***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***

How often do you get chance to go over there, and how tech savvy is he?

My father has been running WHS1 since just after launch, and no software issues whatsoever. I've had it open two or three times to add additional drives (which my Dad could have done) and I get the odd call when something's not right (usually ends up being something else).

Now I can VPN into it and administer it remotely, so other than hardware issues doesn't cause an issue. If it does then I'll have to get down there and fix it - which isn't too far for me.

How would he cope now if his desktop PC failed? I'd think with backups etc losing a server till you could get down there would probably be less of an impact than his main PC.
 
how about virtual pcs on the server, so only 1 server machine, but several virtual machines. would this then mean 1 virtual WHS2011 for each user could then get their own library?
 
VMs is not a problem. Mine is on Hyper-V.

You'll have the problem of needing distinct Dynamic DNS domain names for each one and the respective ports and IIS configuration for each RWA.

You'll also need to consider what base hardware is needed. I've found WHS2011 in a VM works best with 4GB+ and the encoding on the fly for DLNA/RWA will mean you'll need to consider quality v CPU power as well.
 
ChileanLlama said:
VMs is not a problem. Mine is on Hyper-V.

You'll have the problem of needing distinct Dynamic DNS domain names for each one and the respective ports and IIS configuration for each RWA.

You'll also need to consider what base hardware is needed. I've found WHS2011 in a VM works best with 4GB+ and the encoding on the fly for DLNA/RWA will mean you'll need to consider quality v CPU power as well.
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well I can whack in up to 16gb ram without problems. and can swap the Celeron system for a G620 one.
 
You can try it, but I doubt the G620 will give you a good experience. It's only a dual core - I'd go for quad minimum with two VMs - don't forget there is the underlying OS to consider as well - even if it's only W2K8R2 Hyper-V Core.

Personally I've gone for each family member having their own WHS - which means they can control what they have RWA to. Their servers sync to folders on mine to schedule and I have a separate offsite server to backup my data to. I can RDP into their servers and administer them remotely if needed.

There's quite abit of duplicated media, but probably no more than 500GB and even now hard disks are relatively cheap and I was lucky to have been buying 2TB drives when they were down at £48-54.

But overall everything works very simply and slickly, everyone has their own server and everyone has offsite backups. I also try and keep my server as simple as possible with as few additional programs/tweaks. It makes it much quicker to recover then if there is a problem.
 
right, I am trying a second server as a potential solution, but mainly to see if the G620 would make a better overall server than the Celeron im using now.

do I just set it up in the same way as server 1, but change the forwarding port to 444 instead of 443?
 
paradisiac said:
right, I am trying a second server as a potential solution, but mainly to see if the G620 would make a better overall server than the Celeron im using now.

do I just set it up in the same way as server 1, but change the forwarding port to 444 instead of 443?
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Nope you'll need to change IIS that runs the webserver for RWA to use different ports. I'm not an expert in how to do this :(

paradisiac said:
is there any way to get the administrator to auto login on restart?
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Start-Run-netplwiz and change the settings so users don't have to enter a name and password. I recommend you turn it back off once you have it up and running though.
 
1. You need a separate vanity domain name, or address each RWA by their specific ports
2. You need to configure your router to forward the correct ports to the correct server
3. You need to configure IIS on one of the servers to use separate ports

That link covers (3) for WHS1. The same principles _should_ apply for WHS2011.
 
ChileanLlama said:
1. You need a separate vanity domain name, or address each RWA by their specific ports
2. You need to configure your router to forward the correct ports to the correct server
3. You need to configure IIS on one of the servers to use separate ports

That link covers (3) for WHS1. The same principles _should_ apply for WHS2011.
Click to expand...

1. I have 2 different domains (2 different live accounts)
2. for server 2 on the router I have incoming port 443 outbound port 444 (or whatever)?
3. so follow the tutorial and should be ready?
 
ok, so its semi working. 2 things :
1. is there any way to get it to work so I don't need to do domain.homeserver.com:444 for the second server? so it would just be domain.homeserver.com

2. I cant get remote web connect to connect to the second server as it goes looking for the first server and fails certificate check.
 
Has anyone moved their WHS 2011 installation from 1 server to another?

I've got the bits for an i5 2500k server which I'm hoping to build up over the weekend but then I need to move the data to the new server.
 
Not sure on your original hardware but guessing it will be a clean install?

A "disk shuffle" is probably the best way to do it. Get one disk freed up on your current WHS to be used for shares/data on the new install. Install WHS then introduce the original drives to the new WHS, don't let WHS do anything with them. Keep the drives with data out of the way until you have WHS up and running - just to be safe.

Once WHS is installed RDP into the server and manually copy your data from the "serverfolders" folder on each drive to the UNC path of the new shares. As you clean one disk, then add that to WHS. Rinse and repeat until all your drives are back.

Alternatively if you have a drive dedicated to Serverbackup and this contains all your data then you could restore from that to the new server. This could also include client backups if they are important to you.

What drives do you have and how full are they?
 
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Yup, will be a complete fresh install so will try and do a disk shuffle.

My server backup isn't a complete backup as I don't backup recorded TV and some "dump" folders! :D
 
ok, me again :(

i have the free *.homeserver.com domain thing. when my router restarts (Which seems to be quite often) obvs my ip address changes (internet not local) so should the *.homeserver.com domain automatically change to the new external ip address?
 
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