Windows Home Server

Hi Zico,

From what i have heard the data corrouption only comes into play if you have more than 1 hdd, so if you were to say put in a 750gb hdd you'd be laughing for a while.

A patch was released yesterday which is supposed to resolve the issues, I have it installed but not tested it yet really,

1 problem i did have lastnight was when running the latest beta of avast for home server it wouldnt allow me to copy over large amounts of data to the server, i had to disable it for the data move to take place. Not good in my eyes.

Loving the product though, Also your fine with the xp side of things, as long as their not 64bit it will play nicely and all the features will be there. Ability to backup and such.

You can get it running with 64bit machines but the backup feature will not run on that machine.

Hope thats of some help to you.
 
Datamonkey said:
Hi Zico,

From what i have heard the data corrouption only comes into play if you have more than 1 hdd, so if you were to say put in a 750gb hdd you'd be laughing for a while.

A patch was released yesterday which is supposed to resolve the issues, I have it installed but not tested it yet really,

1 problem i did have lastnight was when running the latest beta of avast for home server it wouldnt allow me to copy over large amounts of data to the server, i had to disable it for the data move to take place. Not good in my eyes.

Loving the product though, Also your fine with the xp side of things, as long as their not 64bit it will play nicely and all the features will be there. Ability to backup and such.

You can get it running with 64bit machines but the backup feature will not run on that machine.

Hope thats of some help to you.
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Thanks for that.

Our 4 XP Pro machines are bog standard 32bit SP 2 systems. I take it that my father's laptop with XP Home won't get the functions that require either XP Pro or Vista Business/Ultimate then.

I'll think I will still wait for the new year as I might treat myself to a new Vista Ultimate system and pickup WHS at the same time.
 
Xp Home will also be fine with the machine mate,

Anything xp/vista related barring the 64bit flavours will be fine.

Only thing you wont have with the home flavours on both xp and vista will be remote control ability of the machine in question. Ie you father wont be able to go abroad then decide he needs to do something on his laptop which may be at home.
 
Was going to get this for Xmas, but I have 64bit Vista, shame.

Anyway, I guess like all products made by large corporations, its best to leave it for a year until its patched up.
 
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cozm01 said:
So I presume you leave it on 24/7? How much does this cost per year to run on electricity?
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You can leave it on 24/7 but the electricity cost depends on what system you get. You can make your own server out of spare parts (as long as it meets minimum spec's) or buy and off the shelf server from the usual major PC manufacturers (checkout the main Windows site - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/default.mspx)
 
you dont use the machine for anything other than running whs on it,

The off the shelf solutions dont even have a video out, keyboard or mice ports. Its just a box that sits there serving data.

I guess you could use it to host games and such.

RDP onto it. Beware the off the shelf versions arnt that powerful, using amd semprons and 512mb of data lol.

Im using a quad xeon 3210 and 4gb of ram in mine, but thats what i had running xp pro as a spare box.
 
Datamonkey said:
Beware the off the shelf versions arnt that powerful, using amd semprons and 512mb of data lol.

Im using a quad xeon 3210 and 4gb of ram in mine, but thats what i had running xp pro as a spare box.
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If you want an 'always on' box that uses low power then what's wrong with off the shelf boxes? One competitor in particular makes a box that costs next to nothing to run and is powerful enough for the purpose of WHS. **Edit** This competitor uses a VIA chip in the box used in the comparison below. The highest current model with the same competitor uses an Intel 220 CPU.

This a copy of the competitor's blog. I've change the system model name to box so as not to cause trouble.
Based on 0.11p / KWH (Kilowatt Hour) - the UK’s typical current domestic tariff, a 3KW electrical heater will set you back £0.33 per hour - simple really to calculate ? So use more efficient heating systems right - but what about your IT systems, especially those that need to run 24/7.

We have 8760 hours in each year, so any savings can be significant.

Let’s compare a low power Home Server (box) and a recently launched ‘regular’ Home Server. Can you make real savings ?

Take the box (single drive mode) @ 24W idle *
0.024KW x 8760 = 210KWH (or £23.13 / year to run it).

A similar, recently launched server (single drive) @ 52W in idle
0.052KW x 8760 = 455.5KWH (or £50.11 / year to run it)

It gets even more interesting as more drives are added.

The box + 3x 1TB GP drives consumes 36W when idle
0.036KW x 8760 = 315KWH (or £34.69 / year to run it)

A similar, recently launched server + 3x HDDs, boasts 76W in idle
0.076 x 8760 = 665KWH (or £73.23 / year to run it)
Click to expand...
 
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off the shelf would be no good if he is planning to run other things on the box ;)

They would be no good for hosting a game, and also have yet to be tested streaming hi-def content on a network, but thats another matter.

If your looking for a silent low running cost solution then i agree with you 100% :D
 
Datamonkey said:
off the shelf would be no good if he is planning to run other things on the box ;)

They would be no good for hosting a game, and also have yet to be tested streaming hi-def content on a network, but thats another matter.

If your looking for a silent low running cost solution then i agree with you 100% :D
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Can WHS be used to host games etc.?

Also the above competitor also tested several sharing/streaming files on one of its boxes without any problems.

Still, as you say if he wants 'more power' then creating your own would be better.
 
Matthew-1985,

How do you know how long it will take?

If you read into it, its to do with the way 64bit vista handles shadow volume copies. Its different to the way 32bit does. Hence why its taking them quite some time to resolve.

Im not fussed either way, I run 64bit vista hp on my laptop and 64bit ultimate on my gaming machine, they connect to the server and can access files with no problems.
 
So could I use a Media Center PC to save SkyTV video to WHS?
If yes;
Would this require a Xbox360 also?
If yes;
Would I need PC + WHS + 360 all switched on to record?
 
I use WHS on my server box, its just a simple home media server. Unfortunately, i use Vista x64 so i cant use the backups etc, but the mirrored storage that i use is just fine. It also lets you FTP and serve a website from the box (Obviously limited by the pitiful upload speeds in this country).
 
Any more updates, comments or opinions on WHS so far?

I'm seriously tempted now to setup a WHS in advance of getting some new Vista pc's for me and my brothers. If I have WHS in place before then I have time to familiarise myself with it and backup files before setting up any new Vista machines for our network.

**Edit**
Any links to some recent reviews or infomation sites for WHS would also be great.
 
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