Server drive often not seen

[Muse]

Until I put together my dedicated server machine (it will be connected by ethernet to my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router) I'm temporarily using one of my wirelessly connected laptops to act as a server. It is often in suspend, and naturally at those times it can't be found on the network. All 3 of my machines are in my workgroup, peer-to-peer. When I want to be able to access the data on the server laptop, I walk up to the machine (I don't believe there's a way to waken it remotely) wake it from suspend by left-clicking the attached mouse. But even when the "server" machine is on (not suspended) very often when using one of the other machines, when I try to run an application that makes requests of the data I get messages saying that it can't find what's required. The workaround is to open Explorer on the machine I'm using, find the mapped network drive (the drive on the "server" machine), click on it, wait a second or two for the folders to show up and then things work. This happens a lot, maybe every time until I _establish_the_connection_.

1. Is there a way to prevent these things from happening?

2. When I have my server machine set up, will I still have these problems? I am thinking of using WHS on the machine I eventually put together to be a dedicated server for the network, possibly another OS, Windows XP or a Linux distro, maybe FreeNAS.

 

[Muse]

There is, I think, an alternative setup I could use until I decide on, buy the parts for and install, configure, etc. my dedicated server machine:

My other laptop is in a location where I could attach it by ethernet to the aforementioned wireless router. The connecting cable would be in the neighborhood of 100 feet, would snake from my bedroom up into the attic, back down into a closet and from there into the room that has the router and the desktop. Now, being ethernet connected to the router, I think that laptop can probably be configured to be wakened from suspend with a data request from one of the other two machines. The driver evidently supports it (I looked in Device Manager). Would I get better results in the interim if I try this setup (I'd have to run the ~100 feet of ethernet cable to do it..., have a big spool of Cat5e, a crimper, connectors).

 

[imagoon]

#1:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2040417

If your machine suspends, it is no longer advertising that it exists. When netbios times out the other machines will not know how to get to it, and even wake on activity will not work.

WHS when configured properly can act like a WINS (not as good) or DNS responder and allow the computers in the network to register with it. DNS registration + using the WHS server as a DNS source will solve many of the "strange windows sharing" issues.

For the explorer thing where you need to click on the drive, that is by design. The share was not available when the machine was looking for it and is offline. Double clicking causes a reconnect attempt, which should work now that the machine is alive.

Servers + sleep mode generally = pain.

 

[Muse]

Servers + sleep mode generally = pain.

Maybe I should just take that at face value and decide to keep my dedicated server machine (when I eventually get the parts for it, install it, config, etc.) on 24/7 [I'm taking a good hard look at very green technologies including MSI Wind Nettop 100 and green HD(s)]. WHS has a plugin called Lights Out, that gives it WOL capabilities, but it might not be worth messing with. Anyone know?