Entries tagged with windows home server - Channel 10

Building a Green Windows Home Server

Sarah Perez — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:57:00 GMT

I've been following a very interesting series of posts over on the Home Server Hacks blog. They detailing, step-by-step, the process of building a $400 "green" Home Server. The server is encased in a Shuttle KPC housing, which is, according to the Shuttle web site, a low power consumption appliance, using only 55 Watts when in use and 33 Watts when idle. To go even greener, you can use Western Digital Caviar GP series drives. There are five parts to this post about building the green WHS and you can began reading the series here. It's a great idea, and just in time for Earth Day, too!

A New Home Server from Avideus

Sarah Perez — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:39:00 GMT

The We Got Served blog has the scoop on another home serving offering, this one from Avideus. The Avideus HSE Home Server, like the Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo and Velocity Micro Netmagix servers, will be based on the Intel SS4200-EHW Server design. The company, based in San Marocs, CA, are currently offering a free 1 TB upgrade until May 15th if you buy from the site at PCAlchemy.com (just choose the option from the drop-down box). For more details on the specs check out the WGS blog or the manufacturer's web site.

Custom WHS with 11 Drives

Sarah Perez — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Via the Windows Home Server Team blog I heard about some crazy, custom-built Windows Home Server in an Alienware case sporting 11 drives. Of course I had to check this out for myself. Whoa, it's true! This guy in Kuwait is retrofitting an older Alienware case to accommodate 11 hard drives and one optical drive and posting the progress to his blog. Here's Stage 1 and here's Stage 2. He's going to be using 1TB drives - wow! We're definitely looking forward to seeing the final results.

UK Discount on WHS via the WGS Blog

Sarah Perez — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:01:00 GMT

If you haven't already heard, the We Got Served blog is one of the best places to find Windows Homer Server news and tips. So, when I saw that they were offering a discount to their readers towards a purchase of a Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo Home Server, I had to pass the info along. It looks like the discount is only applicable to UK visitors, since the URL is to a .co.uk site, but for you guys, you can receive an exclusive deal on both the Scaleo 1900 and 1500 models.

To activate the discount, visit the Fujitsu-Siemens online shop via this URL:

www.fujitsu-siemens-shop.co.uk/privilege
username: home
password: server

Marketing, LOL-style

Nick Hodge — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:25:00 GMT

GoodBarry, a Web 2.0 company and their application GoodBusiness fills that need to deal with the boring administration and sales stuff as you have fun making cool things online.

Rather than traditional marketing with boring brochures and long videos of CEOs extolling the virtues of GoodBarry: Brett Welch has followed in the lead of the Windows Home Server team: write a story book.

Not any story book: this one is filled with internet memes and mega epic lulz4all.

In contrast, the Windows Home Server team took a more motherhood and apple pie approach in "Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?"

Have you seen other examples of Rickrolls, FAIL and LOLCATs being co-opted by marketing types?

SHOUTcast for WHS

Sarah Perez — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:17:00 GMT

SHOUTcast is an internet radio app that lets you listen to radio stations worldwide. But I just discovered that you can set up your Windows Home Server to be your very own, personal SHOUTcast server, which lets you listen to internet radio anywhere in your home. The steps are posted here on the We Got Served blog. The instructions are a bit involved for reposting here, but it could definitely be a great weekend project for WHS'ers. And the best part is, it's free!

PerfectDisk for WHS

Sarah Perez — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:04:00 GMT

Today, the guys at PerfectDisk announced on their blog that a new build of PerfectDisk 2008 for Windows Home Server is now available. This new version includes full integration with the Windows Home Server console, where PerfectDisk 2008 will now have its own tab.

The PerfectDisk software defrags and optimizes disks which leads to better performance and reliability. Their "Space Restoration Technology" also helps create a large piece of contiguous free space so there is less fragmentation in the future while also improving write file access, whereas typical defragmenters only focus on read file access.

