MS says WHS will die

Too bad as it's a good backup and remote access solution. Not unexpected AT ALL though. Are there any other client backup solutions that don't copy existing data?
 
There are many more better (and free-er :) ) options for home server boxes.
 
There are many more better (and free-er :) ) options for home server boxes.

I'm curious what those options are. I am looking for something that is easy to use (being that I am not an IT pro), which matches the WHS2011 feature set + drive pooling.

The $425 price tag for Server 2012 Essentials is pretty steep but I would be willing to pay $200; maybe even more if it supported hyper-v so I could use it to host a few virtual machines (Learning more about virtualization is on my to do list).
 
Everything that made WHS great for server dummies (like me) was lost when they went to V2.

The origional purpose was to bring an easy to use and easy to recover data program to the not so educated home user.

V2 abandoned that market.

I'll keep using V1 until it dies. :)
 
It's ok, having WHS "8" would have been redundant. Windows 8 has Storage Spaces which is similar to WHSv1's drive extender, only better. So when Windows 8 comes out, I'm replacing my WHS 2011 install with Windows 8.
 
It's ok, having WHS "8" would have been redundant. Windows 8 has Storage Spaces which is similar to WHSv1's drive extender, only better. So when Windows 8 comes out, I'm replacing my WHS 2011 install with Windows 8.
To each their own.

I prefer not to spend any more money and have the easy option of the NTFS file system.

But to each their own. :)
 
It's ok, having WHS "8" would have been redundant. Windows 8 has Storage Spaces which is similar to WHSv1's drive extender, only better. So when Windows 8 comes out, I'm replacing my WHS 2011 install with Windows 8.

Better how? I have heard nothing but bad things about the current implementation of storage spaces. Especially the bad write speeds.
 
This product was dead when WHS 2011 came out. Even if you cut out Drive Extender, WHSv1 is still way more useful than WHS 2011, at least for my purposes.
 
Better how? I have heard nothing but bad things about the current implementation of storage spaces. Especially the bad write speeds.

I'm just going by that article. I have no first hand experience with Storage Space, only WHSv1 Drive Extender. If the guy says it's better than WHSv1, and I like WHSv1, then I'm looking forward to Storage Spaces. But of course if it turns out to be as bad as you say (remember: it's not finished yet), then I'll just fall back to my current installation of WHS 2011 with Stablebit Drive Pool.
 
To each their own.

I prefer not to spend any more money and have the easy option of the NTFS file system.

But to each their own. :)

Yeah that's true for the most part, but I'm a Technet subscriber, so cost is not a part of my equation. :)
 
This product was dead when WHS 2011 came out. Even if you cut out Drive Extender, WHSv1 is still way more useful than WHS 2011, at least for my purposes.
Yep.

The target audience was never for the server savvy but the home user who just wanted plug&play.

Either there wasn't enough of us to make any money or MS's money was going elseware.
 
Yeah that's true for the most part, but I'm a Technet subscriber, so cost is not a part of my equation. :)
Some guys have all the luck but they're getting your money one way or another.....unless your employer's paying. LOL!
 
Some guys have all the luck but they're getting your money one way or another.....unless your employer's paying. LOL!

It started being mine about 4 years ago but the past 3 years my employer paid to continue my sub so I can stay on top of Microsoft offerings. Yay! :D
 
It started being mine about 4 years ago but the past 3 years my employer paid to continue my sub so I can stay on top of Microsoft offerings. Yay! :D
Cool!

Us peons will still hafta consider our pennies but I'd still stay with V1 even though any version is avaliable on Usenet. ;)
 
Just because a product goes out of support does not mean it is 'dead'. XP is a perfect example. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of company computers running XP today. For how crappy Windows 7 and 8 is, I do not see those computers getting upgraded any time soon.
 
Wait Windows 7 is crappy too now? haha I would have to say it's far better than XP in about every way possible at this point in the game.
 
Just because a product goes out of support does not mean it is 'dead'. XP is a perfect example. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of company computers running XP today. For how crappy Windows 7 and 8 is, I do not see those computers getting upgraded any time soon.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of newer versions of Windows - it has everything to do with how much it costs to upgrade line-of-business software to support a newer version of Windows (if it is even doable).

Custom-written line of business software (and let's face it - most line of business software is custom-written for the business running it) is expensive (with a capital E). Throw in a poor economy squeezing margins *and* a new version of Windows (which is a massive incentive for the software developer to jack up prices to update that software - and this is especially so in a poor economy), businesses (and especially large businesses) will put upgrades off simply to avoid the expenses involved.

