Windows Home Server

LstBrunnenG

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 3, 2003
Messages
6,676
I have a server with 6x500 GB SATA HDDs in software RAID5 which I am currently in the process of backing up and preparing to reformat. It's currently running Ubuntu, and I'm planning to go to Gentoo.

Would I gain anything by moving to Windows Home Server?
 
I had an Ubuntu-based file server for about 2 years. It was totally stable and did its job very well. Unfortunately, the time came where I was getting close to maxing-out my 2x500GB RAID 1 array. I started researching how to go from RAID 1 to RAID 5 without data loss (which supposedly can be done) but then I stumbled upon WHS. I liked the idea of the storage balancing data pool that doesn't require RAID, and folder duplication sounded like it would mimic a RAID 1 scenario. I learned that I could add drives at will, via any means (USB, Firewire, eSATA) and they'll be added to the pool and dynamically expand my storage... and with PP1, the data corruption bug is gone... so, long story short, I am now running WHS and am loving it. There's less to tinker with (I loved using Webmin to manage my old server) but to be honest, after coming home from doing this crap all day, it's nice to have something that just works and is straight-forward.
 
I'm with you Cala. I use WHS and I like it very much. Ease of use is great.
 
WHS is very easy to use and since PP1 came out it pretty damn reliable. You will have to lose the RAID configuration as it doesn't support your normal RAID configuration.

Overall much better (EASIER) than messing with UNIX boxes and such. The full hard drive backups really come in handy :)
 
Ive' been running whs for about a year now with few complaints. Since pp1 went RTM there's little drawback to using it. The install and maintenance is easy as pie. One of hte things you'll benefit from is the nightly automated backups. I do'nt think that's available on any other OS
Also as mentioned before the ease of adding and subtracting drives is nice.
REmote access is kind nice but not a deal break by any means.
 
Has PP1 gained any improvement over the original (abysmal) network transfer speeds, particularly when data is being moved from the landing zone to other drives?
 
I see that MS is actually offering the 120 day Trial version of Windows Home Server for free. You don't even have to pay shipping.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx


I ordered one last nite.


Anyone know if you can upgrade your Trial version of WHS to a full legit one after purchasing the OEM one? That way you wouldn't have to redo all your data and such on the server. Cause that would suck to have hundreds of gigs of data that you have to offload elsewhere, reformat and copy back.
 
Remote access is nice, both to files on the server and Remote Desktop to my machines at home. Setting WHS up on RAID is possible, but discouraged and it doesn't really add any value now that WHS will backup your files to an external HDD (PP1 feature). File transfer speeds have been good for me, using most of my gigabit connection.

I just wish there was a way for me to backup my computer backups. They aren't backed up by the "Server" backup job and I am terrified by the idea of my PC and it's backup both being taken out by some random lightning strike.
 
Choder,
if you are that worried about lightning you should get a UPS or surge protector. Actually, you should get one whether you are worried or not! They aren't that expensive and can save you a lot. 20 years ago I lost a modem to lightning. It actually came through the phone line, which saved the rest of the system. So I highly suggest you get one and plug your cable/phone/network to help keep your system safe. You'll thank me later :D
 
Choder,
if you are that worried about lightning you should get a UPS or surge protector. Actually, you should get one whether you are worried or not! They aren't that expensive and can save you a lot. 20 years ago I lost a modem to lightning. It actually came through the phone line, which saved the rest of the system. So I highly suggest you get one and plug your cable/phone/network to help keep your system safe. You'll thank me later :D

Oh, I have both systems on surge protectors. I'm just paranoid.
 
ease of use, and the ability to back up only important files (duplication across drives gives you more free space since you don't have to have all data protected)

WHS is a great all in one maintenance free system, I love the user account control, integrated webserver (IIS), remote access etc.

You can also get php & MySQL running with no problem so you end up with free web hosting as well as long as your internet connection has a decent upload limit.

For me the best feature of WHS is that it is truly "set it and forget it". once you are up and running you will never have to touch it, mine is sitting in the closet in my office and the next time I touch it will be to install another 1tb hard drive sometime down the road.