If you already have PerfectDisk installed on your WHS, you'll need to remove that first before installing the latest version. Installation instructions are here. The software for WHS is only $39.99, or you can purchase a Home Site License and get 10 licenses for your network for $99.99.

Orb on Windows Home Server

Sarah Perez — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:36:00 GMT

Orb is a cool web application that lets you stream media from your home computer to any internet-connected device, be it a PDA, mobile phone, computer, or laptop. Since Home Server users tend to have most of their media stored on their WHS box, the most logical place for them to install Orb would be on their server. Thanks to this walkthrough, you can learn how to install Orb on your WHS - a perfect project for this holiday weekend. Read the how-to here on the "We Got Served" blog.

Automate Your Home with Your Windows Home Server

Sarah Perez — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:33:00 GMT

For home automation enthusiasts, comes a plugin for Windows Home Server called "Embedded Automation's mControl for Windows Home Server." With this WHS plugin, you can configure and control everything in your home from lighting to AC to thermostats to security cameras from directly within WHS or from any other networked devices like Vista Media Center, Xbox 360, Windows Mobile phones, or any of the new Windows Media Center v2 Extenders. mControl can be used to control a couple of devices or it can be expanded to control all aspects of your home with no need to purchase additional software packages. All you need is mControl. You can download a free trial of mControl for WHS from here to try it out.

Vista Caller ID

Sarah Perez — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:15:00 GMT

Vista Caller-ID is Windows software that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Windows Vista to track and announce phone calls. It uses your Voice or Data modem and the Caller ID service provided by your local phone company in order to identify who’s calling. The service also tracks all incoming calls and logs the Date, Time, and Caller ID Name & Number.

There's also an add-in for Windows Home Server (thanks to Donavon West for the discovery!)

Photosync for Windows Home Server

Sarah Perez — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:40:00 GMT

Photosync is a cool WHS add-in that lets you automatically sync the contents of your "Photos" folder on Windows Home Server to Flickr. The latest version, beta 2, offers some enhancements like the ability to name the flickr images based on the file name, the ability to create "sets" based on the file name, and the ability to set photo permissions. If you need help with the installation, check out Tech Republic's web site, where they put up a really great step-by-step installation guide - with screenshots!

Windows Home Server Add-In: Advanced Admin Console

Sarah Perez — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:11:00 GMT

One of the best things about Windows Home Server is the ability to extend its "out-of-the-box" functionality by the use of add-ins, just like you can with you with your web browser.

The Advanced Admin Console Add-In is a cool one for WHS Admins to have. With this, you can quickly jump to Administrative areas from within the Home Server Console including the Control Panel, Printers & Faxes, Administrative Tools, Start Menu, My Computer, My Network Places, Workgroup, and Network Connections.

Additionally, this add-in lets you launch a Command Prompt, PowerShell, Task Manager, and the Registry Editor.

This is great add-in for IT Professionals who are already familiar with running Windows Server 2003, as it gives you access to more advanced functions. Because the extra functionality provides was not something intended, there are a few little oddities you should be aware of if you try to use this add-in, but they aren't anything an IT guy or gal like you can't handle. Just read up on them first.

When you're ready to kick it into high gear, download the Advanced Admin Console from here.

The Best Routers for WHS

Sarah Perez — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:31:00 GMT

A popular Windows Home Server website, "We Got Served," recently posted a list of the top ten recommend routers for Windows Home Server, specifically, the HP MediaSmart server. The guys on HP's MediaSmart team had been working on a series of tests for a range of popular routers and had developed a “Top 10″ list of routers that they’ve found to auto-configure consistently well with WHS. If you're thinking of building your own WHS-based network, these are the ten best routers to use:

D-Link DGL-4100 GamerLounge Broadband Gigabit
D-Link DGL-4300 GamerLounge Broadband Gigabit
D-Link DIR-655 Wireless Xtreme N Gigabit
D-Link EBR-2310 Ethernet Broadband
D-Link WBR-1310 Wireless-G
Linksys WRT150N Wireless N Broadband
Linksys WRT54G3G-ST Wireless G for Mobile Broadband
Linksys WRT54GC Compact Wireless-G Broadband
Netgear WPN824NA RangeMax Wireless Router
Trendnet TEW-631BRP Wireless N Draft

The Media Center show interview & Media Center in the kitchen!?

