Windows Home Server Users?

Anybody using it?

Like it? Hate it? Tips & Tricks? Comments? ect...

Tis the season, black Friday and all that stuff is going to be a good time for cheap stuff and hard drivers are a hot item I see already people interested in things like the 1TB external drives for backup. Thing is if you rely on a big external drive to keep your data safe and it fails your SOL its gone.


So Data Safety...

One solution is to use a Raid 1 array or similar in your PC so that data is mirrored between disks, Most any decent motherboard has a raid controller these days and if your PC can handle it (power requirements, space, ect) this is a valid move.

But lets face it, this is NBR! most of us here use notebooks ether as primary or secondary computers so this is not an option to keep our data safe unless you transferred it all to your desktop on a regular basis.

So that is exactly what a server is for, to hold your data for you and not bog down or take up all the space on your normal desktop. Better yet if you use an operating system that is made just for this purpose you gain some cool benefits.

The things that I know Windows Home Server can do that I look forward to is

> Give you a safe access to your files over the internet so next time I need a file thats on my desktop when I am at work on my laptop I can get it.

> I dont have one but I know the Xbox 360 can stream music from the server, good way to play your tunes on the home theater system (Im hoping to find a similar way to do this with movies)

> Automatically performs backups of all your data daily, in real time so you can never lose your data.

> Has a smart system that recognizes redundant files. I probably have the same file on my notebook, desktop, second notebook, and again on my desktop in a backup folder. The server will just keep one of that file archived to save space but knows to distribute it to all the computers that use it.

> Can keep revisions of files, accidentally changed a file or deleted it? You can recover the older version.

> Can do a full pc restore from the server, so if your PC dies, you can get it right back to where it left off.

I have seen the software for like $150-180ish on ebay and I think 30% cash back is still going on. So good time to get it cheap, then get some HDD's with the upcoming sales and you can easily run this one a $50 computer, but I would probably build a nice little $100 or so computer.

When all is said and done I think you will have made a great investment that will protect your data for the rest of your life and also streamline the way you do things.

So is this a dream or reality? Thats why I hope to get some hands on opinions from anybody that already made the dive. Probably most people bought one of the prebuilt systems like HP offers starting at $500 but I am a DIY guy so I can do it cheaper and make it faster.

 

As a DIY project, I believe that everything WinHS can do can be done (probably more efficiently and securely) with open-source/free software building on top of an Apache server running on an old desktop.

I have a long-running (uncompleted) project to build a home server in that fashion, and so far, so good, although I won't be doing some of the things you want to do like streaming media.

To build, I picked up an old _Dell desktop that had just come off a corporate lease for about $50 on eBay (came complete with a legit copy of XP Pro, which was worth the price alone). Right now I've been running the apache server on the installed XP Pro; however, at some point I'll be experimenting with running it on some linux variant as well.

I did take a look at the WinHS setup early on, but was turned off by the pricing, and was more than a little leery of getting myself into another overinvolved, bloated Microsoft product (the minimum system specs for running Home Server are outrageous compared to what you need to run an apache server).

Other than presumably an easier time getting WinHS to mesh seamlessly with any other Win-based systems you're running on your home network, I really don't see the benefit of going with WinHS over apache plus open-source/freeware, particularly if one's a DIY type of computer user.

 

I still have my beta tester version of it so I can try it for free.

I know you do not go directly into the server that you have to use the connection software and it creates a secure connection and I think it bypasses dynamic IP's and things as most home ISP's will not give you a static IP.

Its things like that, that got my interest plus my wife will use it so it cant be too complicated. Im not familiar with the stuff your suggesting though so it may very well work similarly and be easy to use, I just need a place to get started.

Requirements cant be too high, as those HP boxes I was talking about are dirt slow IMO, old AMD cpu's with 1gb ram.

Id easily be able to toss 2gb of ram and a c2d in the server I am building as the parts are cheap if you shop around. Id even go for 4gb of ram if I knew it would help.

 

I use my home PC as a server. I stripped it down to the bare essentials and undervolted/underclocked it. Its passively cooled and the only fan that runs is the powersupply. I don't get why you want a powerful pc running WHS, file transfers aren't going to happen any faster just because you have a C2D in there.

The smart thing to do is to meet the system requirements for running WHS and keep the power consumtion to the absolute bare minimum. This thing is going to be on 24/7 running up your electric bill.

 

Yeah but newer cpus are actually more power efficient per clock, and they scale down via speed step and things when they are not needed.

