Home Server 2 RC released

Mr-White · 5 Feb 2011 at 12:57

Bit-tech said:
Microsoft has made the last preview release of Windows Home Server 2 available, codenamed 'Vail,' prior to it being released to manufacturing.

The new release, which updates the core of the software to the same base as Windows Server 2008 R2, is claimed by the company to offer a significant improvement over its predecessor. Among its new features are the ability to stream media across the Internet, enhancements to the backup and restore process for multi-PC households, and a simplified setup process.

I'm gonna stick this on vm and see what it's like

Download here

MW

J1nxy · 5 Feb 2011 at 13:03

They dropped drive extender which makes it a downgrade from v1 and is a stupid decision.

prescott28 · 5 Feb 2011 at 20:48

I was looking at this and noticed the downgrade (so to speak) of the specs. Add to that there is not upgrade from the old version or even the RC that is currently free and it makes one wonder how useful it is. I don't fancy filling up a server with the family's photos, music and documents only to find some other place to store them whist I reinstall a new version of the server software.

zangetsu19 · 6 Feb 2011 at 00:20

i think it will be good if you can be bothered to spend hours reorganising your media

andy_mk3 · 6 Feb 2011 at 00:31

I'm going to give it a go.. damn internet

Yamahahahahaha · 6 Feb 2011 at 11:36

Microsoft said:
Drive Extender? You don't need that...
Have a backup solution that doesn't support more than 2TB instead.

Not worth wasting the bandwidth on it.

PR. · 6 Feb 2011 at 18:23

Anyone considered alternatives to WHS v1?

I'm still in two minds, the loss of DE is pretty big for me, but I could setup a RAID5. Just looked at a few linux alternatives and they don't offer the same backup functionality that WHS does.

Yamahahahahaha · 6 Feb 2011 at 20:36

There are lots of alternatives, but I think the loss of DE has pushed people in different directions spending on their budgets / needs.

I cannot fathom why Microsoft won't implement a similar-but-improved solution, rather than just scrapping it entirely after their proposed (but obviously worse) alternative didn't work.
Ballmer was directly involved in these choices after the initial uproar so I strongly doubt there will be any progress on the matter.

Shame.

prescott28 · 6 Feb 2011 at 21:07

PR. said:
Anyone considered alternatives to WHS v1?

I'm still in two minds, the loss of DE is pretty big for me, but I could setup a RAID5. Just looked at a few linux alternatives and they don't offer the same backup functionality that WHS does.

I'm wondering whether just to go with the old version of WHS and be done with it. rthe various automated backups, file saving and sharing (not to mention the external access) seems hard to beat with any other server product without quite a lot of work.

Confused · 7 Feb 2011 at 12:36

Oh, so the best part of WHS v1, Drive Extender, allowing you to just plug in any number of disks of any size, and at any time, has been removed?

So, what's the use now??

What else has been "improved"?

prescott28 · 7 Feb 2011 at 13:12

You can easily download a copy of the RC from Microsoft to try it out. The only snag is that there is no upgrading so it is going to require a reinstall and putting the data on afterwards. I can't see the happening in a business product so I have no idea why the poor old home user has to do this.

a1ex2001 · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:02

Without DE I don't really get what WHS offers, I love the fact that my WHS can organically grow with my media without requiring any effort beyond plugging in a drive and adding it to the pool. I think this decision probably spells the end for what was a pretty niche product anyway.

MikeHiow · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:29

a1ex2001 said:
Without DE I don't really get what WHS offers, I love the fact that my WHS can organically grow with my media without requiring any effort beyond plugging in a drive and adding it to the pool. I think this decision probably spells the end for what was a pretty niche product anyway.

Linux and LVM can do just this and it works fine.

J1nxy · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:36

It not quite the same as DE and what the other features of DE do for file replication, levelling etc.

a1ex2001 · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:37

MikeHiow said:
Linux and LVM can do just this and it works fine.

I've used Linux at home and at work to a reasonably high level but I've never found anything close to being as simple to use and well featured out of the box as WHS, sure I could spend ages fiddling about with Linux and end up with something similar but it will never have the ease of use and integration that WHS offers. Microsofts decision to hamstring the product by removing a key feature is very disapointing as otherwise I would have been very tempted.

prescott28 · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:46

So is there any limitation that prevents use of the old version 1 of WHS for home use? Clearly it has the main feature needed in place and I don't have the knowledge to fiddle LInux to do some of the jobs it does.

MikeHiow · 7 Feb 2011 at 14:49

a1ex2001 said:
I've used Linux at home and at work to a reasonably high level but I've never found anything close to being as simple to use and well featured out of the box as WHS, sure I could spend ages fiddling about with Linux and end up with something similar but it will never have the ease of use and integration that WHS offers. Microsofts decision to hamstring the product by removing a key feature is very disapointing as otherwise I would have been very tempted.

Well, here-in lies the problem.

I would love to be able to use something more simple, but with simplicity you often lose flexibility. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it.

What other notable stuff does WHS do?

a1ex2001 · 7 Feb 2011 at 15:01

MikeHiow said:
Well, here-in lies the problem.

I would love to be able to use something more simple, but with simplicity you often lose flexibility. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it.

What other notable stuff does WHS do?

It doesn't really do a great deal when you analyse it.

Automated client back ups
Media sharing
Easily expandable storage
Folder replication bettween disk drives within the single volume

It just does it very well the interface is slick and simple and there is just no messing about. There are also quite a few good pluggins out there which make it even more usefull. I was quite tempted by the Linux option as I'm reasonably good with it but in the end it just came down to time and hastle both of which the WHS server option kept to a minimum. Without drive extender it becomes less attractive as adding a new drive to the system becomes more of a pain an ensuring folders are duplicated accross disks is even more tiresome.

J1nxy · 7 Feb 2011 at 15:35

prescott28 said:
So is there any limitation that prevents use of the old version 1 of WHS for home use? C;ear;y it has the main feature needed in place and I don't have the knowledge to fiddle LInux to do some of the jobs it does.

Nope, it works well, the only real limitation is if you want to use it for mac time machine backups where you can't do a bare metal restore. I've got mine as an ISCSI target, NFS shares and can stream and reencode just about any media type under the sun.

MikeHiow · 7 Feb 2011 at 15:50

J1nxy said:
Nope, it works well, the only real limitation is if you want to use it for mac time machine backups where you can't do a bare metal restore.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, but everytime I've had to do a full restore from my an unsupported network volume, I've had to enabled unsupported network volumes in the installer to be able to use it - much the same as you have to do in OSX to use it as a backup in the first place.