If you do go with WHS, I highly recommend Utorrent running the Web GUI, its great for torrent downloading, and you can setup a shared folder that automatically adds .torrent files to uTorrent, so when you are on another computer and find a torrent that you "need" you can just download it and copy it over to the shared folder on the server, and uTorrent will automatically start the download

-enjoy
 
I am going to give WHS another run after I upgrade my server as I run 1 server then run multiple virtual PC's:p
 
I'm really torn. WHS just looks so nice and shiny. There's a few things that seem to stand in the way though:
  • It needs to be able to run without a graphics adapter. I have no information either way on whether WHS can do this.
  • SSH/SFTP has become the defacto standard amongst me and my friends.
  • I can plug a Linux server into my school's network filesystem and run binaries for a variety of CAD programs, meaning my work isn't going to be slowed down by some n00b who left a Verilog simulator looping all night on one of the cluster computers.
Don't even get me started on CLI vs. Remote Desktop - they both have their advantages.

Can you run virtual machines on WHS?

EDIT: The other nice thing is that I could easily rescue files via a LiveCD - what happens if you boot a box running WHS from a LiveCD and try to touch the files in its storage pool?
 
I really wanna try getting into WHS, but I'm concerned about this storage pool stuff. With my 2003 setup, if my server crashes, I pop the raid array + card into another machine and bingo, everything is right where I left it. From my understanding, WHS is the only one who knows where it's storing everything. How well does it stand up to a reinstall/data recovery?
 
I really wanna try getting into WHS, but I'm concerned about this storage pool stuff. With my 2003 setup, if my server crashes, I pop the raid array + card into another machine and bingo, everything is right where I left it. From my understanding, WHS is the only one who knows where it's storing everything. How well does it stand up to a reinstall/data recovery?

thats pretty much it... this is why I use linux for my storage server but also keep a 500GB drive for my alternate backup drive. WHS is setup to control everything, but myself, I prefer to have that control in my hands... thats just my preference for my systems.
 
Check out this thread here: Linky. I have a thread here on the build (6 drive server in the disk storage forum).

Honestly....WHS is a thing of beauty. It perfect with PP1 for the aveage home user and just enough flexibility to be tinker friendly for the enthusiast. As for the bandwidth comment.

large_copy_to_WHS_duplicated.jpg


Yep...i'm pretty happy for a bunch of single drives effectively running in a pool. I've done bunch of benchmark tests...and it still isn't disappointing. The meanest thing thing i've done so far is to start up seperate read/writes on three different machines (therefore 3 reads/3 writes) of 4 GB files...still averaged about 10 MByte/sec each way for each file. That means...a non hardware optimized hardware solution via software was still giving me bandwidth of 60 MByte/sec. I would need hardware RAID card to get anything better than that.
 
I really wanna try getting into WHS, but I'm concerned about this storage pool stuff. With my 2003 setup, if my server crashes, I pop the raid array + card into another machine and bingo, everything is right where I left it. From my understanding, WHS is the only one who knows where it's storing everything. How well does it stand up to a reinstall/data recovery?

Read about WHS...please. Alot of the pro-WHS people are gettig very tired of the ignorance of this product.

1. If WHS crashes...just move the drives and do a installation repair. You will be back up in running in under 30 minutes. I've tried this on a test box..works great.

2. All data stored on the drives is stored in standard NTFS format. which means if you get a massive failure of hardware, you can still plug each drive in on another box and copy over the files manually. Try and do that with a RAID card.

In short...WHS has more data protection than a 2003/2008 box with a RAID card.
 
ouch... on my 100M LAN with SMC router, transfers from one XP system to another via shared folders or my linux server box typically runs just shy of 90MB/s... when I get Vista going, I will do some testing to see how much slower it really is.
 
ouch... on my 100M LAN with SMC router, transfers from one XP system to another via shared folders or my linux server box typically runs just shy of 90MB/s... when I get Vista going, I will do some testing to see how much slower it really is.

So you are getting 90MB/sec bandwidth on a 100 base T router? I really need to get me some of that. :confused: Care to tell us the real story now?
 
SMC7004VBR... standard ethernet cables, no switches or hubs... all systems have either XP or Linux. Some have 10/100 network ports, some have gigabit ports... I always thought this was normal speeds... until I saw Vistas sad state of file transfer speeds...
when I get Vista setup I will redo the testing that I did a year ago for another site.
 
