Microsoft reduced price of Windows Home Server by 30%

[Kingbee13]

Microsoft announced yesterday they are reducing the cost of Windows Home Server by 30% today (Nov 1st) On the WHS Blog

Anyone know how long it usually takes for a reduction like this to show up in retail, er OEM channels?

 

[RebateMonger]

That's great news. That should put it at the same price as XP Home OEM or Vista Home OEM. With the minimal system requirements to build a WHS backup server, it doesn't leave many excuses for losing data on home or small office PCs.

That's a huge price reduction and there aren't huge margins in software reselling, so it may take a while for everybody to jump on board. Nobody is going to want to sell their current inventory at a loss if they don't have to.

 

[nerp]

Woah nice.

 

[Kingbee13]

for some reason, after the announcement newegg raised the price of WHs by $30 on the RTM release no change on the version with powerpack 1, they were charging 10 dollars more for PP1

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Kingbee13
for some reason, after the announcement newegg raised the price of WHs by $30 on the RTM release no change on the version with powerpack 1, they were charging 10 dollars more for PP1

Yeah, that's pretty strange, all things considered.

 

[RebateMonger]

Newegg prices WHS PP1 at $99.99 with free shipping.

Guess that's your answer!

 

[ViRGE]

Woohoo!

 

[Kingbee13]

very nice was going to build this coming weekend and now I can do it with full OS and not the trial version

now I just need some bigger drives, and lots of them hehe

 

[loup garou]

In celebration my whs box decided to die.
I think my sata controller bit the dust because I've lost several drives....this is bad.

 

[Kingbee13]

oh that is not good sorry for your loss

I hope you had everything backed up via the USB option

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: loup garou
In celebration my whs box decided to die.
I think my sata controller bit the dust because I've lost several drives....this is bad.

I'd like to hear about how the recovery goes. Did you have any WHS shared folder redundancy enabled?

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: loup garou
In celebration my whs box decided to die.
I think my sata controller bit the dust because I've lost several drives....this is bad.

I'd like to hear about how the recovery goes. Did you have any WHS shared folder redundancy enabled?

I haven't determined if it's a controller issue or just one drive as of yet. I think when I thought I had 2 drives down, I had plugged one good drive into a different sata port while swapping cables (to check for bad cabling). Now the console shows I have only one drive down. It is showing as damaged, but when I repair, it fails.

I do have duplication enabled on several folders, but it still appears as if some of my duplicated files are inaccessible.

Right now, I just plugged in another USB drive and am going to add it to the pool, then remove the down drive and see if things work. Fingers crossed...but the server storage tab has been trying to refresh for the past 10 minutes after plugging in that usb drive. I don't have high hopes.

All said, I blame this more on my franken-whs than the software...it's a mix of sata and pata drives, a cheapo Rosewill sata card, all in an old shuttle sn41g2. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and replace it with either an HP Mediasmart box (saw one on eBay for under $500, with 25% MS Cashback), or build a machine with higher quality parts (MSI wind desktop + 2 new drives, maybe).

 

[Raduque]

You can always toss the drive(s) into another computer, pull the files out of the hidden "DE" folder, format the drive and throw it back in, see if it works that way.

 

[loup garou]

Sorry to turn this thread into my own little log of the recovery process, but I'm back up and running. Added the other drive and removed the failed drive in the console. The console didn't indicate any file conflicts (they really need to rename this "MISSING FILES") on my duplicated folders. My un-duplicated folders retained many files, and the conflicts message indicated which files were lost -- although I closed the window after reading. I wish there was an option to output a report...maybe there is a log somewhere I can dig up. None of it was very important -- downloaded installers and some TV episodes and movies I can redownload.

Anyways, the last thing I had to do was repair the backup database, and I lost all my backups, which, while unfortunate, isn't too big of a deal to me.

I think I'm a bit of a special case as the drive I lost was the biggest in my pool...500GB, along with a 250 and a 160 (and the drive I replaced the 500GB with was 160). My next WHS is definitely going to have same-sized drive, I feel having one drive much larger than the others increases both the amount of unduplicated data you can lose and increases that drive's chance for failure as it gets more of a workout.

Originally posted by: Raduque
You can always toss the drive(s) into another computer, pull the files out of the hidden "DE" folder, format the drive and throw it back in, see if it works that way.

First thing I did, drive is totally dead, it even bluescreened another PC when hooked up.

Pisses me off as this was the newest drive in the machine, as well as the biggest!!!