Steven Kerr Lindsay — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:39:00 GMT

Hey Guys, I've been quiet the last few weeks, I've been busy working away at a few projects and getting foundations setup to take part as a Microsoft Champion in the Media Center, Home Server community.

You can read a bit more about this on blog at thedigitallifestyle.com : MCML blog.

In relation to that I recently did an interview with Ian Dixon, from the Media Center Show Podcast and thedigitallifestyle.com. It was released yesterday and you can listen to it at the Media Center Show podcast linked above.

I also took part in a fun event with Ian a couple of weeks ago. Ian hosted the Media Center Awards Show 2007 live over uStream. I was a guest on the awards show via Skype, the show had guests and winners from the literally the 4 corners of the world! I also announced my involvement in the Champion program on this event.

I've also been working hard on my integration between WHS and Media Center that I've mentioned a few times before. (Previously known as WHS Recorded TV Manager, although it will be released under a new title TBA).

That project is so near to completion now it hurts; I've just been very busy and haven't had a chance to get it out there yet. However it's coming very soon and I think you'll like it :)

In addition I intend to release the source code to my Stage6 DivX plugin for Media Center over on my blog on thedigitallifestyle.com in the next week or so, so stay tuned for that :) - It will be used as a launch into some MCML programming articles to help you guys make your own add-ins for Vista MCE.

One other thing I've been working on is adding a Media Center system to my Kitchen. It's now complete and I'm very happy with it. Tell me what you think :)
As always please bombard me with questions if you have any and I'll do my best to help.

My Windows Home Server: Family Only Photos

Nick Hodge — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:13:00 GMT

I have just returned from a weekend in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. Being a family gathering over two days, many digital photographs were taken. And mostly not by me.

And I gave my camera to my 5 year old neice and sent her outside to take photos. Soon, the camera returned full of photos and no battery charge.

Returning to Sydney: how do I share the 220 photos? An avid Flickr.com user; I could upload them all there. By using Flickr family/privacy settings and ensuring the extended family could all see without sharing to the world. That would require some administration, and I just loath paperwork.

Solution: Use the Windows Home Server! After reviewing add-ins, I decided on Andrew Grant's Whiist.

Here is the install process:

Step 1: download the .msi from Andrew's web site. Simply drag this into your Windows Home Server's Software\Add-Ins directory

Step 2: Go the Windows Home Server Console for Windows Home Server Settings, Add-ins. Whiist is listed as an add-in that can be Installed. Install it.

Step 4: Manage Websites now appears next to Server storage. Click on this, and then Add a web site

Step 5: Adding a simple photo album to share pictures, so the second option is the best choice.

Step 5: Setting the URL, and the shared folder on the server (path)

And here we have the photo gallery. Beauty is, I can now share the many private family photos to a limited audience.

Result: send email to a very happy Mum. Windows Home Server. Keeping Mum's happy since 2007.

HP Home Server Code Cracked

Larry Larsen — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:52:00 GMT

Remember the light show functionality of the HP MediaSmart Home Server? One of the themes is called Morse Code Credits. HomeServerHacks.com has decoded the message, it reads as follows:

"Maureen Webber, Dan Thero, Matt Haines, Jerry McCollom, Charles McJilton, Dave Hanes, Jason Goldman, Alex Kuretz, Bryce Wemple, Lee Linden, TSV, Eric Peterson, Phil Walker, Jim Long, John Agosta, Greg Lipinski, Fred Thomas, Paul Boerger, Tony Hernandez, Paul Cesario, Mike Schuett, Christie Ratliff, Drea Babcock, Nick Jennings, Kim Sipes, My Therapy Buddy, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, The Microsoft Windows Home Server Team, and you the patient one who has written all of this down... congratulations!"

