Windows Home Server Advice

Skeeter said:
This sounds interesteing, does it work streaming DVDs over wifi?
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No problems with DVD over wi-fi, could probably do Blu-Ray over wifi too, but neither my netbook or laptop have the CPU or graphics power to play them back. It works by using a full copy of the DVD (Video_TS folder) or ISO's for BD-HD so it's not the most efficient way of storing movies...but it's easy to use and works well for me.
 
ChileanLlama said:
No problems with DVD over wi-fi, could probably do Blu-Ray over wifi too, but neither my netbook or laptop have the CPU or graphics power to play them back. It works by using a full copy of the DVD (Video_TS folder) or ISO's for BD-HD so it's not the most efficient way of storing movies...but it's easy to use and works well for me.
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802.11n? I can barely stream compressed videos over wifi with 802.11g.
 
802.11g - but they're not compressed DVDs.

Streaming a DVD now on my netbook; 54Mbps, at about 12-15% with peaks of up to 25% network utilisation. CPU utilisation is around 40-45%. At the same time I'm backing up another box to the WHS over the wired network.

First time I've watched anything on the netbook over wi-fi and quality/performance is just fine for me. I can imagine it might be different in other parts of the house where the signal is weaker.
 
That's quite impressive. I can do neither with mine never mind concurrently.

Actually, I've just realised, WHS requires a wired connection to the router does it not? That would go some way to improving performance over 802.11g.
 
Ahhh. Yep the WHS is wired, it's all gigabit with cat5e and cat6 cabling. I did spend a lot of time trying to get this as efficient as possible when I first moved in to this house. I've only got clients such as the usual Wii, PS3, phones and netbook/laptops on wireless.

You don't need to have WHS on wired though, it will work on wireless, but it will be slower and more likely you'll have connection problems if it drops out for any reason. The recommendation is to have it wired, and also for any netbooks/laptops to be wired into the network for their first back up - due to the time it can take - subsequent ones are ok wirelessly.
 
In the WHS manual it specifies a 100 Mbps Ethernet NIC card as a minimum requirement. For the server that is, wireless clients are permitted. I don't know whether it will run on a purely wireless network but I think at least it is not supported officially.

The mixed wired/wireless explains the good streaming performance anyway - it makes a massive difference.
 
It's worth knowing that actually, good to see it actually works with wireless rather than just refusing. Wired is king but far less practical than wireless.
 
You can wire connect your router to your WHS, but then have everything else wifi (as I have), but dont even think about connecting your WHS to your network with wireless, computer restores wont work over wifi, so it will be useless the moment you come to actually need its best feature.

My server sits right next to my router out the way. Its entirely headless so not like you would ever need to physically get to it for anything other than adding extra drives.
 
Quick question - what are software updates like on WHS? Do they automatically download but not install by default? Can you easily configure the machine to install and reboot automatically?

Basically, how is it handled?
 
theheyes said:
Quick question - what are software updates like on WHS? Do they automatically download but not install by default? Can you easily configure the machine to install and reboot automatically?

Basically, how is it handled?
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Exactly the same as windows update ons anything since XP. You ahve the same options to have Updates either install automatically, download but not install, prompt but not download or install, or nothing at all.
 
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