 

[RebateMonger]

Backing up the "Backups" (the Backup database) can be done with a user-created Add-in, or can be done manually. This option was planned to be part of WHS' Power Pack One, but was dropped.

Basically, you turn off the backup services (to unlock the backup files), copy them elsewhere, and then turn the services back on. I've done this a couple of times and even restored the backup database to two different WHS machines without incident.

In theory, losing (edited) a backup-bearing drive isn't a horrible thing, since the content is "just" backups. But it's nice to have things like the "original" backup of a system.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Backing up the "Backups" (the Backup database) can be done with a user-created Add-in, or can be done manually. This option was planned to be part of WHS' Power Pack One, but was dropped.

Basically, you turn off the backup services (to unlock the backup files), copy them elsewhere, and then turn the services back on. I've done this a couple of times and even restored the backup database to two different WHS machines without incident.

In theory, having a backup-bearing drive isn't a horrible thing, since the content is "just" backups. But it's nice to have things like the "original" backup of a system.

Yeah, I knew about that "feature." Let's just say it was on my to-do list.

Anyways, drive is off to Seagate for RMA and I'm keeping my eye out for deals on an hp ex470.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: loup garou
Anyways, drive is off to Seagate for RMA and I'm keeping my eye out for deals on an hp ex470.

The HP EX470 is an amazingly good design. Gosh I wish I could buy that HP case in a Mini-ATX format for $100 or so.

 

[Kingbee13]

Well my case and WHS disc will be delivered today, and hope it will be a smooth build, looking at the HP EX470 case, that is snazzy, not bad for ~500 Initially I'm going to have 200 invested in my system, had to settle on an antec 300 case, wasn't what I wanted but apparently what I wanted doesnt exist, oh well.


Seems like there is a niche open for case makers to come up with a nice WHS centric design, at mini itx.com they do have a chenbro case that would be nice, but mini-itx stuff is expensive, and to go that route I couldnt imagine not getting the HP

I'm hoping the WHS market will really opens up now that WHS software is so cheap, if your in a household with several computers and find yourself being the resident IT guy, for people who insist on installing spyware or otherwise wrecking thier install and blaming windows, WHS would undoubtly make everyone's life easier

For me its just a matter of consolidating backups and keeping them current, it will be nice to have my critical systems backed up, instead of the hodge-podge infrequent backups I have now, that I probably couldnt locate if I did need them

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Kingbee13
Well my case and WHS disc will be delivered today, and hope it will be a smooth build, looking at the HP EX470 case, that is snazzy, not bad for ~500 Initially I'm going to have 200 invested in my system, had to settle on an antec 300 case, wasn't what I wanted but apparently what I wanted doesnt exist, oh well.


Seems like there is a niche open for case makers to come up with a nice WHS centric design, at mini itx.com they do have a chenbro case that would be nice, but mini-itx stuff is expensive, and to go that route I couldnt imagine not getting the HP

I'm hoping the WHS market will really opens up now that WHS software is so cheap, if your in a household with several computers and find yourself being the resident IT guy, for people who insist on installing spyware or otherwise wrecking thier install and blaming windows, WHS would undoubtly make everyone's life easier

For me its just a matter of consolidating backups and keeping them current, it will be nice to have my critical systems backed up, instead of the hodge-podge infrequent backups I have now, that I probably couldnt locate if I did need them

I know which Chenbro case you're talking about, I've been eyeing it myself! THere are other retailers (and eBay sellers) that have it for less, but yes it is still pricey. The most attractive WHS case aside from the HP, IMO.

Another thing I've been considering that I wanted to throw out there for those interested is one of the MSI Wind desktops, they're super cheap and can hold 2 drives (with no optical). I read a guy who built a WHS box using it and 2 "green" drives and it only pulled 44W under load and was very quiet. That's impressive. The only thing I don't like with that is that its a little tough to swap drives, and you're limited to 2 internal drives...