SMC7004VBR... standard ethernet cables, no switches or hubs... all systems have either XP or Linux. Some have 10/100 network ports, some have gigabit ports... I always thought this was normal speeds... until I saw Vistas sad state of file transfer speeds...
when I get Vista setup I will redo the testing that I did a year ago for another site.

You don't have gigabit with that box....therefore the maximum throughput on your network is limited to about 12.5MByte/sec MAX. Again....how are you getting 90MByte/sec traffic?
 
I am just going by what the linux network monitor says when I transfer files to it.. I will have to see if there are any updates relating to this... I understand what you mean, 8 bits to a byte... 100Mb = 12.5MB....
it must be showing a "B" instead of "b"... if so, time to send a bug report...

sorry for the confusion...
 
SMC7004VBR... standard ethernet cables, no switches or hubs... all systems have either XP or Linux. Some have 10/100 network ports, some have gigabit ports... I always thought this was normal speeds... until I saw Vistas sad state of file transfer speeds...
when I get Vista setup I will redo the testing that I did a year ago for another site.

We'll be waiting a long time then! I mean, 1000 fails per 1 successful install is your going rate, isn't it? We can't wait that long for test results.

Oh btw, SP1 fixes the Vista transfer speed issue. Just keeping you in the loop. Can't have us prominent techies use outmoded software.
 
anyway...

I have a server with 6x500 GB SATA HDDs in software RAID5 which I am currently in the process of backing up and preparing to reformat. It's currently running Ubuntu, and I'm planning to go to Gentoo.

Would I gain anything by moving to Windows Home Server?

Check out what WHS provides for you and what it doesn't (and check that they have fixed the data corruption issue)

You are already uptospeed with linux so that is one learning curve gone. Putting Gentoo on yr server is a good idea (gentoo is actually really good as a server), but there is the whole learning curve w.r.t. gentoo tools

As to harddrive layout. Think about wrapping it all in an LVM array. IT will mean expansion with disks is really easy

Also if you do go the route of gentoo there are some nice 3rd party stages that provide a hardened toolchain with gcc-4.3.1 (which if your server is webfacing is a definite protection mech :D hardened is sooo good :D)
 
We'll be waiting a long time then! I mean, 1000 fails per 1 successful install is your going rate, isn't it? We can't wait that long for test results.

Oh btw, SP1 fixes the Vista transfer speed issue. Just keeping you in the loop. Can't have us prominent techies use outmoded software.

where did you get 1 out of 1000?
Try somewhere around 800 successful installs with 200 having the OS related problems (and another 30-40 with hardware issues and 2 or 3 with user-related errors). These are approximate give or take 5-10... numbers were up to date at the last employee meeting 3 weeks ago
 
Whatever you say bud. I'm just going by another post.. made today, not 3 weeks ago.
 
HEY GUYS!
OP here, I still have some questions:
  • It needs to be able to run without a graphics adapter. I have no information either way on whether WHS can do this.
  • SSH/SFTP has become the defacto standard amongst me and my friends.
  • I can plug a Linux server into my school's network filesystem and run binaries for a variety of CAD programs, meaning my work isn't going to be slowed down by some n00b who left a Verilog simulator looping all night on one of the cluster computers.
  • The other nice thing is that I could easily rescue files via a LiveCD - what happens if you boot a box running WHS from a LiveCD and try to touch the files in its storage pool?
I'd appreciate it if one of the happy users of WHS here could try pulling their graphics card and see if the server still boots and your files are still accessible.

I'm going to do some testing and see if Arch in a VM is comparable to bare metal Ubuntu on my server for all my CAD needs.

I'd appreciate an answer though about disaster recovery on WHS. If my motherboard explodes, or the disk with WHS installed on it dies, how do I recover my data? Will a run-of-the-mill Linux LiveCD be able to see the data?
Check out what WHS provides for you and what it doesn't (and check that they have fixed the data corruption issue)

You are already uptospeed with linux so that is one learning curve gone. Putting Gentoo on yr server is a good idea (gentoo is actually really good as a server), but there is the whole learning curve w.r.t. gentoo tools

As to harddrive layout. Think about wrapping it all in an LVM array. IT will mean expansion with disks is really easy

Also if you do go the route of gentoo there are some nice 3rd party stages that provide a hardened toolchain with gcc-4.3.1 (which if your server is webfacing is a definite protection mech :D hardened is sooo good :D)
I'm intimately familiar with Gentoo - it was what was on my server until the DHCP client randomly broke. Ubuntu was a quick fix.

