Windows Home Server Questions?

Spooter

Spooter

Spooter

Associate
Joined
1 Aug 2007
Posts
1,065
Hi all,

I have spare PC and was thinking of putting Windows Home Server on there.

Does this allow me to manage all my PCs in the home with accounts much like Active Directory?

I presume it works with Windows Home Edition/Home Premium?

Is there anything like exchange bundled?
 
It doesn't include AD. What it does do is create local accounts, which it recommends you give the same username/password as the local computer accounts, that way you can set up rights on network shares and they can be accessed without having to supply credentials.

You can download a demo copy from the WHS website. Stick it in a VM and have a play.
 
Remember that if you change the password on the local machine that will need to change on the WHS as well.

Nothing like Exchange is included.

You are describing Windows Small Business Server if you want AD and Exchange capabilities.
 
I use WHS at home with 7 clients. Personally i think its great. It backs up each pc at night, or according to your backup schedule and doesn't take too long about it either. I can access the shares from the web, upload, download.
If you install relevent add-ins and have clients running OS's higher than home premium, then you to an extent you can control the clients pc's from anywhere too (via RDP)....assuming you've sorted your accounts and permissions out.
I have my WHS with 1TB or storage, backing up onto an external hdd as well for double data integrity.
Overall....i'm really impressed.
All my media is on there and it connects and sets itself up with VMCE etc.
As said its built around win server 2k3 but fooling around with the OS can break WHS at the front-end, so i'd avoid that if i were you.
The freebie is good for 120 days...and will run on a fairly modest pc rig.
 
Personally? WHS. I administer server 2k3 at work, its overkill for a home network. WHS comes with 10 user cals, and is easy to setup and automate. User interface is very easy.
Right tool for the job if you ask me. and if you bought it would cost you less than £90.
 
I have a copy of both 2003 and WHS, looking at it I'll go for WHS, but I do want to use 2003 at some point to learn a bit more about AD/Domain stuff.

I'm sure I've read somewhere of WHS just "losing" your data randomly though?
 
that was pre Power Pack 1. Power Pack is standard now. Most issues were ironed out....before i decided to touch it :)

Good idea about 2k3 though, learning AD whilst in a non-commercial environment.
 
Just as a question as I'm fairly new to this..

Creating private shares is as easy as adding the users on the local network, and then only allowing user access to user folder, user2 to user2 folder, right?

Thanks for your input btw Jacko :).
 
yeah. When you setup a user in WHS it auto creates a share with that persons name inside the 'users' share. By default only they have read/write access, but thats easily customisable by you at any time.
I also have the guest user access ON so that when my HTPC boots up (which doesn't have a password) it doens't cause authentication issues when browsing the dvd library which is on the WHS from VMCE....if that makes any sense.
 
no mate. I did look into it, but it was a hell of an expense for a home setup, and i do recall issues with the way WHS likes to setup hdd congiurations as opposed to hardware raid.
I have 1x250Gb and 2x500Gb hdd's in my WHS and they are seen dynamically as one volume of 1.25Tb. That's how WHS configures storage by default. It does offer file/folder replication, so you could have it auto backup to external drives offering some kind of redundancy. If you were want hardware raid for speed/performance i really wouldn't bother. You'll not notice anything. My gigabit network copies files to and from the WHS at speeds between 30-70MB/s, plenty fast enough for just any kind of streaming.
And i have 7 pc's on my network with 4 regularly accessing movies or music files via VMCE, with no performance hits at all.
My WHS is running on a Phenon III 720 (iirc) with 2gb ram.

I get most of my info from the wegotserved forums. Friendly bunch over there. Give em a visit.
I'll try and answer any questions you have from my experience with WHS, but they are my main resource when i'm stuck or need more info.
:)
 
platypus said:
Do you have any experience of using Raid Controller Cards with WHS Jacko?
Click to expand...

WHS doesn't support or recommend RAID. As Jacko suggests WHS acts instead using JBOD, so that every time you add a disk it adds it to one massive volume. Usually I'd consider this suicide (e.g. 5 disks, one fails- you've lost the volume) but it is quite smart. Firstly you can select shared to be duplicated, in which case WHS will make a copy of every file in the share onto a separate physical disk (this is transparent even when browsing the disk on the actual server) and a disk failure will not take out the volume. Of course you would lose any non-duplicated files that were on the dead disk.
 
SiD the Turtle said:
WHS doesn't support or recommend RAID. As Jacko suggests WHS acts instead using JBOD, so that every time you add a disk it adds it to one massive volume. Usually I'd consider this suicide (e.g. 5 disks, one fails- you've lost the volume) but it is quite smart. Firstly you can select shared to be duplicated, in which case WHS will make a copy of every file in the share onto a separate physical disk (this is transparent even when browsing the disk on the actual server) and a disk failure will not take out the volume. Of course you would lose any non-duplicated files that were on the dead disk.
Click to expand...

I have everything duplicated.
Dont forget, you can also backup to an external as well, and when a disk fails, WHS automatically copies eveerthing to another disk to ensure that it still has 2 copies (assuming there is space!). Plus, its a doddle to set up. You really dont need any knowledge of RAID since its aimed at the home user.

I have a Ciprico RaidCORE 8 port SATA/SAS card in mine, and although it supports all sorts of raid and the like, I have every drive controlled by WHS. I dont need RAID when I have WHS.
 
@sid - Aye I know it doesn't support RAID, I was just looking at Controller cards for adding additional drives through PCI/PCI-E slots, and go with a JBOD that is duplicated configuration.

Is there an upper limit on the size of share you can define?

Thanks for the link Jacko, great resources on there, and thanks Phil for your help via email and here :).
 
Last edited:
Um, here's probably a silly question but its because I've never seen WHS running in the flesh, so to speak.

Is it a normal windows gui? Only reason I ask is I've got some defrag software I'd want to install and run on it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom