Windows Home Server FAQ

If MS had any sense they'd build CDP (continuous data backup) into WHS. They have had the tech for a while - the Sync platform, an advanced file system with file change notifications, as well as a number of products such as Synctoy, Live mesh, Foldershare etc.

It would be great if I could mark my documents, pictures etc to be duplicated and synced on all my pc's (and maybe cloud) automatically and also backed up on WHS. I can do this now by manually setting it up using the new Live essentials.

But this is MS we are talking about, this level of integration will never happen. Still waiting for Media center support which was promised years ago.
 
yeah, well this is MS and not apple...

currently apple is much better with intigration and continuity between all their products...

MS has too many "teams" doing different things that dont even talk to each other...

at least that is the opinion of one Paul Thurrott


at least the new live mesh actually works on WHS, past versions wouldnt.. (vail)

i now use dropbox, Mesh and Crashplan on my WHS (vail) without any issues.

very nice and not how it was with WHS v1 2-3 years ago
 
okay guy I have a question.


I added a new drive to my WHS v2 Vail last night and when I plugged it in and added it the server is now saying it cannot sync all folders

I have restarted to WHS, which with 47 days of uptime was annoying, I did the check and repair volume and no luck..

anyone have an idea of how to get the drives to sync?

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okay, well not sure why it happened but i found someone who had the same issue on MS forums... and they just turned off duplication and then turned it back on about an hour later. Now doing so means your data is more at risk due to a failure and how vail handles 1gb chucks, but since i have local and offsite backups I decided to give it a chance...

and it worked. All sync errors are gone and the system is currently resyncing all folders.
 
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Alright. I see pics like this ^^^ and want V2 to come out sooner than later. I never converted over my WHS to Vail because while I don't mind being a guinea pig for Win 7 or anything else, I don't want my data to be tied up in any of that.

So, that brings me to my question on what people have heard (or predicted) on the release of this thing! I don't need it because my WHS has been strong for like 3 years but I keep seeing all these wonderful deals on i3's, memory, and drives but I don't want them sitting on the bench for too long and I don't want to build the system before, drag the data to that, and then redo it all in like 1-2 months.

So what is the scuttlebutt?
 
@addidas

What do your critical and error messages say?
Can i get SS of the HDDs tab?
 
nothing out of the norm on the HDD tab.... that i could see

the error said some folders could not be synced and that you need to either stop the removal process of a hard drive or add more storage.

neither were the issue. I had almost 1tb of free space and was not removing a drive at the time.

it also said that my shadow copies would not be accessible until the sync was able to be completed..

which i could verify.

all problems were solved after turning off duplication and then turning it on again about 1 hr later.
 
Hello guys, some professional , please help me...
When I move files from WHS shared folders to external HDD (on eSATA) my speed is about 630 kbytes /sec. Same speed from one share to another , so it is inside WHS problem.
Did anybody found something issue like this ?
Thanks in advance.
 
well from shares... will be through the nic....

so what is the nic that you are using?

what are the hard drive? have you ran a diag on all drive to make sure they are good?
 
Adidas4275 said:
well from shares... will be through the nic....

so what is the nic that you are using?

what are the hard drive? have you ran a diag on all drive to make sure they are good?
Click to expand...

I think no relation to the NIC , because inside WHS same , and some portions on through shares works with normal speed. The drives are 7 Samsung 1,5 Tb drives. What program do you recommend to make sure the drives are OK or not ?
Thanks
 
omega_new said:
I think no relation to the NIC , because inside WHS same , and some portions on through shares works with normal speed. The drives are 7 Samsung 1,5 Tb drives. What program do you recommend to make sure the drives are OK or not ?
Thanks
Click to expand...
i use DFT, be each manufacturer has drive specific software, usually OS independent.

if you are accessing a share via //share than i think it is going through the nic..

someone correct me if I am wrong..... even on the same rig if you use the //share to transfer than the files are going through the nic...

i could be wrong, but i feel like I am right....
 
