Any alternatives to Windows Home Server

[Narmer]

I built a WHS machine 2 years ago. about 6 months ago all the computer backups on the machine suddenly went bad. Luckily, the file folders were fine. It wasn't a big deal since none of the computers needed restoration at the time and I could've easily backed them up again. Besides, I cared more about the movies and files that I'd copied to the machine than PC backups. Fast forward to today. I recently built a new computer. I was going to run Windows Server 2008R2 and add WHS in Hyper-v but I had a hell of a time finding drivers for all the components on my Asus P7P55d-e pro motherboard (even though 2008R2 is based on Windows 7). So, I installed Windows 7 Pro x64 instead and everything is running fine. However, now I have 6 HDDs in my ABS TIGAS case that aren't being utilized efficiently. The operating system is on top of a Raid 1 configuration but I'm not sure how to fully utilize the other HDDs.

As with WHS, I want to be back up and running in case of an OS failure or if I lose files. The case has a hot-swappable board. Is it possible to still setup WHS via vmware or virtual pc or do I have to manually spread my files evenly across the HDDs to mimick what WHS did? Is there a software that can spool them automatically?

TIA.

 

[nerp]

Why not get a cheap mobo and fire up WHS again? Or maybe I'm reading your post wrong?

 

[RebateMonger]

There's no other server software that can do client PC backups quite as well as WHS. You can install client backup software on your computers or install Enterprise-level client backup software, but it's more complicated.

As far as a file server, there's a couple of alternatives to WHS. I believe that FreeNAS is fairly popular. But none of them, including WHS, are perfect.

Nowadays it's pretty uncommon to lose data in WHS. It's usually some kind of hardware problem that needs to be fixed. But no matter what the file server OS, it pays to keep backups of important stuff, even if it's on a server with file redundancy.

I use WHS under Hyper-V and periodically export my virtual machine to a 2 TB backup drive. I mostly use WHS for its backup capabilities and not much as a file server. The entire WHS Backup Database can be copied to other drives if desired, since it's composed of many 4 GB files. Obviously any shared files can also be backed up to other disks or to a second WHS using various file copy programs.

 

[Narmer]

Why not get a cheap mobo and fire up WHS again? Or maybe I'm reading your post wrong?

I want to consolidate everything into one box.