Windows Home Server FAQ

I recently upgraded to Intel PRO1000/PTs for my desktop and HTPC and put an Intel PRO 1000/GT (PCI) in my server. I watched my before and after speeds and I went from about 20-25MB/s (160-200 Mb/s) to about 30-35MB/s (240-280Mb/s). I previously used onboard gigabit network interfaces. So, I definitely saw an improvement. I have not attempted to play with the settings to see if I can get it even faster. While setting up one NIC, I did play around with the autonegotiate feature and ended up in an endless automatic network search but I also set it to 1Gb/s and later found out I had a problem with my wall outlet and couldn't get that speed (must be a bad wire or something).

I do have a question though. Even with the increased speed, I still find that attempting more than one move at the same time slows everything to a crawl. For example, I move file x and the transfer is running at 280Mb/s, then I move file y and the first transfer drops below 80Mb/s and the second creeps along at 12Mb/s. As soon as it's back to just one file being moved, the transfer speed will bump up to 280Mb/s.

I have the computers below hooked up on gigabit LAN w/ CAT6 cables, a Netgear GS116 gigabit switch, a DLink DIR-655 router connects me to my cable modem and 2 printers.
 
Thanks for the datapoint on moving from onboard nic to cards...That is helpful.

brownkc said:
I do have a question though. Even with the increased speed, I still find that attempting more than one move at the same time slows everything to a crawl. For example, I move file x and the transfer is running at 280Mb/s, then I move file y and the first transfer drops below 80Mb/s and the second creeps along at 12Mb/s. As soon as it's back to just one file being moved, the transfer speed will bump up to 280Mb/s.
Click to expand...

As soon as you start two things moving your hard drive has to seek back and forth all over the place to access both files...and the same has to happen on the other end as well. (Assuming only two computers are involved)
 
KevinG said:
Thanks for the datapoint on moving from onboard nic to cards...That is helpful.



As soon as you start two things moving your hard drive has to seek back and forth all over the place to access both files...and the same has to happen on the other end as well. (Assuming only two computers are involved)
Click to expand...


That makes sense. I have a tendency to move large files (movies) during the night and noticed this behavior would I would start several at one time. I will try to keep it to one at a time.
 
I have some of the same issues. I can transfer to mine at 70megs sometime then other times im lucky to get 12megs. I have been ripping all my dvds to iso then transfering to whs to rip over night. I havent disabled the ip6 yet on my vista machine. I have a dlink 5 port gig switch and using realtek gig onboard on my vista and whs machine. WHS has one 400 and 1.5tb as pool. Im happy with the 25 i get most of the time though.
 
It's all about the hard drive speed. Pay attention to the drives on the server when trasnferring files over. You can see which drive is active using drive management add on. You notice that when the data goes to one drive the speed can be different than when the data goes to another drive.
Also note what controller those drives are connected to. It would make a difference as well.
 
How can I make my PC shut down after WHS runs a backup? Is there an option with WHS or with an add-in?
 
tgabe213 said:
How can I make my PC shut down after WHS runs a backup? Is there an option with WHS or with an add-in?
Click to expand...

If you have set a particular client PC to be automatically woken for backup, WHS should also put it back to sleep after it has finished. The option to set a PC to be automatically woken can be found in the WHS Connector's tray icon's context menu on the client PC.

-Kevin
 
KevinG said:
If you have set a particular client PC to be automatically woken for backup, WHS should also put it back to sleep after it has finished. The option to set a PC to be automatically woken can be found in the WHS Connector's tray icon's context menu on the client PC.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

I have seen that before but I usually don't like putting my pc to sleep, just turn it off. I could give it a shot. I was hoping for an alternative.
 
There is no way for the server to wake a client that is hard shut down, only hibernated or sleep. unless something has changed recently or an addin i am unaware of.
 
krelkor said:
There is no way for the server to wake a client that is hard shut down, only hibernated or sleep. unless something has changed recently or an addin i am unaware of.
Click to expand...

