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Windows Home Server vs Windows Server 2008 R2

G

gkanakis

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2004
Messages
1,167
I'm rebuilding my server today.
My current AMD 4000+ system is slowly dying, bad motherboard.
My choices for software are WHS and Server 2008.
Not sure which direction to go.
I like things to be simple, but I'm willing to learn a little for better performance.
WHS was very simple to setup when I first did it, but would like to go x64.
I plan on bigadv folding and GPU folding.
Any advice or suggestions that any one has would be greatly appreciated.

System:
i7 920 with H50
6GB of 1600MHz ram
8800 GTS or GTX 275, might put the 275 in my computer for SLI gaming.
Corsair 750w Power Supply
DVD burner
320gb drive for the system
2 - 2TB drives
2 - 1.5TB drive
1 - 500GB drive
 
I'd go with Server 2008. If you put WHS on that machine you are wasting 2GB of RAM.
 
I love my WHS box, and will have a very similar rig running it soon.. however I think I'm going to pick up 1gb sticks for it.
 
Or you think it would be better to turn my Q9550 into the server, it only has 4GB of ram, less waste.

System:
Rampage Formula
Q9550 stock cooler
4GB of DDR2

It can fold SMP and GPU!
The main reason of the i7 was it would be dedicated folding.
As a home server it doesn't get used a lot. Plus the i7 would help heat the living room! :D
Other wise it heat my office at work.:rolleyes:
 
Kendrak said:
Touch of a learning curve on that however?
Click to expand...

Learning curve? It's not like it's an alien enviroment, if you've used a Windows OS before, it's actually pretty straight forward. Microsoft makes it so easy, and it's surprising for an enterprise OS.

If you wanted to have fun with that i7, and actually use it to its potential, you could use VMware ESXi or Microsoft's Hyper-V.
 
lockheed2266 said:
Learning curve? It's not like it's an alien enviroment, if you've used a Windows OS before, it's actually pretty straight forward. Microsoft makes it so easy, and it's surprising for an enterprise OS.

If you wanted to have fun with that i7, and actually use it to its potential, you could use VMware ESXi or Microsoft's Hyper-V.
Click to expand...

That's the part I'm talking about :eek:
 
Kendrak said:
Touch of a learning curve on that however?
Click to expand...

No, it is amazingly easy. Server 2008 R2 installs just like any other Windows OS. After that, you add the Hyper-V role (two clicks), then fire up Hyper V Manager and install WHS in a new virtual machine. I had never used Server 2008 or Hyper V before and I had zero problems. Now, I researched it a bit beforehand and talked with people on here (the Data Storage Systems subforum is great), so I didn't go into it blind.

The only potential hiccup I could see is if there is a hardware incompatibility, but that's the sort of thing you can find out pretty easily in advance. Also, you will want to give the WHS virtual machine its own pcie gigabit nic.

Here's a complete walk through of installing WHS Vail on a machine with Server 2008 R2 w/Hyper-V. Most of your time is spent clicking "Next."

Another great resource is http://servethehome.com. The author is a [H] member (pjkenned) and is very, very helpful. Reading through his site (especially the posts on mobo/cpu selection and his 60TB WHS server) was some of the best research that I did.

Personally, I would leave the i7 to folding and make the Q9550 your server machine. 4GB would be plenty for the 2008 Host and WHS vm. I use an i3-530 for my server and it spends most of its time at <15% cpu utilization. In fact, I recently installed the SMP client on it and run -smp 3 just because I can't stand wasted cpu cycles!
 
lets take a step back and think about this for a minute!!!

Yes WHS in Hyper-V is easy, but its not a reccomended solution if you are going to be folding on this machine. I know because i have two WHS vm's on my box.

What are your goals Storage wise? Central file storage? backup network computers? Are you going to record TV to this box?

I have an idea of what would be best but i would like to hear your answers before i put it out there.
 
nitrobass24 said:
What are your goals Storage wise?
Click to expand...

As of now I have about 5 TB of usable storage.
As more drives are needed, I will add them.

nitrobass24 said:
Central file storage?
Click to expand...

I plan to use it for storage for movie iso's, music and photos.

nitrobass24 said:
backup network computers?
Click to expand...

Yes, all computers run Windows 7, so backups would be nice.

nitrobass24 said:
Are you going to record TV to this box?
Click to expand...

No, I have no plans on using it as a DVR. But, I would like to hook up the HDMI cable to my TV and watch my burnt iso's using vlc.

I'm a little curious about recording TV content though...
 
Well due to the bonus system, points wise it would be best to use your i7 as a dedicated folder. I recommend Server2008 R2 if you have a license sitting around, if not Win7.

Then use your Q9750 box with WHS.
The reason i dont recommend WHS as a hyper-v VM is because disk performance to the VM suffers when the CPU is under load.
I use RAID6 on my WHS and when i have no CPU usage i can max out my gige connection (120MB/s), but when i turn on F@H i can barely hit 30mb/s. Now 30mb/s is still plently of throughput to stream a *Single* movie but if i start moving something around or downloading some linux distros i start having IO conflicts and my movie stutters.

Also on WHS you wont need dummy plugs for those GPUs.

EDIT: to put the points in perspective my vm machine gets 4k less PPD on a bigadv 2684.
Name: Daviserver - Hyper-v
Path: \\daviserver.davis.local\folding\
Number of Frames Observed: 290

Min. Time / Frame : 00:43:11 - 21,702.6 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:48:37 - 18,168.1 PPD


Name: minerva - Dedicated folder
Path: \\minerva.davis.local\folding\
Number of Frames Observed: 206

Min. Time / Frame : 00:37:52 - 26,430.3 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:42:05 - 22,559.1 PPD
 
Thanks all for the great info!