For a whs restore I don't need the same model system drive right?

Just toss a drive in, make sure it is first in bios, and etc.. etc.. let is rebuild from the tombstones on the rest of the "array"

Ive been using an old 300gb maxtor

I just went past 10TB of media and I'm worried about a dreaded reload some day.. Thinking of migrating to a different OS or perhaps vail.
 
Hello, i have a certain problem. For years using WHS, i transferred files back and forth via gigabit connection from computer to server and the speeds were usually 80-100 mbps. Now, when i am transferring, they are very slow. From 5-15 mbps. I defrag the hard drives, restarted the server, and added new drives to add space and the problem still exist.

I other think i can think of doing is reinstalling the OS or buying new components. Upgrading to an X4 640 w/ ddr3.

Server specs:
CPU: Intel E5300
Ram: 2 x 512mb GB DDR2 Ram
Mobo: Gigabyte EP45-UD3P
 
Transferring from the same workstation?
Switch going bad? Bad cable?

Your going to have rule stuff out by process of elimination.
 
So that doesnt mean its working right!

Lets get this straight.
It was working great.
Then I changed my router/switch.
Now it doesnt work great.

Not trying to be an ass but it seems pretty damn obvious. Get the old router back out and retry.
BTW what was your older router?
How many active computers/devices do you have connected on avg?
What kind of latency are you seeing btwn server and router, router and workstation, workstation and server?

There is no point in changing your server its clearly not the issue based on what you said you have already done.
 
I always wonder if you use WHS and then have it set up to back up to Mozy with unlimited storage, what would happen? I mean, upload bandwidth won't be there but how would Mozy respond to people who do that?
 
You cant install the software on WHS and the home version doesnt allow for backing up network shares.
 
dan_panner said:
I always wonder if you use WHS and then have it set up to back up to Mozy with unlimited storage, what would happen? I mean, upload bandwidth won't be there but how would Mozy respond to people who do that?
Click to expand...

nitrobass24 said:
You cant install the software on WHS and the home version doesnt allow for backing up network shares.
Click to expand...

Even if you "hacked" mozy to let you backup network shares "which i did" you still face two major problems. If your dealing with 20+GB of data...

#1 You don't have enough bandwith to send mozy all that data in a timely manner.
#2 Mozy systems do not handle many GB of data well. Their service gets slow. You wouldn't even be able to upload at your full speed when this happens. I tried it. Something that should have only taken 1 day at my rated upload speed took over a week!

It is best to forget the idea completely. I've been down that road. It was fun and didn't cost me anything to try, but its a dead end.

If your looking to backup many GB remotely and cheaply you are best off buying an external HDD plugging it into your WHS. Backup WHS to the drive and then take the drive somewhere safe. If you need daily backups and don't feel like shuffling hard drives around "on-site" backups are really your only option. Unless your neighbor will let you run an Ethernet cable to his house :)
 
Cliff Couser said:
any news on WHS 2 release?

I'm assuming the 2010 release date won't be met.
Click to expand...

I can't find a thing. About 6 months ago there was speculation it would have been out by now. My WHS is getting long in the tooth and I am not wanting rebuild without this being cooked.
 
I've been trying to find a guide to upgrade a WHS V1 Box to Windows Server 2008 R2 (NOT WHS 2) on the same machine without any success.

I have 20 Drives under WHS and I'm wondering how I can migrate away from it.

Any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Well you cant upgrade from 32bit to 64bit so there is not an inplace upgrade.

Server 2008 R2 does not have Drive Extender, so you cant just transfer your storage pool. Your disk will all show up and your files will still be there, but it will be 20 different volumes and your files will be scattered across all 20.

Maybe if you tell us what your end goal is I can help you out a little bit. :)
 
Thank you kindly for your response nitrobass, I should have been a little clearer.

