdb
If partitions already exist on the drive, use the up and down arrow keys to select them, and then use the left and right arrow keys to choose the 'Delete' action.
After removing all existing partitions, select 'New' to create a new partition, and then 'Write' to apply the new partition table to the drive.
Exit cfdisk once these actions are completed. Then, execute the following command, replacing 'sdX' with your drive letter.
mkfs.ext4 -j /dev/sdX1
The drive now has a newly formatted partition, ready for use. Run the command
hda-diskmount
with root privileges to automatically mount the new partition.
The hda-diskmount command will also provide the necessary line to add to /etc/fstab for automatic mounting upon server startup.
Use a text editor like nano, with root privileges, to edit the fstab file:
nano /etc/fstab
Append the line suggested by the hda-diskmount command to the end of the file.
Finally, reboot the system. After the server restarts, access the web panel to confirm that the hard drive is successfully mounted.
Storage Pool Management
Following the formatting and mounting of the hard drive, navigate to the configuration page of your Hard Disk Array (HDA). Access the settings section and enable the option for advanced configurations.
This will unlock further customization options for your storage setup.
Adding a Drive to the Pool
Proceed to the "Shares" section, then select the "Storage Pool" tab. Locate your newly added hard drive and activate the checkbox to incorporate it into the Greyhole pool.
Selecting this option integrates the drive into the pooled storage system.
Benefits of Pooled Storage
To fully realize the advantages of pooled storage, it is necessary to include multiple hard drives within the pool. Should you desire to expand your storage capacity and redundancy, replicate the aforementioned procedures for each additional drive connected to your HDA.
Subsequently, these drives can be collectively managed through this interface.
- Adding multiple drives enhances the overall performance and reliability of the storage pool.
- Pooled storage allows for efficient utilization of disk space.
- Data is distributed across multiple drives, providing a degree of fault tolerance.
Greyhole provides a robust solution for managing and expanding your storage capabilities. Proper configuration of the storage pool is essential for optimal performance and data security.
Establishing Network Shares
With increased storage capacity achieved through pooling, navigate to the "Shares" section by clicking the "Shares -> Shares" tab. Initiate the creation of a new share by selecting the "New Share" option.
Assign a descriptive name to the share and specify whether access should be read-only and publicly visible, as needed.
Following share creation, access the editing interface by clicking the edit icon adjacent to the share’s name. Enable the utilization of the storage pool by checking the corresponding box.
Should your pool incorporate multiple hard drives, you can define the redundancy level by choosing the number of file copies to maintain, safeguarding against potential drive failures.
For comprehensive details or advanced configuration options concerning your storage setup, consult the official Amahi wiki resources.
Refer to the Amahi wiki for guidance on: Adding a Second Hard Drive.
Further information regarding Storage Pooling is also available on the Amahi wiki.