[HomeServerHacks]

Windows Home Server CES 2008 Update

Nic Fillingham — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:39:00 GMT

Windows Home Server has come a long way in a very short time. We caught up with Joel Sider at CES 2008 to check out some of the new OEM systems available on the market as well as some cool home automation add-ins that allow you to remotely control electrical devices (for example your house lights) via WHS.

WHS now boasts over 30 available add-ins enabling everything from DHCP to the automatic syncing of your photo collection to flickr. For more info visit the Windows Home Server web site.

My Windows Home Server: Updates

Nick Hodge — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:51:00 GMT

Windows Home Server has been in our home for over 2 months.

Sitting quietly underneath a bunch of other PCs, it just works. From an earlier posting, I decided to purchase a TranquilPC from the UK. Plugging the server in and turning it on just appealed to my sense of simplicity.

Since my last update, a spare 750Gb hard disk drive fell into my hands. Plugging it in to the Windows Home Server, using the administration interface to enable for server use: 1.59Tb of disk space ready to go!

The Windows Home Server team is working on a 64-bit connector for backups, and a bunch of other nice additions in their Power Pack 1.

Further Reading:

http://www.andrewgrant.org/2007/06/09/how-to-create-a-windows-home-server-photo-album-in-minutes.html
Paul Thurrott http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/whs.asp
We Got Served addins http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/
TranquilPC http://mswhs.com/2007/11/01/new-tranquil-harmony-home-server-series-pc-announced-t2-whs-a2/
http://mswhs.com/
LobsterTunes http://www.lobstertunes.com/

Windows Home Server Power Pack Announced

Larry Larsen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:32:00 GMT

A new update for Windows Home Server was announced last night at CES. The update, called Power Pack 1 (formerly code named UR1) will ship in the first half of 2008 and hit servers via Windows Update. This update will include new Home Server connector software (this is the systray app that connects your computer to the Home Server), and the ability to backup your Home Server (for offsite storage for example), and several other new features.

Todd Headrick from the Home Server team invited us over to see all the new features and talk a little bit about Home Server. We'll connect with that team again while we're here and check out some of the Home Server hardware.

HP MediaSmart Home Server Easter Egg

Sarah Perez — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:18:00 GMT

I love finding Easter Eggs (especially ones involving lights), so when I saw this post on Home Server Hacks, I couldn't resist passing it along: the HP EX470/EX475 MediaSmart Windows Home Servers have a great Easter Egg involving the colored LED lights on the front. Using a special keyboard combination, you can change the brightness control feature to display a hidden option: "HP MediaSmart Server LED Light Show." From here, you can then choose one of seven light schemes: default, Descending Chasers (in blue, red, or purple), Ascending Chasers (in blue, red, or purple), Pulsing (all colors), Night Rider (all colors), Morse Code Credits (still un-decoded as of yet), and, just in time for the holidays, Holiday Lights! The Holiday Lights scheme is my favorite, since it uses all the colors available. There is a great video the lights in action here.

Windows Home Server plays with lights!

Benjamin Gauthey — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:03:00 GMT

Here a cool add-in for Windows Home Server made my a french company called Omwave (http://www.omwave.com/). With this one, you can manage LED Lights in your house to create ambiances. Have a look at it!

How can I speed up my Windows Home Server file copies?

Steven Kerr Lindsay — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Lately I've been receiving a few emails asking me about issues with speeds when copying to and from Windows Home Server. Some of these issues can be network, some can be other things such as your Windows Home Server hardware setup. Especially if you build your home server yourself. This article discusses how you can ensure your Windows Home Server is setup optimally so you can ensure the fastest possible copying speeds.