The reason WHS is getting killed is because it will be replaced by the Foundation Edition of Windows Server 2012 (Windows 8 Server)
 
Foundation for the home ? Well, maybe, if you want a non-consumer device setup, with a 15 client limit and active directory. Good for some, but still targeted at someone with sysadmin capabilities. The HP mediasmart's were inexpensive. Foundation's price has not been set, but will be above the HP's by quite a bit when you include hardware. That will be a steep price to pay for backing up EFI and GPT disks. It will be less expensive to just buy Acronis. And, will Foundation include BDA drivers - probably not.
 
Foundation won't necessarily have its own price per se', as the only option will be OEM-preinstalled. Assuming it doesn't show up on Technet.

The reason WHS is getting killed is because it will be replaced by the Foundation Edition of Windows Server 2012 (Windows 8 Server)

Dunno about that. Based on the hints that have been dropped by MS devs on their blogs over the years the reason its getting killed is because the market wasn't there for WHS (and a bunch of WHS enthusiasts congregated in one place on a forum are but a drop in the ocean). Same reason HP dropped the mediasmart servers -- lack of sales.

That and MS's 5-year plan for consumer/home is part of a larger industry-wide trend which is a shift toward paid streaming content. Companies like Apple had this eventuality in mind a long time ago when they began adding barriers to getting media onto your device that you paid for somewhere else- omitting bluray drives from macs, omitting sd slots from their mobile products, and more recently stripping optical drives from their laptops completely. and for average joe the path of least resistance thus becomes buying from iTunes. Microsoft too recognized this and wants their piece of the pie and that philosophy trickles down to all their departments and steers product development and feature set considerations.
 
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the reason its getting killed is because the market wasn't there for WHS (and a bunch of WHS enthusiasts congregated in one place on a forum are but a drop in the ocean). Same reason HP dropped the mediasmart servers -- lack of sales.
The target audience was never for the server savvy but the home user who just wanted plug&play.

Either there wasn't enough of us to make any money or MS's money was going elseware.
There ya have it, plain and simple.

It's no suprise. :)
 
I'm curious what those options are. I am looking for something that is easy to use (being that I am not an IT pro), which matches the WHS2011 feature set + drive pooling.

The $425 price tag for Server 2012 Essentials is pretty steep but I would be willing to pay $200; maybe even more if it supported hyper-v so I could use it to host a few virtual machines (Learning more about virtualization is on my to do list).

Check out NAS4Free.
 
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Check out NAS4Free.

And that is precisely why WHS2011 is screwed - those that are in that (admittedly) niche market are looking for something that costs less than even Windows 7.

The other problem with WHS is that (whether folks realized it or not) it overlapped with Small Business Server in terms of both features and hardware support - not exactly good news for SMB-targeting resellers. Foundation Edition, on the other hand, in addition to replacing Small Business Server, also replaces WHS2011; it also supports some features that WHS2011 does not.

NAS4Free is all about *storage* - most folks that are looking for a home server may start there, but they want more (if not right away, then down the road) - for these folks, either Essentials Edition or Foundation Edition would make better sense (especially if one of your needs is virtualization).

If (more likely *when*) Mom goes to Ivy Bridge, this current hardware that I'm on (and that she will get when I upgrade) can easily be repurposed as a Essentials/Foundation Edition-based storage/virtualization server (which will host media files, VHDs for virtualization, and backups for the household PCs) - the virtual machines themselves will most often be run on Windows 8 (which is what I'm running today in Release Preview form, and will be upgrading to when the RTM ships) - however, I *could* run the VMs on the server (Hyper-V on Server 2012 has the same requirements as Hyper-V on Server 2008R2 - VT-x/AMD-V).
 
Foundation for the home ? Well, maybe, if you want a non-consumer device setup, with a 15 client limit and active directory. Good for some, but still targeted at someone with sysadmin capabilities. The HP mediasmart's were inexpensive. Foundation's price has not been set, but will be above the HP's by quite a bit when you include hardware. That will be a steep price to pay for backing up EFI and GPT disks. It will be less expensive to just buy Acronis. And, will Foundation include BDA drivers - probably not.

It doesn't have to be, in the case of Foundation (or Essentials, for that matter).

And neither Foundation *or* Essentials requires horribly expensive hardware - either can, in fact, run on the *same* hardware that WHS 2011 runs on today. Backing up EFI or GPT-based clients (Macs/Hacks or even Windows x64 clients) is, in fact, standard fare with either Foundation or Essentials.

Lastly - adminning Server 2012 (any edition) is far easier than 2008R2 primarily due to improvements in Server Manager (the GUI-based admin utility). You can build a Foundation/Essentials 2012 box on ex-desktop hardware; in fact, Q6xxx/9xxx would be ideal for a home-based Foundation or Essentials 2012 server. If you *are* fluent in Windows PowerShell, you can still use that (install Foundation or Essentials Core as opposed to GUI).
 
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