Looking hard at WHS, but not sure it's what I need.

[BlueWeasel]

Here's my current headless server:

Jetway 754 motherboard
A64 3200+ OC'ed to 2.5Ghz
1GB DDR RAM
GeForce 6100 onboard video
Various IDE/SATA HDs
WinXP Pro SP3

In it's current state, the system is a hybrid, as I use it for infrequent tasks like DVD burning or video encoding via VNC.

However, I'd like to replace the smaller drives with a single 1TB WD Green drive for storage and use a 80GB drive as the boot/OS drive.

I'm taking a hard look at WHS but not sure if that's really what I need. I like it's feature set, but not sure if I'll really use them all.

My needs:
- Backup of only specific files/folders (I don't need an entire system backup)
- Power management of HDs and CPU to spindown or underclock when not used
- Basic file sharing capabilities

I really like WHS easy configuration and that it works right out of the box. I certainly don't have a problem paying $100 for it, but it may more than I really need. I plan on installing the trial and go from there. Would I be better off with something like FreeNAS, ClarkConnect, Linux, or other?

 

[mc866]

I have WHS installed on a similar setup, it's a 754 system with a 2800+ mobile CPU and 1GB of memory. The only thing I haven't been able to do with the box that could possibly be nice is to stream HD content through TVersity which encodes on the fly, it doesn't seem to keep up with that, but for everything else it works perfect. My only suggestion with the configuration you have mentioned is to possibly get two 1TB drives, that way you can utilize the backup options, it's kind tough to span the data on two discs for redundancy if you only have 1 TB drive where 95% of your data will be stored.

That being said I can't speak to the other OS's you have listed because I haven't used them as a server/NAS box, but there are a few things that I think WHS does well. The first being a central repository for my data, such as videos, pictures, music, etc. It also gives you the option of folder duplication for each of these folders which is very nice because you know your data is backed up. The second is sharing of files, once you install the WHS console to one of your other machines on the network it drops a folder on your desktop that gives you access to all of your folders that you are sharing on the WHS box. Lastly it does very well as a location to stream media from, I've been able to stream movies and music to all of my other PC's, to my 360, to an original Xbox with XBMC installed on it, and also an old P3 Dell box that I installed Geexbox on just for streaming movies to my bedroom. One other feature that you stated doesn't interest you is the fill backup feature, I haven't done a restore with it yet because I mostly use Acronis, but I think this is a great feature especially if you don't have anything like Acronis currently.

I haven't changed any of the power saving features for the drives or processor so I can't comment on that but I believe that based on the other needs you have lined out WHS will do exactly what you are looking for.