Windows Home Server

[elootos]

Yes, I may be jumping on the bandwagon a few years late, but I attempted an install last night of Windows Home Server (WHS) on my old office PC.

With luck it only took a few minutes to get the system up and ready for install as it was sitting there in the loft prepped for use already (I must have known!).



Anyway, the PC is: P4 2.6Ghz, 1Gb RAM,160Gb HDD and Gigabit ethernet. The case is plenty big enough for as many other internal drives as I like, and the motherboard (Asus P4P800) has 8 USB ports so it's good to go for my 5 external drives as well. ( I think I may butcher my 1Gb external Lacie drive apart as it has 2 x 500Gb inside it and I'll use them for internal drives instead).

The only thing I may upgrade is the PSU as it's an old 250W from the PC case that I used for the kitchen PC. It's not just that it may lack power for all the drives, but also that it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in its stability. Plus I think I'll need a PCI SATA card to give me more ports.





In my absolute stupidity though, I ejected the DVD after it's first reboot during install and then I had a 'storage error' and the installation stopped. I was left with a basic XP shell (well, Windows Server) and thought, 'is that it?'. I proceeded to mess around with the system then thought, 'why don't I reboot with the DVD back in', and mercifully it restarted its install again. But of course the changes I'd made (stopping firewall service, formatting spare drive partitions etc) were all things that it was attempting to do anyway during it's automated install, so it kept crashing, d'oh! RTFM :idea:

So the lesson learnt is: let the install finish with the disc in the drive!


I managed to get it going enough to see what it works like and it's quite interesting; it's designed to be used only as a remote terminal via another PC on the network and I think it will be of some use to me, especially if I can consolidate all the RecordedTV from across my 3 Media Centers. I got into it this morning on the kitchen PC and I'll be playing with it a bit more over the next week once I reinstall it again this evening. Plus I've downloaded the Power Pack 3 beta so I'll see if that will install on this evaluation version.

[John180]

I think the windows home server is a good idea - i take there are some good wizards to set up the shares etc?
how does it fair with pcs that are not running windows 7?

[elootos]

I hadn't read anything about WHS before messing about with it, but I'm quite impressed. It is really just a fancy network storage ('Server' being the giveaway!), but with the addins that are available and the new Power Pack 3 that archives (and can compress down) RecordedTV from across all your PCs, it has some nice features that tie my systems together.

As for other OSs, it's designed to do the same thing across XP, Vista and Windows7, but it's only with the Power Pack 3 (read: Service Pack) that it supports Windows7. I installed the beta last night (the final, stable release is out next week apparently), and set it up archiving my RecordedTV from the lounge PC overnight. I checked this morning and it had moved everything across to the server, so this weekend I'll move all my drives across one by one and consolidate all my films, music, TV, etc.

The console with which you control WHS is simple to use, and if the Guest account is activated on it then the default shared folders (TV, Music, Software, Photos etc) all appear on the network for you to access and use with ease from any PC. The RecordedTV archival is something that appears in the start menu, and by running it, then restarting the PC, you get 'Home Server' in the Media Center menu. You do also get annoying alerts in the system tray though telling me that 'BEDROOM doesn't have any Virus software installed' and 'LOUNGE has a new hard disk that hasn't been setup for backup'

I'll post more about it when I've had time to play about with it.

(11-20-2009 10:07 AM)John180 Wrote:  I think the windows home server is a good idea - i take there are some good wizards to set up the shares etc?
how does it fair with pcs that are not running windows 7?

[cliffwright]

It all sounds very good but what does WHS offer over and above a 'normal' OS?

I can't see any features that particularly jump out at me as being 'server' specific to be honest.

I have a house setup not dissimilar to yours where I have my data (Recorded TV, DVD's, Music, Photo's and Documents) stored centrally on the main media center in the house and using Synctoy and Task scheduler back these up each night back to seperate drive(s) stored 'elsewhere'.

From your experiments, what feature(s) does WHS offer over and above this that a Media Rich household would find useful?

I've thought a couple of times about giving it a go but the 30 day standard evaluation trial (120 day if you register) has put me off as I'd then have to move the several Terrabytes of data back to my existing setup if I didn't like it enough to buy a licence and re-point all my shared devices back to new places again . . .

Any thoughts?

[dunks517]

I am just waiting for the pc in the wife's shop to become redundant then I'll be upgrading.

[elootos]

(11-22-2009 12:15 PM)cliffwright Wrote:  From your experiments, what feature(s) does WHS offer over and above this that a Media Rich household would find useful?

Believe me, I too never saw the reason behind WHS, especially as I store all my films etc on the lounge PC which is mainly where they are watched. However I've ended up with several internal and external drives all on that PC and annoyances like never being able to utilise 100% of each drive (due to not wanting to completely fragment any of them, so I leave about 10Gb free), and having the network shares reset after each boot (on the external drives at least), drove me to trying WHS. Plus, my old office PC sitting up in the loft collecting dust gave no option BUT to try it . (perfect for a server: P4 2.6Ghz, 160Gb internal OS drive (partitioned by WHS to 20Gb for C:/), 1Gb RAM, Gbit ethernet and enough room for 8 internal drives.)

