I am currently running the WHS setup (still 24m to go..)
and i wondered if anyone has tried it?
what are your findings, and how do you expirience this new server-line?

Have had it installed only a few days and haven't had much time to play with it. From what I have seen so far, it is very promising. This is probably the first OS from Microsoft that I am truly excited about. It is about time that Microsoft recognized that there is a need for this product among "consumers" (as opposed to enterprise/business users). Plan on adding some serious disk to your WHS as your backups will eat up space if you go with the default backups. I've got a 40GB for my OS and 2 x 200GB (RAID 1) for my data in my WHS. I think I am going to add another 200GB RAID set as my music alone is about 120GB.

My overall impression:
- The installation was easy and I like how it installed all updates during the install
- The WHS components are intuitive and the settings are relevant
- It appears to be easy enough for the typical home user to get up and running, but
have enough features left in it for the more technical users

I'm going to put the WHS client piece on my wife's computer tonight to see how well the backup works across a typical wireless home network setup.

hehehe i allready have my first major error with whs
i installed it, and after the last reboot i plugged in my HD with all my data, and for some odd reason it formatted the HD and addid it to the system instead

That is by design due to the nature of the "file system" in WHS. It still uses NTFS, but it is indexed differently. All disks added will be reformatted when they are added to your disk pool. Be careful!

I've been running Beta2 for almost a month now, apart from the 'Known Bugs' WHS only seeing the empty space on the first drive as free, and not being able to remove old PC's from the console. It seems very nice.

I've been using Win2k Server and 2K3 Server as a home server for years, so WHS is a little limited for my liking. But i'm not one of the people this is intended for.

I've just updated it the lastest release, which is much slicker. Both for install and setup.
Haven't added all the family or shares yet, they all get wipped out with reinstallion, but at least it leaves all your data alone.


@BlkCrowe
How have you got it working with a RAID setup ?
I thought RAIDs are suposed to confict with the way DE works.

I have the 2 drives connected to a Promise Fasttrak TX2 PCI card. I created the mirror set on the PCI card and not using Windows. I did this before I even installed WHS, not knowing how the file system was handled. I had heard you could create duplicate folders and such, but if I was going to put all my data on one system, I wanted to insure that I had a second copy. I'll probably change it on the next install so that I have 400GB of disk.

Big problem with installing on AN7 Sata.
I think its the way it installs.
It use Pre-Install Environment(ala VISTA) and then goes to textmode install
man I don't know why it installs like this its crazy.
Its supposed to be a driver problem but after 6 hours of trying I've given up.

Have it working on VPC7 tho and it looks great.

Just installed FREENAS on the NF7.
Only a TINY 38.6 meg iso
Great WEB interface, MAY STICK WITH THIS!!!

Maybe the next BETA will install better

I've been wanting to try FREENAS for a while, but never got around to it. Since I really just want a place to store my data and share it with the wife's computer and both kids' computers, FREENAS may work just as well...or even better. It has a much smaller footprint and can darn near run on a x486 computer! But, being a Windows Administrator (in the "Real World"), I decided to give WHS a shot since I realize that Microsoft butters my bread. :-)

OK, I get it.
The RAID was setup first, that WHS only see's it as one HDD.
That could be handy piece of info for later 'FrankenMods'


First I wouldn't leave any of my important data on a beta or test box. Been burned way to many times before.
But, so far the dupliction system on WHS seems pretty good.
My first install was on an old PIII 1GHz Gateway with two old 60GB HDDs [I had duplication switch on for everything except backups] When one drive started to fail and dissappered from BIOS. I used the builtin utils to remove it and added a 80GB HDD in its place. All the files were backed up and restored on the new 80GB, never lost one.


FreeNAS is great for just storage.
Although, permissions can be tricky to setup on it, and are best done by telnet.
We've used for a couple of years at a computer club I help run for local kids.
It's running on a PI 133MHz with 64mb ram and a PCI IDE controller to allow larger HDD's.
The biggest problem we've had with it, is keeping the dust out

I installed WHS. Its pretty limited as to what it can do compared to Win Server 2003. I have been running Win Server 2003 on my home computer for a couple of years

Well, considering it's supposed to be a backup solution and a media server (and a basic one at that), I'm not sure how that is surprising.

my 2 cents - lol

comparing WHS to Win2k3 is similar to comparing a tricycle to a mountain bike.
They are diffent animals designed for completely different purposes.


shark

so far been testing and so far so good,
oine annoying thing is that windows keeps reporting the network health at risk when it cant connect to the internet :S
but i suppose i can live with that!

im seriously considering placing a box at my parents house, seeing how they always manage to destroy everything with buttons on it, it could ease my life using the provided backup iso.. anyone tried that yet?

I've tried the backup ISO many times here - it's worked great each and every time. I couldn't be happier with the product, as long as they manage to price it reasonably.

Yep, tried it around a dozens here, with different PC's and OS's.
Mostly to test it out, only once for real.

As Bluescreen says, it works great.
Although, a couple of times it failed to reboot the PC after the backup.
Nothing hitting the 'Reset' button didn't fix.

Why did microsoft suddenly decide to make WHS though I mean all it is is Server 2003 "dummied" Down? What could be their Plan..........

No, it's a custom 2003 install that is running a custom version of Data Protection Manager - and it's meant only for backup duties and streaming media. It's not meant to be an overall "server", it's a role-based server - a backup and media server. The plan is to sell copies of software to home users, and hopefully home users will find this useful in protecting their data. Obviously it's not meant at the hardcore users, or people who do only email and some basic surfing - it's primarily designed for those inbetween, either SOHO or SMB (smaller than would need an SBS server) to handle backup duties. The streaming media portion of it really pushes it into the retail home user space though, rather than the small SMB market.

