Anybody using Windows Home Server here?

pparks1 · 01-20-2008, 07:29 PM

I know there are a few IT guys around here....was wondering if anybody was using this product at home?

I am aware of the file corruption issue (and the hotfixes)...but that aside...any other experiences with the product???? I've been contemplating a purchase for my home as I do run a dedicated file server and a couple of Windows machines.

I've been using the eval in a virtual environment for a few days and overall I like what I see. The backup and restore functionality alone is worth the price of the OS. In a nutshell, your PC's back up automatically each night and whenever you click a button. Then, if your hard drive dies on your pc, you can simply buy a new hard drive, put in a bootable restore cd, connect to the home server and put the machine back to any backup that you were storing on the servers. It's pretty slick, the interface is very simple and the backup/restore functions are simply WORKING as advertised in my testing.

benniemc · 01-20-2008, 07:38 PM

I think Bish has, I've only seen magazine evals of it.

It looks nice, I've been wanting to try it at home, but haven't had time to look!

pparks1 · 01-20-2008, 08:18 PM

I'm really one leary of 2 things

#1) lack of control. they want you to really do everything from the web based admin pages. You don't have to..but you could also break functionality doing it from the OS. And being a Linux fan and a sys admin for a living, this might be too limiting to the point where I don't like it.

#2) The way it handles all hard drives more or less as a LVM. Each time you add a physical drive, it expans the D drive. You have the option to create duplicates of your shared folders (for redundancy) so that they are on more than 1 drive...but I wonder if in the event of a system failure how easy/hard the data would be to get off the drives. For example, just plopping it into another machine may not allow me to mount and get data off it. Obviously, making backups to an external drive would resolve that problem and I would do that anyway....but......

benniemc · 01-20-2008, 08:36 PM

From the sounds of things, with your Linux experience, you'd be better off setting up a Ubuntu server with Software JBOD RAID, and a Samba file server!

I hate that MS are moving all they're admin stuff to web based, I think it's a pain in the arse, if IIS on the box dies your dead in the water. And that happens all the time!

What else does Home server do that warrants a separate purchase from Vista/XP?

EDIT: Looking at what it does, you can setup a stock Fedora install to easily do everything that Windows Home Server does. From what I can gather, it's a file server with a web server and content management system and backup services.

Samba for File services.
Open SSH on your router and use a piece of software called WinSCP to access files from anywhere, over SSH which is way more secure.
Apache web services for HTML, and use OpenOffice for HTML authoring.
Something like GeeXboX uShare UPnP A/V Media Server HomePage for UPNP Media services.
RSync or something similar for backups Installing rsync on a windows machine

You get the idea.....

pparks1 · 01-21-2008, 12:51 AM

Benniemc,

Trust me, I totally understand the beauty of Linux and what it can do. Remember, I am an RHCE.....

Home server provides a couple of nice features
1). "Ease" of adding new hard drives to an array and "ease" of removing drives and replacing them with even bigger drives down the road
2). Simple backups which not only can recover single files, but can easily be used to restore an entire machine, OS included in just a few minutes.
3). Single instance storage on the backups. Therefore, if you are backing up multiple boxes and have the same files (like the OS and various pieces of software), the backups only consume the space once, but make the file restorable across all of the systems.

I think the real beauty for the "average" joe is the storage space expansion, centralized files and super easy backup system. Look at how many people don't back up their systems.

BTW: I'm a pretty avid poster on the Fedora forums. (FedoraForum.org - Fedora User Support Forum & Community). I've even written how-to's for things like rsync and setting up LDAP services to authenticate logins. (or Fedora Directory services). Finally, I use a product called Rsnapshot in Linux for backups which keeps multiple point in time backups of files with only single instances of the file in each backup.

But, the Windows Home Server is appealing because if/when something bad happens to my Windows gaming machine, or my 3 year old screws up my wife's Vista laptop again...restores could be done in under 15 minutes....rather than the few hours that it takes now to load the OS and the software again. Sure, I know of the Ghosting software and such that are available...but the ease of a nightly backup happening everyday under Windows home server is a nice convenient thing.

Of course, it does cost me $179...so I'm still evaluating to determine whether it's actually worth spending money on to replace my currently invested $0 server runnning CentOS Linux 5.

Coby · 01-21-2008, 01:00 AM

Woa, I had to google RHCE.

I had an idea of what Red Hat was, but I was totally wrong.

Ok, well, sorry for intruding.

Oh yeah, why would you want to run a server from home? Gimme some examples of what its used for.

lol

benniemc · 01-21-2008, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coby

Woa, I had to google RHCE.

I had an idea of what Red Hat was, but I was totally wrong.

Ok, well, sorry for intruding.

Oh yeah, why would you want to run a server from home? Gimme some examples of what its used for.

lol

I'm RHCT, the step down from RHCE.

Examples of use for Windows Home Server?

Having 4 HDDs combined into one logical disk, having all your movie rips and mp3s there, and sharing them to your Xbox and other PCs, and having full automatic backups of all your computers/laptops on the network back to the server.