When you install WHS, it partitions the install hard disk into a 20 Gigabyte primary OS partition and then puts the remaining space as drive D which becomes a 'Primary data partition'.

This 'Primary data partition' is where all of the actual network shares are located, so when you go to \\server\videos your really going to the D drive partition on the primary disk.

When you copy a file across to the videos share for instance, the file is copied onto the D drive partition on your primary home server drive. On the WHS there is a service called the 'Windows Home Server Drive Extender' which is monitoring the videos folder (and all other network shares) which is actually physically located on the D drive 'Primary data partition' of the WHS primary hard disk.

The 'Windows Home Server Drive Extender' looks at the configuration for the share and works out based on this configuration which actual WHS storage drive it will move the file just copied to the share too. The service looks at several thing, such as where other files for the same share are, how much space is free, and if you are using folder duplication.

Once the drive extender service chooses a final destination and moves the media to that destination (If your using duplication it also copies it to another drive for duplication), it creates what is known as a 'tombstone' file in place of the file it just moved to the destination.

The 'tombstone' file is a very small file which points to where the actual file is. This frees up the original space used on the D: drive again and the file is now located on one of the WHS storage drives.

Now this is great as you never need to worry about disk space and you simply see one huge share which can contain the combined space of all of your WHS storage drives.

The problem and the reason copies can be so slow is that if the primary hard disk is slower than the actual WHS storage drives or the drive of the PC which is copying data to it then you're going to get bottlenecked by it.

Here is an example; lets say we have the following setup:

A 1 Gigabit network connection between the source PC and the WHS machine through a 1 Gigabit switch.
The WHS has a 80 Gigabyte primary hard disk which is an ATA100 IDE 7200rpm drive with 2MB cache. It has a write seek time of 10.9ms average/read seek time of 8.9ms and Transfer rates of 420Mbits/s (max) buffer to disk and a buffer to host transfer speed 100.0MB/s.
The WHS has 3 x 500 Gigabyte SATA2 drives which you very sensibly connected to a separate SATA2 PCI card with 3 independent SATA2 channels. The drives are 10,000rpm, with 5.2ms average write seek speed/4.6ms read seek time, and a buffer to host transfer rate of 1.5Gbits/s with a sustained buffer to disk transfer rate of 84 MB/s. In addition these drives also have a 16MB cache.
A Windows Vista PC on the network which has a 250 Gigabyte 7200rpm SATA drive which has a read seek time of 8.9ms/write seek time 10.9ms, and a buffer to disk transfer speed of 748Mbits/s (max) and a buffer to host speed of 300MB/s.

The first thing worth mentioning is that the 1 Gigabit network should be able to copy in theory at about 100-200Mbits/s between the Vista PC and the Windows Home Server.

So lets say we want to copy a 60 Gigabyte file from the Vista PC to the WHS videos share. The file is being read from the Vista PC SATA disk a lot faster than it can write to the WHS ATA100 primary drive.

This is due to a large number of factors;

    The faster read speeds of the SATA drive on the Vista machine, compared to the write speeds of the destination home server ATA100 primary hard disk.

    The SATA drive being nearly twice as fast at moving the data from the disk to the drive buffer compared to the ATA100 primary drive in the WHS.

    The SATA drive being 3 times faster moving the data from the drive buffer to the host (network), than the ATA100 primary drive in the WHS can move the data from the host (network) to the drive buffer.

    In addition the buffer on the ATA100 drive in the WHS is 8 times smaller than that of the SATA drive on the Vista PC which it will take longer to get the data on disk due it not being able to buffer as much before it has to write it to the disk.

So as you can imagine already our copy is now slowed down significantly. There is no chance at this point we're going to be copying at 300MBits/s. So what can we actually expect?

With just the points we mentioned above the speed has already dropped down to about 60MBit/s.

So ok, we can expect 60MBit/s per second? thats not too bad right?

