NAS vs WHS

[mookydudz]

What are the benefits of using WHS over a multi bay NAS that can handle torrents & Raid?

It was a question I got asked by a bloke at work and all I could say was it is a good file server & does scheduled backups of the laptops.

Are you using WHS as a file server/NAS or does it do some funky stuff I don't know about?

Thanks

[elootos]

(03-20-2010 11:35 PM)mookydudz Wrote:  What are the benefits of using WHS over a multi bay NAS that can handle torrents & Raid?

It was a question I got asked by a bloke at work and all I could say was it is a good file server & does scheduled backups of the laptops.

Are you using WHS as a file server/NAS or does it do some funky stuff I don't know about?

Thanks

For me the WHS pros and cons are:

Pros

• Lots of Add-ins such as Lights Out and My Movies allow an 'intelligent' server
• Can take more drives (of varying interfaces) allowing larger server storage
• Windows Media Center integration with automated RecordedTV archival (best feature!), music and photo library integration etc
• Other features such as client PC backups etc
  

Cons

• Cost
• Energy efficiency (not as low-energy as a NAS)
• Size (needs a full size PC really to take advantage of the 'many drives' ability)
• hassle if you build your own to get the right hardware to make it stable
• yet another PC to manage (NAS is more fit 'n forget)
  

[mookydudz]

Thanks for the low-down on WHS. I've downloaded a demo copy from microsoft to try it out as next month i'll be buying either WHS or a multi bay nas.

I really like the idea of MyMovies & will look to try some 'scraper' types of software like XBMC utilises.

[tonyc]

(03-21-2010 04:14 PM)mookydudz Wrote:  Thanks for the low-down on WHS. I've downloaded a demo copy from microsoft to try it out as next month i'll be buying either WHS or a multi bay nas.

I really like the idea of MyMovies & will look to try some 'scraper' types of software like XBMC utilises.

I'd check through the WHS post by Elootos again as I seem to remember him having some big issues with the trial version of this software before he purchased the full version.

[elootos]

(03-22-2010 04:50 PM)tonyc Wrote:  I'd check through the WHS post by Elootos again as I seem to remember him having some big issues with the trial version of this software before he purchased the full version.

Ha, I'd almost forgotten all about my horrible times with the Home Server trial!

Anyway, on the back of that I did create a WHS tips thread here.

[PhilH]

I use what probably counts as some sort of halfway house between the two in that I use clarkconnect (which is now called something else). This is a linux distro which can do about a zillion things, but in its most basic form works fine as a NAS and is free. It can do scheduled backups and stuff but I've never got round to setting anything else up. The only drawback is that if I do change to WHS it's going to be really hard to do it because the drives are now formatted for linux and so I will probably have to build the replacement server with new drives, then move the data across, then reformat and move the hard drives - that must count as hard work in anyone's book....

[elootos]

(03-25-2010 05:03 PM)PhilH Wrote:  I use what probably counts as some sort of halfway house between the two in that I use clarkconnect (which is now called something else). This is a linux distro which can do about a zillion things, but in its most basic form works fine as a NAS and is free. It can do scheduled backups and stuff but I've never got round to setting anything else up. The only drawback is that if I do change to WHS it's going to be really hard to do it because the drives are now formatted for linux and so I will probably have to build the replacement server with new drives, then move the data across, then reformat and move the hard drives - that must count as hard work in anyone's book....

A WHS is well worth the hassle if Windows Media Center is your software of choice on your clients. I feel your quandry in shifting all the data. I think I moved about 20Tb of the bloody stuff in setting up my 3Tb WHS! (which is now rocking on 5Tb across 6 drives ) Back and forth, back and forth... And sometimes across a 10Mb/s network, urgh.