I've been reading up on LVM - it's now an option, since everything on my server is getting backed up anyway, thus making RAID5 less of a necessity. If I do decide to go with Arch/Gentoo/whathaveyou, I may use a giant LVM instead of mdraid this time around.
 
I would step back and think before you put arch on yr server
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1332906

I have it on mine simply because it is a bit underpowered (ie fanless and not that great of a diskspace) to run Gentoo (rebuilding at Xmas and back to gentoo \o/) AND arch has some /really/ annoying philosophies associated with it
1) no downgrades, full rolling release
2) Arse abt face way of dealing with kernels - not too much an issue if you roll your own

so I would put the choice downto Ubuntu or Gentoo. IF it wasn't for the fact that I have a few sticky fingers in a few gentoo side projects I would just put Ubuntu server on my setup
 
The reason I want to move off of Ubuntu is that I get this odd pause (upwards of 30 seconds sometimes) when SSHing into the box. It immediately asks me my login name, then waits that long to ask for my password. Never had this on Gentoo.

WHS appeals to me because it may "just work," unlike Ubuntu, and Gentoo when I don't have time to maintain it properly.

I'll probably use Arch if I go with WHS + a VM, but Gentoo if I go bare metal.
 
I'd appreciate it if one of the happy users of WHS here could try pulling their graphics card and see if the server still boots and your files are still accessible.

I'd appreciate an answer though about disaster recovery on WHS. If my motherboard explodes, or the disk with WHS installed on it dies, how do I recover my data?

Graphics card: not needed unless your BIOS requires one. WHS could care less whether you have a graphics card. The HP MediaSmart Server (and other commercial solutions, iirc) do not have one.

MB/HD Dies: Any data on your pooled drives is just like any other HD w/data. You can pop it in another machine and all is good. If your system drive dies, any physical data on it will be gone, also.

The 1st drive is partitioned into a 20gig C: drive partition, and the remainder becomes part of the D: drive pool. Any additional HD's become part of the D: drive pool. WHS creates "tombstones" (pointers) on the 1st drive to tell the OS which physical drive any data is physically stored on.

With PP1, WHS gives you the option to backup your data to a non-pooled drive. More redundency.

If I may suggest, go on over to http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/. This site has lots on good info on WHS and an associated wiki to modify WHS to your hearts desire.
 
Okay then, stupid question - how do you install an OS, WHS or otherwise, on one of those HP systems if it doesn't have any graphics adapter whatsoever?
 
The HP system should come pre-loaded with the OS, which is designed to run headless. One of the reasons I built a system rather than buy one is the ability to run a graphics card, and use the server as an actual server, with locally installed programs, instead of as a pure, headless system.
 
The reason I want to move off of Ubuntu is that I get this odd pause (upwards of 30 seconds sometimes) when SSHing into the box. It immediately asks me my login name, then waits that long to ask for my password. Never had this on Gentoo.

Kind of a silly reason for moving off an OS. This is not something I've encountered in the 5-6 Ubuntu machines I've used. You should considering looking into this error before switching OSes.
 
and funny enough I don't get that ssh;ing into some ubuntu box's I have
if anything this is PAM related, turn of PAM support in ssh, pita most of the time anyway
 
I'm really torn. WHS just looks so nice and shiny. There's a few things that seem to stand in the way though:
  • It needs to be able to run without a graphics adapter. I have no information either way on whether WHS can do this.
  • SSH/SFTP has become the defacto standard amongst me and my friends.
  • I can plug a Linux server into my school's network filesystem and run binaries for a variety of CAD programs, meaning my work isn't going to be slowed down by some n00b who left a Verilog simulator looping all night on one of the cluster computers.
Don't even get me started on CLI vs. Remote Desktop - they both have their advantages.

Can you run virtual machines on WHS?

EDIT: The other nice thing is that I could easily rescue files via a LiveCD - what happens if you boot a box running WHS from a LiveCD and try to touch the files in its storage pool?

No idea on the graphics adapter. My mobo has an IGP. I have heard of people running without though.

WHS is windows 2003, so if you can do it on that, you can do it on WHS. If you do run VM's on it, it'd probably be a good idea to keep them on a drive outside of the storage pool.
 
Back
Top