There are various addins that implement this via WOL (wake on Lan).
 
Can someone try to describe folder duplication to me? Nothing I read makes sense. Maybe it's because I have an idea in my head so I'm trying to make everything I read apply to that.

Here's what I'm trying to do. I have my Data partition on my desktop. I basically want a duplicate of that to be on my WHS, backed up daily. I'd like the partition on my desktop to be primary, and it makes a backup, basically copying everything in that partition into a folder on my WHS. I also want my laptop to be able to stream movies and music that are on the WHS after being duplicated. Is that what WHS duplication is? How do I go about setting that up?
 
tgabe213 said:
Can someone try to describe folder duplication to me? Nothing I read makes sense. Maybe it's because I have an idea in my head so I'm trying to make everything I read apply to that.

Here's what I'm trying to do. I have my Data partition on my desktop. I basically want a duplicate of that to be on my WHS, backed up daily. I'd like the partition on my desktop to be primary, and it makes a backup, basically copying everything in that partition into a folder on my WHS. I also want my laptop to be able to stream movies and music that are on the WHS after being duplicated. Is that what WHS duplication is? How do I go about setting that up?
Click to expand...

You turn duplication on a share by share basis. If you have share on your server called music, with duplication turned on the server will ensure all data in that share is on two different hard drives. So if one hard drive fails you haven't lost your data.

WHS can also backup your entire desktop for you, automatically. You just need the connector software installed on your desktop.
However this backup is not in a usuable format by other apps. You can't just access the data within, aka streaming music, video form the backup. You can restore individual files from it though.

This is what I do. All of my music is on the server and the server only. I do not put any music on my desktop. No video. No data whatsoever is on my desktop. It's all on the server. I can point itunes directly to the music share on my server from my desktop and it works the same as if your music was actually on your desktop.
My HTPC downstairs from the server access all my media on the server. Media which only exists on the server.
The server is my central hub for all of my data.

To do what you suggest you would keep your data on the desktop, let the server back it up daily. But share that music on your desktop so your laptop can access it.

Either way works.
 
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. Duplication is duplicating that data merely within WHS itself. Does your HTPC just access the data on the WHS with \\servername\Movies or whatever?

I've already got the backups running, and they have been running for a while so I'm set with that. I have a WD6400AAKS as my drive in the desktop, but that is nearly full. I really don't want to buy another drive so that seems like a good alternative. And since I know how easy it is to restore backups from WHS, I'm thinking about doing a fresh install too. How will it work if I name my desktop the same as what it is now? WHS sees my desktop, and has backups for it. If I do a fresh install, name my computer the exact same, is it just going to run its backups like normal? Except the first time after a fresh install it will probably run a full backup?
 
tgabe213 said:
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. Duplication is duplicating that data merely within WHS itself. Does your HTPC just access the data on the WHS with \\servername\Movies or whatever?
Click to expand...

Yes. VMC monitors that share so all my movies show up.

tgabe213 said:
I've already got the backups running, and they have been running for a while so I'm set with that. I have a WD6400AAKS as my drive in the desktop, but that is nearly full. I really don't want to buy another drive so that seems like a good alternative. And since I know how easy it is to restore backups from WHS, I'm thinking about doing a fresh install too. How will it work if I name my desktop the same as what it is now? WHS sees my desktop, and has backups for it. If I do a fresh install, name my computer the exact same, is it just going to run its backups like normal? Except the first time after a fresh install it will probably run a full backup?
Click to expand...

From my experience, even with a clean install it knows it's not the same computer. So it will make new backups. You have to manually remove that computer from the list of computers in the WHS console and it will delete the now old backups(you can leave it there if you want) and it will make new backups of your new computer(ok, not a new computer but it's sees it as that).

Yes, after a clean install it will run a full backup.
 
Well I'll just name it something else to keep it simple then. I'd like to leave those old backups there incase something goes wrong and I need my old install, I can quickly restore those backups.

Oh, and what is VMC?
 
Oh, fair enough. I've got Vista Ultimate and HP but never used it.