This OS is more designed for someone like me...


I've been trying to figure out the best backup solution for my stuff, and this is it... Leave the computer on all day and let it backup at night, or perform manual backups... I'm also seriously considering moving my entire Media Storage location to the server, though I'll have to be careful since it formats the drives .... The idea of being able to just stream media from a central location is great, but they need to improve their media component more for me to use it like that.... Right now its just an expensive backup solution....

Biggest gripe? Doesn't backup x64 based OSes...

the problem i have at this verry moment is that it writes litterally gigabytes of logs to the QSM logs location..
which makes it hard to run any program at all, even the console refuses to run because it only has 4MB free space left,
i have to reboot into save mode, delete the logs, and start over..
it complains about my drive having issues, but the drive works like a charm!

Sounds like you should file a bug

actually, WHS forsaw the disaster...
one of my HD's broke down
tho now it messed up totally because it keeps giving error messages "file handle invalid"
i think its because it mixed both my HD's to form one partition

Could be - file handle invalid means a process has a handle to a file that is either no longer there, or has moved and the handle table wasn't updated. I'd say replace the failed drive and reboot, but you probably will need to restore the data from a backup (or re-backup the data on the client machines to recreate the backup store).

i am wondering, has anyone tried installing the whs msi packages in the whs folder (which is in the root of the cd/dvd) on a windows version other then the one it comes with?
i'm gonna try this tonight, to see if i can make it work with windows 2000

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i have done the following,
i copied the INSTALL directory from the cd to the root of my hd, ran setup_cmd, and rebooted.
everything went ok untill it complained that it couldnt change the update redirector due to some classes error :S
i disabled my internet connection, rebooted again, and then it continued untill it wants to install the desktop search module, which fails because i am using the wrong windows version :S
does anyone know how to solve this?

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i also think i solved this by downloading the xp version of WDS and renaming it, i have to recompl;ie the cd though, and since im not at home, i cant yet..
but ill post here if it worked

You can use Orca to edit the .msi file and let it install on any OS.... Someone got it to install on VistaX64, but it wont let them log in... Probably because x64 talks differently...

do you know how he got it to install?
i seem to be unable to install it, it just refuses to run :S

I've had some success installing on 2003 server but It still needs the DVD. I'm still working on getting the installer to work completely from my hard drive so I can install WHS through RIS. My goal is to be able install WHS on a Dell PowerVault 715N.

Greetings,

I have documented in Part 2 of my guide how to perform a manual installation of WHS, how to use nLite on it, and how to generate new installation media. I believe it might help you reach your goals faster. http://nliteos.com/oemguide2.html and the forum topic is in my signature.

I just recently started looking at this OS and it looks great especially in a house with 7 pcs and 2 laptops. I see the noted prices on the pre-built systems but what types of systems are you guys running your beta copies on? (CPU and Memory)

To bad it seems the beta doors are closed as I like to try a copy out prior to buying, guess I'll wait till end of Sept to grab a pre-built system. Anyone know when the retail copy of the OS is for sale and expected prices?

Hi XPerties,

I installed Beta2 on an old PIII 500 w/ 512mb RAM.
To test out MS's quoted specs, it ran just fine for almost a month.

Since then I've been using a 1.8GHz AMD64 w/ 512mb RAM on a ASUS A8V mATX mobo and 500GB Seagate HDD. Both CPT and RC installed and ran almost floorlessly.
[had to download the Win2K3 drivers for the Realtek NIC as the ones on the disk installed but didn't work]

I was intending it use this box with the OEM release, but with the look of the OEM prices in the UK. I might grab a cheap retail box instead.

Any ideas on a pricetag?

I've been using OpenSuse10.2 as my main server for quite some time, on a cheap PII, 300MHz machine no less.
Personally, I like it and don't think I'll change it for myself, but I do do computer work for many people & many of them believe FREE=UNRELIABLE, so I'd like to have an alternative ready for them.

WHS seems no better than any version of linux, but its automatic backup of new computers sounds like a definate plus. Also, video streaming to XBOX(360) is definately a selling point for people who want that feature.

I'm sure it'll look prettier & be easier for a noob to figure out than most linux distros as well.

For me, FREE=BETTER, but for others, who would like the features that WHS performs, that would obviously not be the case.

I guess it's crazy some people will pay for ease of use and interoperability with their pre-existing components j/k

LOL

Well, like I said, WHS is great if you'll use the extra features it gives you. But, if all your looking for is something to backup your files to and possibly stream media to another COMPUTER in your house, or your looking to set up a way for you to access your files from work or something, WHS is not needed.

Any version of Linux can do all of that, easily.

Now, if you want to stream to an XBOX(360), then its probably a must have for you.

If you have no use for the M$ specific functionality, then at least try the free alternative. If it don't work or you don't like it, you have justification for spending $(UNKNOWN) dollars on your server.

Just my $.02

I was looking at WHS for the fact that you didn't need to know anything about RAID to set up file redundancy. The selective redundancy is really slick. I can make backups of my photos, but if I don't want to backup DVDs I've ripped to it, I don't need to. It increases the available storage because I don't really care if a HD goes down and I lose some DVD rips, but I do care if I lose a bunch of family photos.

I haven't seen selective RAID in any other product.

Anyone has any comparison Windows Server 2003 vs WHS? More, how many web sites can be hosted on a WHS?

Since it's the same engine, on the same hardware I'd expect the numbers to be the same or essentially similar.

I would think the same, but then, you know MS, suddenly, when least expected, you find out that they have change the rules of engagement