And I must say that in the week I've been using it it is definatly worthwhile:

• Archived RecordedTV - instantly after an HTPC finishes recording a show it gets moved across to WHS, and can also get compressed if you like to a portable media player format, i.e Zune)
• JBOD drive structure meaning all drives in the server create one massive shared folder for any PC on the network to access. - WHS then monitors the drives and should one need replacing you can 'remove' it and it frees it up to be disconnected.
• Add-ins like Asoft's that allow you to control PC on/off of any other PC on the network via WOL (Wake on LAN), including the server. See picture.
• Once installed it runs without any monitor or rendered graphics, and that means its very cool running; the graphics card heatsink is cold to the touch and entire system runs very efficiently.
  

All-in-all it's a great addition to any home network, but if I didn't have the spare PC, I wouldn't have invested money in it. For me it's been a 'free' upgrade.

I am however at that stage you fear: I have half of my media on the server and I want (need) to get a licensed copy installed. But I think booting from the disc, it will install over C:/ and keep the JBOD structure. (I hope!)

P.S. Dunks, you need to get your wife's PC home and running WHS asap!

[cliffwright]

(11-23-2009 12:14 PM)elootos Wrote:  

(11-22-2009 12:15 PM)cliffwright Wrote:  From your experiments, what feature(s) does WHS offer over and above this that a Media Rich household would find useful?

Believe me, I too never saw the reason behind WHS, especially as I store all my films etc on the lounge PC which is mainly where they are watched. However I've ended up with several internal and external drives all on that PC and annoyances like never being able to utilise 100% of each drive (due to not wanting to completely fragment any of them, so I leave about 10Gb free), and having the network shares reset after each boot (on the external drives at least), drove me to trying WHS. Plus, my old office PC sitting up in the loft collecting dust gave no option BUT to try it . (perfect for a server: P4 2.6Ghz, 160Gb internal OS drive (partitioned by WHS to 20Gb for C:/), 1Gb RAM, Gbit ethernet and enough room for 8 internal drives.)

And I must say that in the week I've been using it it is definatly worthwhile:

• Archived RecordedTV - instantly after an HTPC finishes recording a show it gets moved across to WHS, and can also get compressed if you like to a portable media player format, i.e Zune)
• JBOD drive structure meaning all drives in the server create one massive shared folder for any PC on the network to access. - WHS then monitors the drives and should one need replacing you can 'remove' it and it frees it up to be disconnected.
• Add-ins like Asoft's that allow you to control PC on/off of any other PC on the network via WOL (Wake on LAN), including the server. See picture.
• Once installed it runs without any monitor or rendered graphics, and that means its very cool running; the graphics card heatsink is cold to the touch and entire system runs very efficiently.
  

All-in-all it's a great addition to any home network, but if I didn't have the spare PC, I wouldn't have invested money in it. For me it's been a 'free' upgrade.

I am however at that stage you fear: I have half of my media on the server and I want (need) to get a licensed copy installed. But I think booting from the disc, it will install over C:/ and keep the JBOD structure. (I hope!)

P.S. Dunks, you need to get your wife's PC home and running WHS asap!

Hmmm . . . very interesting :)

You're a better advert than MS themselves!

[newstuart]

I am looking into this for my set up, To be honest I am not really sure it will add anything to what I have.

I have a few questions i was hoping someone may be able to comment on,

1) From what I see WHS makes multiple drives appear as one large one, what happens if one of these drives fails? is all information lost?

2) At present I have my main HTPC with 4 x 1 TB drives, I use approx 2 TB for media and use Sync Toy to mirror this onto the other 2 TB - If i intergrated a WHS into my home should I move these over or use the same system for backup as i do know.

3) At presnent i leave my HTPC on 24/7 so my MCE extenders can access it, I assume I would still need to do this so I would in effect have to have 2 PCs on 24/7 as I assume the MCE extenders could not view media via WHS alone

[elootos]

(11-24-2009 09:38 PM)newstuart Wrote:  1) From what I see WHS makes multiple drives appear as one large one, what happens if one of these drives fails? is all information lost?

2) At present I have my main HTPC with 4 x 1 TB drives, I use approx 2 TB for media and use Sync Toy to mirror this onto the other 2 TB - If i intergrated a WHS into my home should I move these over or use the same system for backup as i do know.

3) At presnent i leave my HTPC on 24/7 so my MCE extenders can access it, I assume I would still need to do this so I would in effect have to have 2 PCs on 24/7 as I assume the MCE extenders could not view media via WHS alone

1) I don't know the exact file structure, but Microsoft claim it to be more secure than any other. WHS does monitor drive performance (via SMART I assume) and you can 'remove' a drive allowing you to replace it. You can however select folders to be 'duplicated' and this sets it off duplicating the data within the JBOD. By default this is just on the documents folder, but you can select any of them.

2) WHS does duplicate folders you select - see above.

3) WHS runs Windows Server 2003, so although the console you access on other PCs looks modern, the guts behind it isn't, i.e. it won't run extenders as Media Center. It will allow streaming of media stored on it as a PnP device though.

It seems you already have your systems set up well enough without WHS, so I think you'd be better as you are.

[elootos]

The Windows Home Server evaluation can now be downloaded including the final realease of Power Pack 3 (for Windows7 goodness). And it seems it went up only days after I jumped in for the PP1 eval copy. D'oh!

If like me you've the PP3 beta installed, you have to follow these instructions (it's not exactly rocket science though).