I wasn't thinking of an inplace upgrade by installing Windows Server 2008 R2 on top of WHS, but I was hoping I could install it on the same Machine (Temporarily dual booting). I don't use the backup or duplication features of WHS, I only really use the Unified Pool which is essential for me. I've recently run into some issues with EARS drives that I didn't read up on prior to buying.

What I was hoping to do is to move to Windows Server 2008 R2 and use something like FlexRaid for the Unified Pool functionality, while giving me more flexibility in the OS as well.

Thoughts?
 
Do you have a disk that is not used?

I would pull all the disks and install Server 2008 to a clean disk.
Then add all of your other disk to Server2008 and setup FlexRAID w/ FlexView (whatever its called) you will have to basically reorganize all your data...i think. I dont know a whole lot about FlexRAID so you might want to start a new thread for that.

Also if your only reason for doing this is EARS drives then maybe you should look at aligning your partitions that way you dont need to rebuild your whole system. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1559559
 
nisemono said:
I've been trying to find a guide to upgrade a WHS V1 Box to Windows Server 2008 R2 (NOT WHS 2) on the same machine without any success.

I have 20 Drives under WHS and I'm wondering how I can migrate away from it.

Any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I can only imagine your pain. I'm only worried about transfering 4Tb of data, and I'm pissed already that there's not an easier upgrade path.
 
Thanks again for your response. I do have a spare disk, if I install Server 2008 R2 to that disk and just load it up without pulling the existing drives, will it just pick up all the drives with the data scattered? I'm definitely ok with that, what I'm really trying to avoid is having to manually migrate all 18TB of data with disks outside the pool and copying data disk by disk from the Pool to disks outside the pool.

EARS isn't the only reason I'm considering migrating, I really like the WHS Pool concept, but after using it for around 2 years, I'm feeling like Server 2008 R2 would give me more flexibility and I wouldn't be "Locked In" to the Drive Extender way of life.
 
Yea your data will still be there, they are just NTFS volumes.
Just make sure you dont install to one of your DATA disk
 
So i upgrade all my parts and i need more sata ports. What Sata card do you guys recommend? Do you think i can get away with a inexpensive 6-8 port card? I use WHS duplication so i don't think i need raid. I'm currently using 2 pci-e 2port to get an addition 4 ports.
 
I've been lurking and reading re: WHS and I finally pulled the trigger. :cool: I've ordered a norco 4220 case plus few 2 TB HD's and will be using old spare parts (mobo, 1 TB HD's, etc) to build the system (AMD X2 555 and Asus mobo). I didn't order any sata controllers since I'll be using mobo sata ports (6 total). Eventually I'll fill up the norco case with 2 TB's as funds are available.

My question is:

1. After using the IDE dvd-rom to install WHS, I can unplug it (remove it from the system) and reboot?

2. Once WHS is installed and running, I can install the AOC-SASLP-MV8 controllers without any problems down the line when I'm ready to install more HD's?

Thanx in advance. JB
 
psxstudio said:
I've been lurking and reading re: WHS and I finally pulled the trigger. :cool: I've ordered a norco 4220 case plus few 2 TB HD's and will be using old spare parts (mobo, 1 TB HD's, etc) to build the system (AMD X2 555 and Asus mobo). I didn't order any sata controllers since I'll be using mobo sata ports (6 total). Eventually I'll fill up the norco case with 2 TB's as funds are available.

My question is:

1. After using the IDE dvd-rom to install WHS, I can unplug it (remove it from the system) and reboot?
Click to expand...

Yes, I only know this as I did this on one of my systems because I loathe IDE drives.

psxstudio said:
2. Once WHS is installed and running, I can install the AOC-SASLP-MV8 controllers without any problems down the line when I'm ready to install more HD's?

Thanx in advance. JB
Click to expand...

I don't know this one from experience but yes, barring some weird incompatibility with your mobo, you should be able to add that card later in life with no issues. I was keeping up with this thread a little as it went along because I really was looking at that card for expansion but then the 2tb's came out and I just swapped smaller drives. I would snoop around there for a minute to get a feel for the cards usability.
 
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