Storage Server 2012 best practices? Newbie to larger storage systems.

Question

I have many years managing and planning smaller Windows server environments, however, my non-profit has recently purchased
two StoreEasy 1630 servers and we would like to set them up using best practices for networking and Windows storage technologies. The main goal is to build an infrastructure so we can provide SMB/CIFS services across our campus network to our 500+ end user
workstations, taking into account redundancy, backup and room for growth. The following describes our environment and vision. Any thoughts / guidance / white papers / directions would be appreciated.
Networking
The server closets all have Cisco 1000T switching equipment. What type of networking is desired/required? Do we
need switch-hardware based LACP or will the Windows 2012 nic-teaming options be sufficient across the 4 1000T ports on the Storeasy?
NAS Enclosures
There are 2 StoreEasy 1630 Windows Storage servers. One in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan.
Hard Disk Configuration
Each of the StoreEasy servers has 14 3TB drives for a total RAW storage capacity of 42TB. By default the StoreEasy
servers were configured with 2 RAID 6 arrays with 1 hot standby disk in the first bay. One RAID 6 array is made up of disks 2-8 and is presenting two logical drives to the storage server. There is a 99.99GB OS partition and a 13872.32GB NTFS D: drive.The second
RAID 6 Array resides on Disks 9-14 and is partitioned as one 11177.83 NTFS drive.  
Storage Pooling
In our deployment we would like to build in room for growth by implementing storage pooling that can be later
increased in size when we add additional disk enclosures to the rack. Do we want to create VHDX files on top of the logical NTFS drives? When physical disk enclosures, with disks, are added to the rack and present a logical drive to the OS, would we just create
additional VHDX files on the expansion enclosures and add them to the storage pool? If we do use VHDX virtual disks, what size virtual hard disks should we make? Is there a max capacity? 64TB? Please let us know what the best approach for storage pooling will
be for our environment.
Windows Sharing
We were thinking that we would create a single Share granting all users within the AD FullOrganization User group
read/write permission. Then within this share we were thinking of using NTFS permissioning to create subfolders with different permissions for each departmental group and subgroup. Is this the correct approach or do you suggest a different approach?
DFS
In order to provide high availability and redundancy we would like to use DFS replication on shared folders to
mirror storage01, located in our Brooklyn server closet and storage02, located in our Manhattan server closet. Presently there is a 10TB DFS replication limit in Windows 2012. Is this replicaiton limit per share, or total of all files under DFS. We have been
informed that HP will provide an upgrade to 2012 R2 Storage Server when it becomes available. In the meanwhile, how should we designing our storage and replication strategy around the limits?
Backup Strategy
I read that Windows Server backup can only backup disks up to 2TB in size. We were thinking that we would like
our 2 current StoreEasy servers to backup to each other (to an unreplicated portion of the disk space) nightly until we can purchase a third system for backup. What is the best approach for backup? Should we use Windows Server Backup to be capturing the data
volumes?
Should we use a third party backup software?

Answer 1

Hi,
Sorry for the delay in reply.
I'll try to reply each of your questions. However for the first one, you may have a try to post to Network forum for further information, or contact your device provider (HP) to see if there is any recommendation.
For Storage Pooling:
From your description you would like to create VHDX on RAID6 disks for increasment. It is fine and as you said it is 64TB limited. See:
Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Format Overview
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831446.aspx
Another possiable solution is using Storage Space - new function in Windows Server 2012. See:
Storage Spaces Overview
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831739.aspx
It could add hard disks to a storage pool and creating virtual disks from the pool. You can add disks later to this pool and creating new virtual disks if needed. 
For Windows Sharing
Generally we will have different sharing folders later. Creating all shares in a root folder sounds good but actually we may not able to accomplish. So it actually depends on actual environment.
For DFS replication limitation
I assume the 10TB limitation comes from this link:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/csstwplatform/archive/2009/10/20/what-is-dfs-maximum-size-limit.aspx
I contacted DFSR department about the limitation. Actually DFS-R could replicate more data which do not have an exact limitation. As you can see the article is created in 2009. 
For Backup
As you said there is a backup limitation (2GB - single backup). So if it cannot meet your requirement you will need to find a third party solution.
Backup limitation
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772523.aspx
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