Thanks for all of the help!
 
Does anyone know if it's possible to add folders into the Windows Media Sharing instead of the 3 already there? I have been dumping a lot of 1080P rips onto the WHS for the PS3 to stream off of. I'd like to attach a drive that is not part of the storage pool, but still shared out by Windows Media.
 
Has anyone migrated from FreeNAS to WHS? I downloaded the WHS trial and wanted to give it a go, but all my data is in FreeNAS and is all UFS file system. Is there an easy way to copy all that UFS data over to WHS? The only way I can do it now is to copy over the network to Windows machine from the FreeNAS share, but that would take forever.
 
odoe said:
Has anyone migrated from FreeNAS to WHS? I downloaded the WHS trial and wanted to give it a go, but all my data is in FreeNAS and is all UFS file system. Is there an easy way to copy all that UFS data over to WHS? The only way I can do it now is to copy over the network to Windows machine from the FreeNAS share, but that would take forever.
Click to expand...

Theres not going to be a faster way, because with WHS you are limited to single drive speed, which unless you have a SSD's in your WHS your transfer rate wont fully utilize gigabit speed.
 
andymodem said:
Does anyone know if it's possible to add folders into the Windows Media Sharing instead of the 3 already there? I have been dumping a lot of 1080P rips onto the WHS for the PS3 to stream off of. I'd like to attach a drive that is not part of the storage pool, but still shared out by Windows Media.
Click to expand...

You can add all the shares you want. I personally don't bother with the media sharing. I never have found a use for it. I just point my HTPC to my shares and play all the media I have. No need whatsoever for the actually media sharing.

You can attach a drive and have it not be part of the pool but then it would be used for server backups only. I don't know if you could share it out or why you'd want to and not have it be part of the pool?
 
Here are some screens I took of my WHS setup about a year ago so you can see the interface.









Edit: Adding remote login from browser:



Just type in the address of your server, there is a wizard in WHS to enable this.



The login home screen.

login03bj3.jpg

Computers tab.

login04za4.jpg

The top 6 (beige) folders I set up, the others were WHS defaults.

login05ri4.jpg

Here I've clicked on the Photos share, browsed to a directory, selected it, and hit the download button. Once picking a format and hitting OK it will give a standard Save As... to save on the computer I'm working from.

login06hk3.jpg

Back on the Computers tab, I hit the "Connect to your Home Server" button...

login07jf6.jpg

...I go through this window and hit Connect...

login08jv6.jpg

...and now I have the WHS console up. This happens to be an Add-In called Disk Management. (Other tabs are as above in the first part of my post here).

login09ed3.jpg

Back to the Computers tab in the login console I choose the available computer to remote into which is my PVR...

login10jv0.jpg

...another connection message...

login11iw9.jpg

...login to the PVR...


...and I'm at the desktop of the PVR and can do anything you can normally do there.
 
Archer75, one more question. Since you are storing all of your files on the server, what are you doing for backups? Yea, duplication is on so that helps prevent the failure of one drive, but what if you get a surge or your PSU fries all of your drives? What do you have in place for this?
 
tgabe213 said:
Archer75, one more question. Since you are storing all of your files on the server, what are you doing for backups? Yea, duplication is on so that helps prevent the failure of one drive, but what if you get a surge or your PSU fries all of your drives? What do you have in place for this?
Click to expand...

I have an external drive that I occasional plug in. It's not part of the pool but rather it backs up all of my shares except for my media center share. I then unplug it and store it until I make my next backup.
I'm waiting for mozy to come up with a client for WHS. On the desktop it does offsite backups, unlimited data, for $5/month. But because on WHS it sees server 2003 it says you need a enterprise edition. However they said they are working on a WHS client.

So if the server exploded i'd lose my movies. But those can be replaced.

At some point i'll get more externals for that. But I have 1.91TB in that share so i'll need a couple of externals.
 