Looks like I'll run my WHS on my Q9550.
Then I'll run a i7 dedicated boxen under window 7, since I have like 6 licences.

Again thanks for the help!!
 
Arent dummy plugs a thing of the past? No dummy plugs on my duel gtx-260 win7-64
 
have you thought about windows small business server 2008? It's basically the same setup and interface as WHS but allows you to do more, better OS overall
 
Mtnduey said:
have you thought about windows small business server 2008? It's basically the same setup and interface as WHS but allows you to do more, better OS overall
Click to expand...

I don't think that SBS has the drive pooling feature in its current form. That and the backup features are the two things I really like about WHS. Aurora (new version of SBS) will have it, but I don't think anyone knows when that will be released. Also, the price of Aurora is expected to be a bit higher than that of WHS.
 
Dont expect to see Aurora for sale until Spring 2011.
 
good to know, i havent really paid attention to GPU stuff in a few months cause i dont run it anymore.
 
Now I can't connect to the WHS from my main computer!
I uninstalled the software and reinstalled on my Win 7 rig and still no go.
They are hooked up to the same switch, so I know thats not the problem.
I'm getting tired of reading on this subject with no solutions!!
 
have you run discovery.exe?
can you connect to the shares using \\servername\sharename ?
 
nitrobass24 said:
have you run discovery.exe?
can you connect to the shares using \\servername\sharename ?
Click to expand...

Computer doesn't have discover.exe on it because I uninstalled and reinstall the software, but it won't connect so I can't run it.

\\server, \\server\software, nothing works! Think there's an ip issue or something.

Not a plug and play like the first time around!

This is what I get when I run the Windows Home Server Connector Setup

Capture.jpg
 
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are you running windows firewall? could be possible its blocking access..
 
Solved the problem.

It seems WHS likes to run behind a router.

As soon as I changed the ethernet cable from the switch to the wireless router it started working fine.

I guess WHS wasn't getting a "local" IP address.

EDIT:

My router is only a 10/100 and not a 10/100/1000, 10mb transfers are not going to cut it!!!!!
Was working fine before on my gigabyte switch, NOT behind a router!!

I have almost 2TB of data to put on it!!
 
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Once you get it set up, you can probably change the connection. I've found that if I have a wireless box, the connector software will not find the WHS, so I have to run a temporary ethernet connection. Once everything's set up, I can switch back to wireless with no issues.
 
It should work the same behind a switch.
I would set a static ip anyway that way you can properly forward the ports for remote access.
 
Just to give another set of numbers for anyone who is interested. I've got my WHS rebuild. I had to do a new install. (my old one was 2 years on and was getting a bit funky so I'm not shocked it didn't want to work)

I picked up 3x 1gb sticks for it. Since it is a 32bit OS any more than that would be a waste. I have run A3's on it for the last few days and I'm getting ~16k with it clocked at 3.6GHz (i7 920) I decided to try a -bigadv and what do you know I pulled a 2684 :rolleyes: I'm getting 17.5k it seems. I'm looking forward to a good -bigadv and the bump in ppd.

Ohh and it's using just under 2gb of memory. it seems that I'm not going to have an issue at all running -bigadv on this rig.
 
gkanakis, how is your virtualized WHS doing?

I'm seriously considering a virtual WHS so that I can put it on my SR2. It turns out Vail won't allow two CPU systems, so I might run WHS (and later Vail) on top of a Windows 7 host.
 
My WHS is a computer all by it's self.

Q9550 in a Rampage Formula motherboard /Folding SMP
4gb DDR2
8600GTS /not folding
1 - 320GB HD
2 - 1.5TB HD
2 - 2TB

Works like a champ!

I will build a new server using "Vail" when it releases.
 
gkanakis said:
My WHS is a computer all by it's self.

Q9550 in a Rampage Formula motherboard /Folding SMP
4gb DDR2
8600GTS /not folding
1 - 320GB HD
2 - 1.5TB HD
2 - 2TB

Works like a champ!

I will build a new server using "Vail" when it releases.
Click to expand...
oh, i missed that.

I'm really distraught about the fact that Vail won't support dual CPUs. The SR2 would make an epic WHS. I would go with Aurora if it had the media streaming functionality. Apparently there is another flavor of Vail called Breckenridge, but it, too, appears to be aimed toward SOHO rather than media storage.
 
Holy necro thread!

By coincidence I'm rebuilding my WHS tonight. The C: drive in the old single-core Athlon is dying (again) so I'm setting up WHS on a Phenom II 940 currently running XP Pro. The 8GB of RAM will be wasted for now, but I'll either pull half of it or just leave it to be ready for Vail next year.

I considered going the VM route and installing WHS on my second SR-2, but there are just too many variables and I want the server to be rock-solid and simple.
 
Yeah, it's too bad it only supports one cpu. I'm running Vail on a hex core Xeon and it runs great. Folds 24/7 and backs up everything nicely!
 
Well that sucks for people who already have duallies.

I run a Hyper-v VM so it doesnt really matter for me, but thats kind of a bummer.
 
jebo_4jc said:
nitro do you fold in the host OS?
Click to expand...

Yea i have a 2x E5530 w/ 12GB ECC on Server2008R2 that i have my 20TB RAID6 array on. I also have 3x 2TB that i use for pass-through to my WHS running on Hyper-v. I also run my DC, DHPC, AD, DNS servers on a Hyper-v VM on that box as well.

I get around 32min TPFs on a 2686.
 
so it sounds like you're only using WHS for backup purposes, since the majority of your storage is on your Server2008 machine.

I'm planning on putting all my media on the WHS/Vail sysem, primarily to take advantage of Vail's sweet streaming capabilities. Thing is, I'm not sure how many cores to devote to the VM.
 
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