so I'm a little bored today and feel geeky. I have always had an "always on" pc at my home for the purpose of sharing files. Last year I read about WHS and found it interesting. My parents had just upgraded one of their computers so I requested the old one. It was a Dell with: P4 2.4 with HT 512mb RAM 40gb HDD NIC that's about it So I get it, pull the HDD, take the compressed air and blow out the cobwebs and dust bunnies. Add another stick of RAM to give me 1 gig. Installed a 160gb PATA HDD (no SATA ) that I got on clearance at WalMart of all places for $40. I ordered the 90 day trial of WHS and installed it.. worked great. After just a few weeks, I ordered the full version from newegg and was up and running. I now have a second internal HDD and 2 external USB drives, totaling 1.7Tb. I have over 100 DVD's ripped to it as of today, all of my digital photos (about 18gb) and my iTunes library (just over 40gb). It's all accessible to any of our PC's on the network (vista box, MCE laptop, Shuttle HTPC). I have the folder duplication turned on for everything except the ripped dvds. I'm going to add another external HDD so that I can turn that function on. A few weeks ago I ran a few hundred feet of Cat5e, installed numerous Levitron quickport cat5 jacks and cable TV jacks, hooked up a 5 port switch to my existing router/WAP to distribute everything around the house. I was pretty happy when it all worked on the first try! Pretty sweet! (go easy, I'm a novice at best with networking and wiring!) Now that I'm relying more on my WHS, I'm thinking about upgrading the box to a more reliable, NEW, setup. This will allow me to use SATA HDD's and a low power CPU. Here's what I'm looking at: Newegg.com - Rosewill R222-P-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases Generic case with room for several HDD's Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards Inexpensive Gigabyte mobo with onboard graphics (not needed after setup, thanks to remote desktop) Newegg.com - Antec earthwatts EA380 380W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies Great energy efficient power supply. Same as in my vista box Newegg.com - AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops 45w dual core AMD processor Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives - Internal Hard Drives First of many 1Tb hdd's anyways, like I said, I'm bored today. Just thought I would share I've found We Got Served - Windows Home Server and Your Digital Home to be a great source of information for WHS. I'm going to install MyMovies as soon as the next update comes out.
oh yeah, forgot to mention, I moved my current WHS down to the basement. It's much cooler in my bonus room now
a few things did change. I ended up with a 5050e processor instead of the 4850e and got a nicer coolermaster case. I tell you, there is a noticeable difference between this WHS and the one I built from the old Dell P4 2.8! I guess it helps I have internal HDDs now on SATA instead of exernal on USB Few pics from teh console
I'm still in the process of moving data (read, DVD rips) from my external drives to the internals. Once it's done, I'll have a little over 1Tb of rips stored, along with 30Gb music and 20Gb of jpg's. I still have about 120 DVD's to rip so I need to add more drives to utilize the folder duplication. I want to add 2 more before the end of the year and then maybe 2 more next year to give me 6Tb total. I could then add a 4in3 cage to add 4 more drives, giving me a total of 10Tb once it's done, that is unless I go with larger capacity drives, which I probably will depending on $
Hmmm.. WHS does not have much in common with 2k3 server sp2 r2.. I wish it did. That looks much friendlier. I ended up getting annoyed because I had a dns server issue/dhcp server issue and reinstalled. How does it network in? Just plug it into a router and off you go, or do you do a dcpromo and redirect your router, etc....
From the little I played with it on my home network, it works pretty well. I also ordered the trial and had used it for a couple of weeks, but I really didn't like how it handled the drives. I prefer the redundancy of RAID1 though, versus how WHS's drive extender works. It seemed like my drives were constantly reading/writing when using the WHS system, so I reinstalled it in RAID1 and it seemed much better. It did cut my total space in half using RAID, but I'm ok with that, since I don't have 320 GB worth of stuff, so I definitely didn't need 640 GB worth. Now how it works is that you install WHS and make sure the server and PC's are all in the same workgroup. Let your router handle the DHCP, or set static IP's, and install the connector software on the PC's. From there, it's just a matter of configuring backups and you're good to go. I went astray from WHS and put XP back on the system, so it was a usable PC. I still have it in RAID1 and have a couple shares on there that I mapped to my desktop and laptop. For me, this works just as well and doesn't add any software that use up my system's resources.
yep, just plug it in and go. Then you can either use the included disc to install the connector software or click on the computers icon in my network and it will direct you to the software on the WHS itself. Mine is a stand alone box in my basement. Sure, I could use it for another machine, but his works great. I like having my DVD collection on it and available to any of my MC computers. I also have my mp3 collection on it sharing to iTunes throughout the house. The backup is probably the best feature. From what I've read, it does a bit by bit backup so that if something happens, it can restore you computer to where it was. It's almost like an image. I've read people saying they tried out Win7 RC and didn't like it, just did a restore from the included cd back to where they were. This is great for family members that are malware prone As for the drive pool, I actually like the simplicity. I have little to no understanding of RAID, as so most home users that may buy this product, so the fact that I can install a drive, turn on the box, click on "add to pool" and be done is a big plus. You can even use USB or external SATA drives in the drive pool which was great on my last box since it didn't have SATA mobo. The extender will store data on separate drives to keep it somewhat safe. Some people say that WHS is not a good backup option, but it works great me I'm sure 90% of the home PC users with a network would be able to use it, so that no IT knowledge is needed It's truly a setup and forget option
We Got Served - Windows Home Server and Your Digital Home is a good source of info. There are tons of add ins (I have a few) that do some pretty neat stuff. I think I may install My Movies next, but haven't decided.
Yeah, WHS looks like a very nice product. I was selected to beta test the original version, but never got around to installing it. And right about now, when I can't get the router to play nice with the server in regards to dns and dhcp, I'd prob much rather have it. However, I can get all flavors of server but home for free(2k8 all versions, 2k3 all versions anyway) and it is better for me to learn how to set up a business level server even if I only use it at home. As far as RAID, it's not a big deal to setup. Install a raid card, go into it's setup, and set it up. If it were me, I'd use RAID 5. Striping with parity. Just know that with raid 5, you will lose one of your disks to the parity system. However, if a HD crashes, just put a new hd in, and tell your raid controller to rebuild the set. Once you have it up and running, the computer will see it as one big fast hard drive. As far as backups, once I get it all running, I will set up the backup scheduler on both of my laptops and backup to the server. If you get a chance, I'm just curious how they do the config on the server. If you could, get a screenshot of an ipconfig /all. This is what I'm currently working with. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&cm_re=server_2003_r2-_-32-116-371-_-Product If I ever succeed, I'll put this on and really boggle myself. Although, it may be easier. I've heard 08 is easier to deal with than 03. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6499&cm_re=server_2008-_-32-116-499-_-Product
It is for me. MSDN ftw! I don't know if ACM closed their loophole on non students, but if not, it's $20 for a year. If so, I think it's $50 or so a year. Worst case, you can always get a technet subscription. I think they are like $250 or so.
I do recall you sending me that info. I never joined, even though I was an ACM member back in college (in 93 )
Not exactly sure how she did it, but my wife signed up for the school I attend and got a .edu email addy that way. All she did was fill out an application online I think. I know she has never been there and has never paid them any money.
Life is good. Got my server 03 box and router to play nice with each other. Server box is running active directory, hosting a domain, a dhcp server, an internal dns server. Router is doing very little besides being a switch and wireless access point. Just now solved the ps3 media server issue. Downloaded a free program called ps3 media server. Works on the first shot..
dvd fab 5 and I just rip them to .vob. I reencode them to .mkv with the default iPhone setting on handbrake and upload to my iPhone via iTunes