Archer75 said:
I have an external drive that I occasional plug in. It's not part of the pool but rather it backs up all of my shares except for my media center share. I then unplug it and store it until I make my next backup.
I'm waiting for mozy to come up with a client for WHS. On the desktop it does offsite backups, unlimited data, for $5/month. But because on WHS it sees server 2003 it says you need a enterprise edition. However they said they are working on a WHS client.

So if the server exploded i'd lose my movies. But those can be replaced.

At some point i'll get more externals for that. But I have 1.91TB in that share so i'll need a couple of externals.
Click to expand...

I have another box that I use to back up most of my data. Since the data is stored local I can use mozy with it. Still uploading though, takes forever at 30KBs a sec.
 
Thanks for all of the screenshots!

Any reason that my temperatures and activity for my HDD's aren't showing with the Disk Management add-in? I can view the properties of each individual drive and see the temp, but on the main screen that lists my drives, the temp and activity are all N/A
 
tgabe213 said:
Thanks for all of the screenshots!

Any reason that my temperatures and activity for my HDD's aren't showing with the Disk Management add-in? I can view the properties of each individual drive and see the temp, but on the main screen that lists my drives, the temp and activity are all N/A
Click to expand...

Mine does that too, I dont know why?
 
tgabe213 said:
Thanks for all of the screenshots!

Any reason that my temperatures and activity for my HDD's aren't showing with the Disk Management add-in? I can view the properties of each individual drive and see the temp, but on the main screen that lists my drives, the temp and activity are all N/A
Click to expand...

The controller has to support reporting temps? I have one drive that doesn't report, and I have that plugged into some cheap Rosewill 2 port SATA card. The rest are plugged into the motherboard and a 4 port Highpoint controller.
 
[LYL]Homer;1033800678 said:
The controller has to support reporting temps? I have one drive that doesn't report, and I have that plugged into some cheap Rosewill 2 port SATA card. The rest are plugged into the motherboard and a 4 port Highpoint controller.
Click to expand...

That makes plenty of sense because I'm using a board pulled from a Dell Inspiron 530.
 
I'm just full of the questions in here...

So tonight I finally got uTorrent running as a server on my WHS, and everything is good to go. However, since the middle of setup, my router would randomly disconnect me from the internet. Desktop and server couldn't get to google, but I could keep my remote desktop connection open and working. Reset the router, and maybe 2 minutes later it would work again. It keeps randomly disconnecting me. WHS on alerted me that it could not verify port forwarding on my router. I turned off web access and that error message went away, but I can't figure out why this is happening with my router constantly now. It seems as if it is a common problem...

And now for some reason I can't connect the WHS console while on my desktop.

Edit:

This is so fucked up now. I rolled back 3 updates that were installed tonight (they snuck in while doing the utorrent thing). Now as soon as it came up, I was able to get the console working, but I had an instant message that backup services weren't running. I clicked where it said to view how to fix this problem. Then the network status magically went back to Normal (green).

What the fuck is going on? For utorrent, all I did was install the Windows Resource Kits, create a service using this and utorrent.exe, and put a few files in the AppData folder for uTorrent.
 
I never had that problem. My router was a click and it was working fine sort of thing. WHS handled the setup and I haven't had a problem.

I also don't run utorrent on WHS. I have but I don't anymore. I don't want to introduce anything that can mess with the server as it's housing and protecting my data. And I just don't have a need to run any sort of app on it.

So I download on my desktop and do my extractions and whatnot there and transfer files over to the server as needed.
 
Well I wanted to set it up on there since my desktop is pretty loud, and my server is quiet as hell. That way I can actually sleep at night.

I don't think it was really utorrent doing anything though. It seems as if it was a set of updates that randomly got tossed in the mix somehow...However my router has gone whacko twice in the last hour. Trying to play cod4 and I get a random CI, for about a minute, then the game is back. Really weird.

Edit: If it is worth anything, I changed the port number from the random one it gave me. I put it right in line with what I've seen people have their cod4 servers running on. Now my server actually shows up as having a dhcp lease from the router. It wasn't showing up earlier tonight...
 
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