 

[Kingbee13]

I'm going to go with the new green 1tb drives from WD too, not the old model it was a 4 platter design, and I never felt comfortable with that many platters, the new design has better performance, and uses less power. I know they arent the fastest drives on the block, but I want efficent reliable quiet drives right now new egg lists the old 4 platter drive as the "green" but its still the older Caviar GP drive, so I'm still waiting to get all the drives for my system

as for cases, 2 drives just wouldnt do it for me, and I dont want a dozen external drives, that would kinda defeat the purpose of a sff server IMO, but I agree chenbro case is nice, I could live with it but I dont have an ITX board with a lot of sata connectors just laying around, so not going to go that route, the antec 300 is a little builky but plenty of space and I can always use hot swapable drive bays in all those 5 1/4 slots

I plan to use a couple samsung f1 750GB drives initally, and a 1tb wD external usb drive to backup the backup files , I will need more space than the 1.5tb internal, but as I said I'm waiting for the new WD green drives before I do any folder duplication, hope it doenst become an issue, since i'll have all the improtant stuff on the WHS and the external usb drive

I have no intention of backing up the computer backups, the only way that would be needed is my WHS and the backed up machine failed simultaniously and if I have that much bad luck the external USB would prolly have failed too lol

 

[loup garou]

I just wanted to pop back in and say I rebuilt my WHS with the MSI Wind desktop, 2GB RAM and 2x 500GB sata drives (just cheapo Hitachis that were on sale at Newegg). My first Wind desktop died after about 20 minutes of use...something with the power circuitry on the motherboard must've fried, because the external PSUs LED would just flicker. Luckily, I had ordered 2 boxes (wanted to use one for a project for work), and moved my drives over into it...it's been running great for the past 4 days.

I know this thing isn't the optimal box for everyone, but I"m seriously impressed with the Atom chip in this application. Super quiet, reasonably cool (I may crack it open and put a fan on the hot northbridge for my own peace of mind), low power usage, and enough guts to power my WHS for what I need. It runs TVersity, Orb, and PlayOn servers for streaming media with no problem...in addition to its backup and file storage roles, that's pretty impressive to me. Hopefully this box doesn't suffer the same fate as the first one did, but I am confident that was a fluke after I've put this one through its paces for the past few days.

 

[Griffinhart]

I picked up the HP EX470 a couple of weeks ago. I absolutely love the whole WHS thing and the HP media server is terrific.

My only complaint about the EX470 is the amount of RAM. Out of the box the 512MB is enough to handle the average home use, but start adding in things like Mal-ware protection, Web services, etc... It starts to bog down real quick.

I ended up finding a nice guide on upgrading the RAM. So, this past weekend I bumped it up from 512MB to 2GB for $30. The performance difference is night and day. After the upgrade I am extremely pleased with the setup.

For storage I have the installed 500GB seagate drive, a seagate 1TB drive, a seagate 1.5 TB drive (just added that one in), and a WD Green 1TB drive. I have an external 500GB Hitachi USB drive that I plan to use to back up the WHS system files with.

My next project is to set up sync toy to copy all media files/movies up to the server on a regular basis.

At work, I live on my home server page and keep a remote desktop to my PC up all day for e-mail and other stuff.

 

[RebateMonger]

Sorry to hear about problems with the MS Wind. I've only built one of them, but that one is still going and is a pretty amazing box as long as you can live with its drive space limitations.

HP's box is great, too. Right now I'm reading of folks gettings some REALLY good prices on them, combining MS Live Cashback and HP's online discounts.

I think that everybody thought that WHS would become popular. I know I did. A lot of developers thought they'd get rich selling software and services for WHS and were disappointed by the response. The data corruption scare didn't help. But, judging by the postings here and on other forums, WHS is finally starting to take off.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
I picked up the HP EX470 a couple of weeks ago. I absolutely love the whole WHS thing and the HP media server is terrific.

My only complaint about the EX470 is the amount of RAM. Out of the box the 512MB is enough to handle the average home use, but start adding in things like Mal-ware protection, Web services, etc... It starts to bog down real quick.

I ended up finding a nice guide on upgrading the RAM. So, this past weekend I bumped it up from 512MB to 2GB for $30. The performance difference is night and day. After the upgrade I am extremely pleased with the setup.

For storage I have the installed 500GB seagate drive, a seagate 1TB drive, a seagate 1.5 TB drive (just added that one in), and a WD Green 1TB drive. I have an external 500GB Hitachi USB drive that I plan to use to back up the WHS system files with.

My next project is to set up sync toy to copy all media files/movies up to the server on a regular basis.

At work, I live on my home server page and keep a remote desktop to my PC up all day for e-mail and other stuff.

Ditto to that. Although WHS can run on little RAM, there's no sense in doing so. RAM is cheap, plentiful, and uses no power. Every WHS should have as much RAM in it as it can handle and afford, since it greatly helps with file operations as more things can be buffered for longer.