Windows Home Server...

[petert]

At last count we have 7 PCs in our house and although I'm no slouch at networking etc it's getting increasingly cumbersome to keep all valued content available and properly backed-up. Have considered a hulking great mirrored storage unit like a Netgear ReadyNas and that ilk but am also interested in forum members' experiences with home servers, either running microsoft home server, the more sophisicated ones like small business server or even the free linux based ones.

Knowledgeable yes, but not too much spare time to be furkling about when I'm supposed to be on quality family time.

Any good insights for me anyone?

Peter T

[pvr]

I went for the tranquil media server in the end, low power and high storage.

http://www.ava-media.com/p/863250/rs5-m ... x-1tb.html

[petert]

Thanks PVR. Was after something that was also designed for documents, spreadsheets etc and am not sure if the tranquil media server was built with that in mind. (Want secure remote access as well by the way for all you server experts out there...)

Peter T

[X5Sport]

I have a pair of HP MediaSmart Servers that backup all our hardware, hold the music and photo files and will hold the DVD collection when I can get my head around understanding what I need to do. The newer one (Model EX 490) is our DLNA streamer and feeds music to the HIFi and ITunes stuff to both the HiFi and TV sets. The HP units come with a lot of additional tools built in, and do allow fully secure remote access providing you are using a full (not the Home Premium version) version of Windows 7 in either 32 or 64 bit flavours, full version of Vista (32) or a full version of Mac OS X 10.6+. You will need to be able to do NAT and port forwarding on your router though. One server has 6TB storage and the other will hold 12TB when all four disc slots are occupied - AVCHD full rate video absolutely eats disc space!! I think each box can handle in excess of 16TB each

Having had a failure of a motherboard a year or so back, the incremental system backups on the server meant a full recovery was executed in about two hours and the PC was up and running with no loss of data. All critical files are held on the server and I use a 1TB external drive to backup the backup database every month. The key thing to remember with the current version of WHS is it is a cut down version of Server 2003 and is not designed to run applications directly. But as a file server it's fine.

Microsoft are due to release a new version of WHS shortly. It's in Beta presently with the codename 'Vail'. You may still be a ble to get an evaluation copy to try on spare hardware.

[pvr]

Remote access is standard on WHS anyway to answer that question. Choice of RDC or some annoying web GUI that Windows provide. I just use the RDC.

I have bought 3 of those media servers, they work very well in companies as well for central file storage which is what I use it for. The ease of hot swapping disks is great, and fairly infinitely expandable.

[petert]

Thanks both - I'd seen that WHS is due for a significant refresh, and also wondered if anybody had experience of the HP mediasmart machines; sounds like you're both happy with the performance as you have 5 between you! I need to get on and do something about backing up some important photographs properly (I have some on CD-RWs) and there's a few other things need putting onto a proper footing. Will absorb any further advice whilst waiting for Vail to emerge from Beta...

Peter T

[pvr]

For performance, I had to install Hanewin software for the file sharing. HD content was not streaming properly using Windows shares as it would only support 8 Mb/s, and with Hanewin that went up to about 15 Mb/s.

Not an issue for normal backup stuff, but if you use it for media sharing you may wish to explore it.

[petert]

Thanks: never come across Hanewin so will investigate.

Peter T