No sense in spending $50 for an old school AMD when you can spend $60 for a C2D, just supply vs demand the supply is so high that you can get the new stuff nearly as cheap as the old stuff.

Case in point I sold my old desktop to a co worker and it just broke.

SKT 939 Opteron 148 system, when I went to go look up replacement parts it was going to cost me so much for a new 939 mobo/cpu that I just upgraded it to 775 and a C2D for like $20 more and now its 3x faster.

I have not taken the dive into parts hunting yet but trust me what ever I come up with will be a great value for the money, and when its computers really there is no such thing as too fast.

 

Having the software for free takes care of that cost; however, you still have to deal with getting updates exclusively from MS, as well as the fact that, being new, there may be a lot more undiscovered weaknesses in WinHS than in, say, Apache.

In terms of logging into the server from outside, that is quite simple to do using a free service such as dyndns.com (which I use), which uses a small client app on your server to keep dyndns' servers up to date on what your currently assigned IP is, allowing you to connect in from outside, either through the host name you choose for your system through dyndns, or directly via the IP address, which you can see directly from your dyndns account (accessible anywhere).

In terms of secure access, you can use the portforwarding functionality of your router to screen a lot of what comes into the server, and can use any of the secure add-on modules for apache to provide secured access - keep in mind, with Apache you get the same thoroughly tested software that is used by a lot of major businesses, and which has modules to accomodate the needs of those businesses for security.

I would start directly with the Apache website, www.apache.org. If you're going to be running the server on a Win-OS, you can also start with a WAMP distribution. WAMP stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP and a WAMP distribution is a coherent (more or less ) combination of Apache, MySQL and PHP created to run on a Win-OS, and gives you the basics of an all-round server (the server itself - Apache, as well as a web-friendly database application - MySQL, and a script engine to allow you to create more dynamic on-the-fly web documents - PHP) in a single package. Wikipedia contains a comparison of the various WAMP distributions here, which would be a good place to start exploring WAMP.

More generally, there's a decent overview article on home servers on Wikipedia here. In terms of media serving, there's a Wikipedia article on a package called LinuxMCE, which stands for Linux Media Center Edition, which looks like it can be set up to run as a network media server. Then, there's also an application called MythTV, which also has a handy little Wikipedia summary here.

All in all, from what I saw when I looked at it, even if it's free, WinHS just gets too complicated, takes up too many resources (as WarlordOne points out, it's going to be eating a lot of electricity if it runs 24/7), is very new - suggesting that it may be more bug-prone than, e.g., Apache, and is proprietary - leaving you at the mercy of MS and its decisions whether or not to fix a bug. Particularly for a DIY project, I'd look long and hard at the free/open-source alternatives before I locked myself into WinHS.

 

Actually, with respect to a server, the big issue isn't so much CPU speed as much as it is (a) the availability of a lot of good RAM, and (b) the availability of a lot of good, fast hard drive space. The desktop I use has a Pentium 4 with a 2.4GHz clock, and that serves plenty fast enough. The only place where I really notice a drag from the server's components are when I use Remote Desktop and ask it to do something graphic-intensive using its own resources, in which case I can see the lag from the integrated graphics processor, as well as that caused by my own pokey little VAIO.

 

Well thanks for the resources so far, I'll look into apache a bit more and see if I can find some good guides for home server use.

Also I just did some google searches and found this a good read:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2189704,00.asp

Fairly short unbiased and honest view of WHS, kind of got right to the point with whats good and bad.

If you find the time to read through it I would love to hear your opinion of it since you have a great knowledge of apache already, you would be in a good position to compare the two.

I was rather intrigued by the OS level "RAID" setup! I was going to RAID 1 for data safty and looks like it does that on its own, better yet tho it does it in a way where you wont lose you disk space! (you can choose the files that you want redundant, so you can have "raid 1" for your important stuff and then just a single copy of the not so important stuff allowing you to maximize your disk space more. I really liked this feature/idea)

 

I've been using WHS PP1 for about three months, and it is great. It's great for a central place for all family members to store data (pictures, videos, movies, documents, etc), it automatically backs up computers (a life saver - I had to restore my laptop due to a faulty drive, and it worked perfectly), and you can access all of your files via the internet (VPN using Hamachi as a plug-in or via the Microsoft Home Server website). You can stream movies to any client via plug-ins, on the network or via the web. There is an iTunes plug-in so you can share all iTunes music between client machines. There are tons of other great plug-ins for WHS, and there are several great websites dedicated to WHS.

Can you do something like WHS using open source software? Maybe. Would it be as easy or as well put together as WHS? I doubt it.