Accessing all your files on the server in a web interface from off site (at school/work)

Shit like that.

Parks, Yeah, I know your RHCEd and your linux extent, but it was the licensing that I didn't know that you'd like.

You have the skill set, and if you have the time to implement, and it's free, why not use an Open Source solution, especially since you'd feel obligated to pay the licensing fees.

Me on the other hand don't have a problem "Jack Sparrowing" MS software! Small software firms I buy software from, but MS, nah, they make enough (For home use anyway)!

Oh, as far as backups go, it's realy easy to configure ntbackup to dump to a samba share, then all you have to do to restore is install the OS, network drivers to access the backup file and the ntbackup restore does the rest! Vista's desktop backup has all the same features as Server 2003.

EDIT: Just found this GUI Thursday: System-config-lvm - LVM GUI tool - Fedora Daily Package

Package in Fedora, RHEL5, and I assume CentOS5 system-config-lvm allows you to fully manage your LVm volumes. You can add or remove disks, change volume sizes, and make frozen snapshots of data while your system is running

pparks1 · 01-21-2008, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coby

Oh yeah, why would you want to run a server from home? Gimme some examples of what its used for.

First and foremost, it's a computer which runs 24x7, I don't load software too, I don't make changes too. Therefore, it's reliable and always available.

Second, it's a dedicated machine with multiple hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration. Therefore, if I drive fails, I have another immediate copy of the data on the other drive...so nothing is lost.

Third: I have 3 other workstations in my house and my wife and I both have and use our laptops. So, we store all of the files that we want to keep on the server. This way, it doesn't matter at all if a workstation/laptop crashes. I can just reinstall the operating system and I'm back in business. No lost data.

Fourth: Closely related to number 3...I'm a computer guy. And I often format, reinstall, change operating systems and otherwise play lots with my machines. With nothing important on them, I've got the flexibility to do these things without the other computers being without their data while I have one of the machines down and out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benniemc

Parks, Yeah, I know your RHCEd and your linux extent, but it was the licensing that I didn't know that you'd like.

You have the skill set, and if you have the time to implement, and it's free, why not use an Open Source solution, especially since you'd feel obligated to pay the licensing fees.

I'm not super excited about the licensing and hence the reason that I am soliciting opinions and trying out the eval right now. However, the sheer convenience of being able to restore a Windows machine so easily is appealing...because we all know that occasionally things do go wrong. Sure, you can just reinstall the OS and the apps...but that takes a few hours. With backups and restores so easy, you don't really even have to troubleshoot, just zap it back to the way it was. Sure makes upgrading software and taking chances a little bit of an easier endeavor.

However, with that said....I don't like stealing my software. Maybe it's because I work for a software company. Either way, I either pay for it or find open source software that fits my needs. (and it's often the latter). To me, it seems kinda funny that somebody could staunchly be behind and defend how great windows was if they weren't willing to pay for the software. I say if you aren't willing to pay for it, it must not be that great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benniemc

Oh, as far as backups go, it's realy easy to configure ntbackup to dump to a samba share, then all you have to do to restore is install the OS, network drivers to access the backup file and the ntbackup restore does the rest! Vista's desktop backup has all the same features as Server 2003.

Again, it's sheer convenience. With 2 kids, a full time job and other interests, the time savings is nice. Within 10 minutes I can completely have my workstation going again with Windows home server features. That's everything...The OS, the drives, the games, the cookies, the customized configuration, etc.

In my case, NTBackup doesn't give me anything as all of my DATA is stored on my server.

I think this was exactly what Microsoft wanted. They want techs to see it, understand the value and then let others know about it. With people relying so much on digital music and digital pictures....having a system that can more safely store these is becoming more and more of a need at home. Of course, most home users won't pony up $179 for a product like this...but then again...they willl probably regret that decision if they lose their entire lifetime of digital pictures...which certainly does happen from time to time.

Smeg-T · 01-21-2008, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pparks1

Benniemc,

BTW: I'm a pretty avid poster on the Fedora forums. (FedoraForum.org - Fedora User Support Forum & Community). I've even written how-to's for things like rsync and setting up LDAP services to authenticate logins. (or Fedora Directory services). ppening everyday under Windows home server is a nice convenient thing.

haha.. You know, since I first started reading these forums I thought your name looked familiar....

I remember reading This and still being kind of lost. lol

I read the forums there when I can, have FC6 running on a desktop and had it on my laptop until my daughter "needed" it for her drawing tablet that doesn't support linux.

On topic, I have been looking at this and an internet "friend" is running it and giving me updates. I'm still torn as to whether I want to just learn more about linux and setup a linux server or try MS Home Server.

pparks1 · 01-21-2008, 05:43 PM

Well, there is a whole lot more that you are going to be able to do with Linux. Home Server is just that. A server for home use....but not really suitable to learn much about networking.

Linux however does have a steep learning curve. Of course, once learned, it really expands your ability to look into alternative technologies not released by Microsoft which really give you more opportunity.