I have been using Windows Home Server 2007 since it came out. It's primary function is to backup my PCs (all Win7 or later now) and has worked wonderfully for years. I also started to use it as a Media Server (NAS essentially) so my smart TVs can connect directly to it. To the he point where I now keep all music, videos and pictures on it and just play back across the network. And it also now serves as my FTP and VPN. It started small and became my own personal cloud I could access from anywhere.
The things I liked most of it were:
1) The JBOD storage pool - if the drives become full just pull a small one and drop in a bigger one
2) Incremental automatic backup via the connector software
3) Ease to enable/disable data redundancy on 'on-server' storage (called folder duplication, a de facto RAID 1)
4) Ease of use. It was incredibly easy to setup and configure.
5) Whole system restore (although by the grace of God I've never actually had to do this, yet)
Sadly, due to an unrelated issue I made some changes and have since lost it's DDNS feature that I can't re-enable because it requires to signup through Windows Live ID (windows passport no longer exists at all). Once it no longer did it's own remote access, I can no longer control the server through the connector and must remote desktop into the server for any access. But the backups continue to run automagically.
All in total, the server has 10TB of storage used as:
4.75TB of PC backups
1.7TB of on-server storage
1.4TB of on-server storage is duplicated
I would like to replace this server with a new & similar solution because I must always remote in and; well, honestly it is aging. It's way past Microsoft's support. And I'm sure by now the hardware is getting ready to go as it's been on; constantly, for the past 8 years. And it's finally time to get rid of the power-hungry electricity eating Q6600.
Ideally, for it's replacement I would like:
1) On-server folder duplication as the backups themselves do not need to duplicated and as such the whole server doesn't need to be RAID'd. Only the data stored on server would need duplication.
2) Automatic backups - set it and forget it
3) Incremental backups. Some of the PCs it backups are connected via VPN and doing a whole system backup would not be an option
4) the ability to re-enable VPN in (if some OS versions have that feature removed)
5) Easy ability to increase storage pool capacity in the future
6) Reliability. Something that can just sit in the rack for the next 8 years and be forgotten about until it's needed.
Hardware for this has already been purchased as:
i3-4130
Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3
4 WD 4TB drives
Would prefer MSFT based OS and have been considering Server 2012 R2 and Server Essentials R2. Cost isn't much of a factor but do want to have my data close to me and as such am not considering a cloud option.
The things I liked most of it were:
1) The JBOD storage pool - if the drives become full just pull a small one and drop in a bigger one
2) Incremental automatic backup via the connector software
3) Ease to enable/disable data redundancy on 'on-server' storage (called folder duplication, a de facto RAID 1)
4) Ease of use. It was incredibly easy to setup and configure.
5) Whole system restore (although by the grace of God I've never actually had to do this, yet)
Sadly, due to an unrelated issue I made some changes and have since lost it's DDNS feature that I can't re-enable because it requires to signup through Windows Live ID (windows passport no longer exists at all). Once it no longer did it's own remote access, I can no longer control the server through the connector and must remote desktop into the server for any access. But the backups continue to run automagically.
All in total, the server has 10TB of storage used as:
4.75TB of PC backups
1.7TB of on-server storage
1.4TB of on-server storage is duplicated
I would like to replace this server with a new & similar solution because I must always remote in and; well, honestly it is aging. It's way past Microsoft's support. And I'm sure by now the hardware is getting ready to go as it's been on; constantly, for the past 8 years. And it's finally time to get rid of the power-hungry electricity eating Q6600.
Ideally, for it's replacement I would like:
1) On-server folder duplication as the backups themselves do not need to duplicated and as such the whole server doesn't need to be RAID'd. Only the data stored on server would need duplication.
2) Automatic backups - set it and forget it
3) Incremental backups. Some of the PCs it backups are connected via VPN and doing a whole system backup would not be an option
4) the ability to re-enable VPN in (if some OS versions have that feature removed)
5) Easy ability to increase storage pool capacity in the future
6) Reliability. Something that can just sit in the rack for the next 8 years and be forgotten about until it's needed.
Hardware for this has already been purchased as:
i3-4130
Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3
4 WD 4TB drives
Would prefer MSFT based OS and have been considering Server 2012 R2 and Server Essentials R2. Cost isn't much of a factor but do want to have my data close to me and as such am not considering a cloud option.
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