Regarding RAID - WHS does not use RAID. It adds drives to a pool, and then it constantly rearranges data to keep the data evenly spread around. You see one drive, not many drives. Unless you have a storage plugin, you won't know exactly where the data is (but you can see things via hidden folders if you know where to look). You can't just pluck a drive from the pool - you must use the client utility to remove the drive, which then places the data on the other drives.

 

I thought about buying whs but i think i will burn one of my win2003 server copies to make my server with next weekend. Wish i had a computer to run raid on though, instead i will have 2 internal hard drives plus 2 external. Basically i want it to keep my desktop and laptop synced together and have access to all of my files remotely. I know this is possible using linux, but why not use windows when its available to you free?

 

Nothing's easier with open-source than with proprietary (well, almost nothing); but that shouldn't be a significant issue to a DIY person.

Also, that little tid-bit about the drives is precisely one of the reasons I would prefer to stay away from WinHS; what's the point of opaque sophistication over basic transparent usefulness?

 

Explain the "little tid-bit about the drives", please. What is the problem with WHS adding a drive to a pool and controlling what goes where? I'm certain you know that WHS is designed to be installed to a headless box and given to an end user, and then controlled via remote client. In this setup, what is the benefit of manually adding and controlling where the data goes? One large pool of drives, seen as a single drive, and controlled by the OS is very efficient - it uses all available space.

I've gone the do it yourself route. I've used Server 2000, various Linux distros, and even Windows XP, as a "server". I've installed different software bundles, tweaked the OS and hardware, and shared printers from that box. The best solution I've found for my family and home network is WHS. The ability to back up my systems automatically (waking computers from hibernation so the backup is done at night), to stream iTunes and my DVD collection to any Windows machine (and, if I so choose, an Xbox or a digital media receiver), to access my documents via the web from either my own VPN or via the built-in WHS remote access website, and even to subscribe to a service that automatically backs up my WHS to an off-site location, is worth every penny.

Microsoft offers a 120 day free trial of WHS. Anyone who wants to have a home server should give it a try. It will run on a P-III or newer machine, with as little as a 80GB hard drive (my estimate - I wouldn't think of using anything less than 200GB), and a 10/100 NIC connection. After installing the software, the monitor and keyboard is disconnected (so any box will need the ability to disable keyboard error messages) and the system runs alone, with client software installed on client machines. It's worth trying.

 

Relax; you needn't get quite so touchy about it. I'm perfectly happy to grant you all of your arguments; that being said, WinHS is still a substantial resource investment that should be weighed very carefully before being implemented, and that can make a difference if you're running the machine 24/7 and paying your own electric bills. The determining factor should be whether or not WinHS offers a particular functionality that you must have and that you cannot obtain elsewhere without a substantially greater investment of time and energy on your part (since open-source is, generally, free, there's minimal money invested; however, time is money as the adage goes).

For what it's worth, at this point my needs for a server-type machine have been sufficiently met just running Apache and using Remote Desktop, but that's most likely because my demands on the system are much less than yours are.

 

Sounds good, have any favorite sites to read up on some of the plug-ins and tweaks? I'll probably get a cheap wireless keyboard & mouse or something for it, dont need a KVM or separate monitor as the one I have has multiple inputs.

Also you say there is a piece of hardware to stream movies to your TV? Thats exactly what I would like to do so I can have my huge movie collection up for use in the living room without having to build a HTPC.

I could always just run a video feed and use the TV as an external monitor, but then I would have to control everything from the other side of the house and run a cord so cant really do that. Id rather find a way to stream using my wireless network.

 

Shyster - I wasn't annoyed or excited, or being touchy. I'm just wondering what it is about the way WHS handles the drives that concerns you.

Vicious - Here are some of the sites I like:

http://www.homeserverhacks.com/
http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver/default.aspx?siteid=50
http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/

You can buy a media extender that will work with an HTPC/home server. Thy are either wired or wireless (go wired - there are lag issues with wireless) versions that connect via component or HDMI to your TV, and they interface with the home PC to stream content to the television. You can use an Xbox as a media extender, if you already have one. Google for "media extender" and you'll find quite a few products.

 

You can use a local extender or and if you have an Xbox360 you can stream videos/pictures/music to it via the mediacenter functionality as well as controlling mediacenter recordings and other availible plug-ins.

If you don't have a Mediacenter (vista) pc as your server you can still access shared folders through the Xbox360 dashboard and play videos/pictures/music. Either way works well with just a nice universal remote.