Windows Home Server Questions?

platypus said:
Cheers for the link, I take it the NTFS/streaming data corruption problem was solved in SP2?

Just used to having defrag software on discs that have heavy activity but I guess for a storage server its unnecessary.
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Yes, Data corruption is a thing of the past. PP3 is out soo we well along side the release of Win7.
 
K just playing about with it at present; will have 1x500Gb and 1x1Tb disc in it to begin with (more on the way). I've read about having a large system drive to facilitate copying, but I can't really see the need for copying >500Gb in one go so I reckon the 500gb for the system drive?
 
I think I am gonna drop into this thread as I have some questions about WHS.

I was looking at a large +5 bay NAS drive but after seeing how steeply priced they are I am now thinking about a WHS with capacity for 8 drives that could live in my basement. I have no knowledge of WHS and have only come across it by chance really! Does the environment allow for the install of programs.. say usenet downloaders?

I see mentioned it will run on anything but exactly what are the minimum specs? I did have a P4 kicking around but my dad has nicked that sadly just a couple of weeks ago for a video project! :(.. I am not looking to spend much (would get a cpu/motherboard bundle off the bay perhaps) but would need the server to be able to cope with some decompressing of large files.
 
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Seems like it will run on very minimal hardware. I just expect the installation will take longer on slower machines.

It does allow for installation of other programs but is designed to be run headless, ie not interfered with!
 
platypus said:
K just playing about with it at present; will have 1x500Gb and 1x1Tb disc in it to begin with (more on the way). I've read about having a large system drive to facilitate copying, but I can't really see the need for copying >500Gb in one go so I reckon the 500gb for the system drive?
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Hey Platypus, I have the same HDD setup as you are planning with a 500Gb system disk and a 1Tb storage drive. It has been fine like that and haven't come across any issues.

2StepSteve said:
Does the environment allow for the install of programs.. say usenet downloaders?
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It does, there are quite a few apps that you can install, I don't know of any usenet downloaders but there are sure to be some (I've never looked tbh).

2StepSteve said:
I see mentioned it will run on anything but exactly what are the minimum specs? I did have a P4 kicking around but my dad has nicked that sadly just a couple of weeks ago for a video project! :(.. I am not looking to spend much (would get a cpu/motherboard bundle off the bay perhaps) but would need the server to be able to cope with some decompressing of large files.
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You can run it on pretty much anything, even a single core Atom. I have a dual core Atom and that's plenty powerful enough, most of the time it's sat at idle. It took about 1.5-2 hours to install WHS on it but after that you don't really notice the lack of processing power. I'm planning to finally setup bittorrent on it to download stuff, if I ever need to unarchive any files once downloaded I'll just copy then over to my main PC (takes seconds over Gbit) then let the i7 do the crunching and copy the unarchived file back to the server.
 
Col_M said:
You can run it on pretty much anything, even a single core Atom. I have a dual core Atom and that's plenty powerful enough, most of the time it's sat at idle. It took about 1.5-2 hours to install WHS on it but after that you don't really notice the lack of processing power. I'm planning to finally setup bittorrent on it to download stuff, if I ever need to unarchive any files once downloaded I'll just copy then over to my main PC (takes seconds over Gbit) then let the i7 do the crunching and copy the unarchived file back to the server.
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That is pretty good to know! It is such a shame I haven't got anything kicking around anymore. Think I will post a spec me thread!
 
Been using WHS for a few months now.

HTPC is connected to it directly via Gigabit, it's accessing internet and rest of LAN currently via a USB WiFi adapter.

The WiFi does make it a touch slow on the laptops (as they're connecting wirelessly, too, all bandwidth is shared!) but it does work well :)

I'm planning on wiring the WHS machine up to the router sometime this week - so that should speed everything up.

I've got a 1tb and a 320gb disk currently - got about 300gb free so will need to think about adding another soon.

Got uTorrent installed on it, so it does all my downloading duties quite nicely - using the WebUI, plus the "automatically process .torrent files in the specified directory" option allows me to browse and download the .torrent files from another PC, drop them into that directory, and it'll go away and download them :)
 
Confused said:
Got uTorrent installed on it, so it does all my downloading duties quite nicely - using the WebUI, plus the "automatically process .torrent files in the specified directory" option allows me to browse and download the .torrent files from another PC, drop them into that directory, and it'll go away and download them :)
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I finally got around to doing that last night, it works really well and the web UI is dead handy to keep an eye on progress. Great isn't it.
 
platypus said:
I've read about having a large system drive to facilitate copying, but I can't really see the need for copying >500Gb in one go so I reckon the 500gb for the system drive?
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That was before PP1. WHS used to use the system disk as a temporary store, and then start moving files about to other disks. After PP1 WHS just puts files straight onto the storage disks. It won't use the free space on the system disk until the other disks are (nearly) full.
 
Oh, brilliant - thanks Tomsk :).

And I've just read about the nonsense you have to go through when you've bought it. Has that been fixed, or do you still need to reinstall to upgrade to a retail key if I do decide to buy it?
 
When I decided to go with WHS I did a full install over my test system.

However I never used a trial key and ran it without any activation until the 30 day stop kicked in. I suppose I could have just entered my retail key then and carried on.
 
When you say you did a full install - did you copy your data elsewhere, or not have much on there before you upgraded? I haven't entered a trial key either, just have the 30 day trial period before activation is required.
 
Bleh, can't get my WHS to have a net connection, the onboard lan seems to be working, but it isn't detected by windows, can't add a new network connection.

Do I need to install with an active network connection plugged in?
 
No, I installed mine without a network attached, could be a driver issue, if you are having trouble, try installing the win 2000 drivers.
Also, is it just the net that you cant get to? can you ping your router, or even localhost 127.0.0.1
 
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