Well I'm sure if you have the above setup your not even seeing that.... So why, what else is wrong?

Well at this point, we only discussed the data getting onto the ATA100 D: drive. As mentioned before, the Windows Home Server Drive Extender service will then move it to an actual storage drive on your Windows Home Server.

You may now be starting to see the issue. Your destination drives are going to be copied to from only the WHS D: drive, nothing else will be writing to these at all.

That means due to the slower ATA100 D: 80 Gigabyte drive speed, along with the tiny 2MB cache, and the 420Mbits/s buffer to disk transfer rate is going to slow down the copy to your super fast drives 10,000rpm SATA2 drives.

Your ATA100 hard disk in this setup is your weakest link. Its slowing down both the copy across the network initially and the copy on the WHS to the storage drive after that. In addition add drive fragmentation of the storage drive/drives and your really getting into trouble.

But.... you could have even more issues, for instance, if you have Media Sharing turned on in WHS for streaming media to your 360's or Windows Media Player 11 etc, then every time you copy a new file to the WHS it is indexed immediately, which can cause some more additional slowdown.

In addition if you have duplication turned on for that particular folder it will be slower again due to having to move the file to two destination WHS storage drives.

So how much would all of the above actually effect your final copy speed?

Well I've seen in the worst case scenario of above, with the drive bottle neck, disk fragmentation on your storage drives, Media Sharing and Folder duplication turned on. The speeds can drop to as bad as between 1Mbits/s to 7Mbits/s which as you can imagine may disappoint you heavily especially if your on a 1 Gigabit network!

In the worst case scenario I'm talking about I saw copy speeds that slow it would take between 30-60 minutes to copy a 500MB file!

Now we didn't even discuss the scenario that other people may be copying to or from the WHS at the same time!

Finally I wanted to mention another issue, in the setups we talked about, the primary WHS hard disk was a 80 Gigabyte and the storage drives are 500 Gigabyte. This is bad, you want to have a primary hard disk of at least the same size as your largest storage drive if possible. This will ensure that you don't run out of space if you're copying large amounts of files or a single very large file to your home server. Remember they will end up copying to your 'Primary data partition' first!, and if it does not have the space to store the file, it really doesn't matter that you have enough space on your other drives. You need to consider this even more if you think it's likely you will be copying to the server from multiple machines at once.

So what can you do to prevent these situations?

Well... these would be my top 10 tips to ensure you don't get into this situation with Windows Home Server.

Ensure your primary hard disk on your WHS is at least the speed of the fastest disk on your network.
Ensure your primary hard disk on your WHS is at least the size of the largest hard disk in your WHS storage.
Use a disk de-fragmentation tool on your Storage drives (You need de-fragmentation tools specific to Home Server, such as Raxco Perfect Disk for Home Server or Diskeeper 2008 Home Server - Links below).
Unless you need duplication on a folder, turn it off. Duplication in intended for files you really want to ensure you don't loose. i.e. Photos, Personal documents etc.
Unless you need and use the Media Streaming feature of WHS leave it turned off.
Get a 1 Gigabit switch for your network and a 1 Gigabit network card for your WHS, attach your WHS and machines which talk to the WHS to the switch. At the very least your WHS will benefit from being connected to a 1 Gigabit switch even if your other PC's are not using 1 Gigabit network cards. This is due to your WHS being capable of sending more data to more PC's at once when using 1 Gigabit even if the other PC's themselves are only using 100megabit network cards.
Get 1 Gigabit network cards for your PC's which talk to the WHS if you can. As above at the very least get your WHS a 1 Gigabit network card. This tip is obviously contingent on you having a 1 Gigabit switch. Also ensure the cards are actually configured 1 Gigabit, otherwise it would defeat the purpose.
Don't expect to get the full 1 Gigabit speeds on your Home Server or any machine on your network. 1 Gigabit networks do not run 1 Gigabit in homes, they typically run at the fastest at around 300Mbits/s, and typically around 100-200Mbits/s. This is just how 1 Gigabit works in home environments. I included an article below which you can read which will explain some of the issues with speed on 1 Gigabit home networks.
If you are using custom plug-ins on your Windows Home Server be aware of what they are doing, you don't want to slow down the WHS as this could end up slowing down everything on the WHS including file copies.
Fully understand how Windows Home Server Drive Extender works by reading Microsoft's white paper (linked below).

