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Windows Home Server


Yonah

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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?

Edited by Yonah
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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.

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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 :(

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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!

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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. B)

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.

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@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.

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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

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Just installed FREENAS on the NF7.

Only a TINY 38.6 meg iso

Great WEB interface, MAY STICK WITH THIS!!!

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. :-)

Edited by BlkCrowe
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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' :yes:

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.

First I wouldn't leave any of my important data on a beta or test box. Been burned way to many times before. :blushing:

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. B)

Just installed FREENAS on the NF7.

Only a TINY 38.6 meg iso Great WEB interface, MAY STICK WITH THIS!!!

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 :lol:

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

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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.

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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

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

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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?

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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.

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it could ease my life using the provided backup iso.. anyone tried that yet?

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. ;)

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