Windows Home Server

thewireguy

Active Member
I just got my server up and running last night. This product is very very cool I would like everyone you share there ideas and experience with it. If you don't know what it is here are some links. This is the perfect platform for software automation!!!!


Link to Hp Media Server demo


web site with more info on Windows Home Server


Back up All of you home computers everyday automatically

Your own web site connect to your Home Server and upload/download files anywhere in the world.

No more drive letters add new hard drives to the system at anytime. (watch Hp video for my info)

Share your media content to all of you computers and extenders!

Tell me what you think!!!!!!!
 
I was part of the beta testing team, and while it had some nice features, I can't imagine running a dedicated PC for just a file server. Now that companies are starting to develop plugins for this platform, it has some promise, but I am still not convinced.
 
Does anyone really think this is a new idea??
I've had a pc as a file / media / ftp server for many years now.
 
Frun, well no, its not a new idea for file servers, but for home use and non IT people its a new offering. it sounds like you have IT experience and KNOW what a file server is. most dont. at least on the home front. I have no idea if the new home server is for he average joe to figure out, havent played with it.

most home folks, not referring to anyone here of course, barely know more than how to turn a pc on let alone know what a file server does. :)
 
I recently rebuilt my main file server running Windows Server 2003 with Windows Home Server. This server pushes media throughout my house.

While I like many of the features of WHS, I don't think it's built-in "RAID-like" functionality is a good fit for me. I instead installed it on top of my existing hardware RAID5 array.

I like the built-in easy to use web server for sharing photos and videos, also remote access to files, workstation backup functionality, etc.

I'm hoping we'll see some cool plug-ins soon, especially to help integrate with MediaCenter PCs on the network.
 
I've been using a Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 in my home for about 4 years. I have 6 in my family and about that many computers. Anyone in the family can login to any of the computers and have their My Documents and email available to them.

WHS is built on the SBS 2003 platform but it doesn't include Exchange, which would be a deal killer for me if I didn't already have a SBS. The Exchange feature of my SBS is probably the most valued feature of my home server. With Exchange, my Outlook inbox, calendar, and all other Outlook features are portable to whatever computer I'm logged into.

I understand why MS didn't include Exchange into the WHS, e.g., it would be too much like SBS but a lot cheaper. But I think they should have included at least a watered down version of Exchange.
 
It took me FOREVER to get the wife to a digital camera... she is actually using it now.
One day she brings up the fact that if our computer dies all the pictures are gone... also I took all of our family videos and put them on a external drive. I got the movies seperated and all but in raw format so 1hr maybe 12-18gb!!!!!!
so I havent made dvds out of them yet and dont know if I ever will...

anyway...
I bought a hp proliant ml570g2 server
2gb (6x512mb with 2 slots free and 1 more memory card slot available) ram
4xp4 2.5ghz xeon MP CPUs (HyperThreading)
Gigabit NICs
3x73gb ultra320 hot swap drives in raid 5 on a array 642 controller with 128mb cache
3x146gb ultra320 hot swap drives in raid 5 on a array 642 controller with 128mb cache

This server runs
Server 2003
Homeseer
1 wire
Active Directory
DNS
DHCP
PXE Server - can boot clients via pxe and unattend install of xp on any desktop - also image up or down... it is SOOOO SAWEET!!!
File Server
Print Server


this server is storing all of our data...
Wifes My Docs for college
our ms money files
and whatever else I need to put on it.
The server has 6 more drive bays free where I can put more in so I have plenty of room for growth....

The only drawback I have is that this sucker is LOUD!!!
I can lay in bed on a quiet night and hear the fans faintly... however if the bedroom ceiling fan is on you cant hear it so to me that is minimal noise...
server is in the basement and my bedroom is right above it on the second floor!!!!

7U server looks like this less 3 drives on each cage...
 

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I was part of the beta testing team, and while it had some nice features, I can't imagine running a dedicated PC for just a file server. Now that companies are starting to develop plugins for this platform, it has some promise, but I am still not convinced.

The idea works nicely for me...since I can just use it as my CQC master server, which always has to be running anyway.
 
I'm resurrecting this thread because I've been out of town and it's finally something I can talk about.

I've been running WHS for a couple of months now on my media server and I really like it. I was running a RAID5 array before but even with online capacity expansion, I quickly ran into a problem where my 300gb drives that initially were pretty large weren't nearly large enough and not worth purchasing.

What I dig about WHS was that I was able to go and grab a 750gb external hard drive, add it to the array, copy all my data over to it then add each of my 300gb drives. Now, whenever I need to add more space it's just a matter of picking up whatever drive happens to be the best option at the time with no regard to drive size or type.

Having said that, their duplication scheme flat out sucks. It's not a problem for pictures, documents, even a bunch of mp3 files but because it's a 1:1 copy when you have duplication enabled large files can quickly fill your array at an absurd rate.

Even so, I'm going to stick with WHS because it's simple and easy and for me, since I have hard copies of all my DVDs, if I lose a drive that contains some of my movies it's not big deal.
 
If reliable storage is all you want, you are better off investing in a drobo unit. It is expensive ($499), but check out the video, it's pretty impressive.
 
What I dig about WHS was that I was able to go and grab a 750gb external hard drive, add it to the array, copy all my data over to it then add each of my 300gb drives. Now, whenever I need to add more space it's just a matter of picking up whatever drive happens to be the best option at the time with no regard to drive size or type.

Having said that, their duplication scheme flat out sucks. It's not a problem for pictures, documents, even a bunch of mp3 files but because it's a 1:1 copy when you have duplication enabled large files can quickly fill your array at an absurd rate.

I agree that the native WHS redundancy is better than nothing, and it's great for people that can't manage their shares well that you don't have to worry about drive letters anymore and can simply add drives to the pool, but I think it's still sorely lacking.

There's no redundancy on the C: drive, so if that disk fails you need to do a reinstall/rebuild from DVD. Also, while you're correct that it's not the end of the world if you lose a hard disk full of movies, it sure is a big waste of time to re-rip 300GB full of DVDs. And enabling duplication on that 300GB is a huge waste of space.

I don't think you should have to pick and choose what is important to you. The entire system is.

Personally, I'm still a fan of good old hardware RAID5, with a hot spare if you've got the room.
 
Also Linux has had offerings to do all of this for ages, for the cost of hardware.

Now that SageTV also has a Linux backend it would be nice to see a home automation system as well.

This would be nice for CQC as running on Linux would really be better all around but also loosing the M$ license fees offsets the software package's pricetag.


There just isn't much need for Microsoft on backend systems, it'll work but it'll hit your wallet first. Aside from all of the security issues.
 
Also Linux has had offerings to do all of this for ages, for the cost of hardware.

Microsoft/Windows has as well. WHS is simply about putting it all together for a reasonable cost.

I realize not everyone is going to spend $400 on a hardware-based RAID5 controller, most people running WHS aren't like me.

I like WHS, I'm running it. I just don't like their storage model - it doesn't fit my needs.
 
Seriously, check out that drobo video :( As for the linux platform, I ran FreeNAS for a while, it's a really cool CD based distribution that turns any pc (old or new) into a nice storage controller.
 
Seriously, check out that drobo video :( As for the linux platform, I ran FreeNAS for a while, it's a really cool CD based distribution that turns any pc (old or new) into a nice storage controller.

I've seen the Drobo, pretty cool. I wish it had an ethernet port however.

I also need more than simply storage - I need a Windows-based server.
 
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