So what speed can you expect if you use these tips and are setup optimally?

Well lets assume we have SATA 7200rpm drives on all machines including the primary disk on WHS. 1 Gigabit Ethernet running CAT6 all round our network on all machines. No WHS Folder Duplication or Media Sharing on our WHS destination share and all our WHS storage drives de-fragmented nicely.

In testing I found that I would get up to around 150Mbits/s which is really fast. The 60 Gigabyte file we talked about took around an hour. A 5 Gigabyte file took around 5 minutes and a 500MB file would wiz across in just 30 seconds!

Useful links:

Microsoft Home Server Drive Extender White Paper (PDF)

1 Gigabit Ethernet Need to Know article by Toms Networking

Raxco Perfect Disk for Home Server

Diskeeper 2008 for Windows Home Server

Stay-at-home Servers Unite

Larry Larsen — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:25:00 GMT

Back when I was playing Pong, the idea of a home computer was a distant science fiction fantasy. By the time I was playing Pac Man, the idea of home networks seemed absurd. Now here I am playing Call of Duty 4 while my home server backs up all the home computers across my home network. Times have changed... Well, besides me sitting around playing video games.

The Windows Home Server team have put up a new site that hilariously looks at the changing role of servers, and you can see them at StayAtHomeServer.com. So whether you support stay-at-home servers or prefer working servers, you won't want to miss this Colbert Report-style look at these changing times.

Also, don't miss the Windows Home Server children's book.

Windows Home Server update available

Larry Larsen — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:51:00 GMT

For those of you lucky enough to find a Home Server under your Christmas tree (or other gift sheltering holiday ornamentation), you'll be happy to know a nice update was released today that, among other things, will give you your own trusted SSL certificate.

This means that when you connect to your home server at httpS://<yourname>.homeserver.com, you'll have the little lock icon that comes with a secure socket connection without all the flags browsers normally throw when you go to a SSL site without a certificate.

Congrats to Charlie Kindle and team for going above and beyond on one of our favorite products. More info on the Windows Home Server blog.

My Windows Home Server: Backup and Restore

Nick Hodge — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:01:00 GMT

When computers fail, they really fail. They fail hard. Many hours of weekend time is taken up rebuilding, reformatting and redata-ing (?) the broken computer. Time is valuable!

Now I've had a personal experience of the sanity saving Windows Home Server automated backup. In the most recent week, I have been self-building my own Windows Media Center. After a recent misplaced de-install, otherwise known as "user error", it was just easier to roll back to a previous version of the system.

A key selling point of the Windows Home Server in our house: automated backups.

The connector software is pre-packaged, ready for install from the server. Windows XP seemed to not be happy with running the installer from the server, so I copied the install folder to the desktop of the target PC and installed from there. Windows Home Server backs up works one PC at a time, so I installed the Connector Software one by one on our PCs

After typing in the server password, the PC 'joins' the server, and is ready to go
In each instance, I started a manual backup from the client PCs

The restore process is a little more complex, involving the following steps:

Make a Restore CD from the supplied .ISO file
Reboot the target PC with the new Restore CD
Log into the Home Server using the Administrator password
Select the image from the server to restore (by date of backup)
Choose the hard disk volume to restore the image to
18 minutes later, reboot the target PC
Now have returned to the previous state of the PC

A key test in any backup environment is the quality of the restore. In fact, before trusting any backup, it is best to test a restore. This is a confidence test which I highly recommend.

It will save your sanity.