What is the big hype with WHS?

[Red Squirrel]

I don't have it downloaded to check it out, but what does it do, that a regular XP/Win2k3 machine, or Linux cannot do? I'm just curious as I hear talk about it more and more these days. I'm guessing you have to pay for it, so I would figure that would be a huge drawback vs Linux.

 

[MrChad]

Painless backup and restore of your Windows machines

You can easily add storage capacity by popping in a new drive, without worrying about drive letters and which drive data is stored on.

 

[JackMDS]

I am sure that a guy like you have spare old computers around and fast Internet connection.

Download the trial, it takes about 30 minutes to install. Give it a run and see for yourself.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=e3694b69-93f6-4267-b881-55ce0648c784

Few remarks from enthusiasts perspective, http://www.ezlan.net/WHS.html

Do not forget about that add-ins (most are freewares).

Log here and click on the categories that are in the top black pull down menu.

http://www.whsplus.com/

A small example of Internet related add ins.


Download Manager


Wordpress Installer for WHS


SABnzbd Manager


WHS Widget


WHS Customizer


Whiist


WebBrowser



uTorrent


Photosync for Windows Home Server



FTP Manager

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Thank you for this list.... I wish there was a thread with the most popular "must have" WHS add ins for someone who is starting out ( like me)
What is anyone using for Antivirus on these?

 

[JackMDS]

Thank you for this list.... I wish there was a thread with the most popular "must have" WHS add ins for someone who is starting out ( like me)
What is anyone using for Antivirus on these?

The selections for add- ins is more Vertical than Horizontal. I.e there is variety of Ad-ins for different tasks and very few add-ins of the same kind.

This page shows two AV, I do not think that there are more than another one or two out there.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/add-ins.mspx

In general, most Viruses come form opening downloads, emails attachments, and executing infected files.

WHS is not a work station, I do not open downloads/email on it, and I am not executing none OS related files.

To be on the safe side I put the free ClamWin on it, and I perform periodical scans.

 

[RebateMonger]

Microsoft's Windows Home Server is a very unique product, combining features of Server 2003, Vista, Small Business Server and adding some very advanced backup/restore and disk redundancy and disk management technology.

The backups/restores are automatic, daily, and allow you to restore a single file or an entire PC painlessly. You can restore yesterday's copy, or a copy from four months ago. These backups are managed automatically and are done in a very efficient way, minimizing the space required for so many backups.

Disk management is also painless. When you need more storage, you plug in another disk. No need to create or modify arrays. If you want disk redundancy, a mouse-click will enable redundancy at the folder-by-folder level. Unlike RAID, you don't need to make an entire disk redundant if you only need certain folders redundant. There are reports of 20 TeraByte-plus WHS boxes out there.

There's also remote computer and remote file access from the Internet and a full IIS web server if you want.

WHS also monitors itself and its Windows clients. If there's a problem with AV, firewalls, backups, or disks, WHS gives warnings on all the desktops until the problem is fixed.

The whole thing is very simple to install and manage. It's built so the average homeowner can install it with a few mouse clicks. Yeah, it's $100 for the software. That's $20 a year for a typical five-year server life. You can also use the free four-month trials to use it for a while if you wish. Hardware requirements (in real life) are EXTREMELY low. You can pretty much use any PC built in the past seven years for the installation, or you can buy an entire pre-built WHS server from several sources, sometimes for as low as $250 including the WHS software and a 1 TB hard disk.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Jack MDS - thaks for the other links and advice. Im mainly wanting to keep an antivirus on it as a second level scanner for things that the family's computer might miss I know there are a few options availabe for getting to the server while off site. What are you folks using?

 

[TheKub]

There's also remote computer and remote file access from the Internet and a full IIS web server if you want.

The remote function is nice but its aggravating that it doesn’t work on XP\Vista\7 Home editions.

 

[omber]

The remote function is nice but its aggravating that it doesn’t work on XP\Vista\7 Home editions.

True but that is a feature of Windows Home editions not WHS (they don't have RDC client). We have a WHS based NAS in our office that was bought before I started. It works but I would not recommend it for business except for very small companies as it has a fixed 10 user limit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ahh I see so it's just an all in one type solution. It does sound pretty neat, though Linux can do most of those things, it's just a bit harder and less geared towards non techies.

Linux can do the raid stuff as well and does not corrupt data. (guessing they fixed that issue in WHS now, or I hope). Just wondering though does WHS at least do proper raid 0,1,5,6 etc or does it just do it's own thing?

 

[TheKub]

Just wondering though does WHS at least do proper raid 0,1,5,6 etc or does it just do it's own thing?

It does its own thing, though if you insist on using raid you can set it up via hardware and WHS will just treat it like its own disk.

Its redundancy is duplication of designated folders. This allows drives to be replaced, swapped, added at will with minimal impact. Its not efficient as say raid 5 but its far simpler.

 

[SunnyD]

The remote function is nice but its aggravating that it doesn’t work on XP\Vista\7 Home editions.

You do realize you can download a standalone RDC client from Microsoft, right?

 

[TheKub]

You do realize you can download a standalone RDC client from Microsoft, right?

You do realize that doesnt help you CONTROL a Windows "X" Home PC, right?

RDP requires a client and a host. The issue is not the client, as you pointed out you can download the client onto just about anything. The host part requires Pro\Business version of Windows. There are various hacks to enable RPD host on Home editions but that still doesnt help you using the WHS console. The server itself knows that the OS is not supported and shoots you down even if you implement the hack.

Its really a limitation they should lift as there is no shortage of free remote desktop tools available to users and now a days remoting another desktop isnt a task that really only has use in a business environment. Its silly to require Pro\Business to use a major feature of HOME Server.

 

[Binky]

It does sound pretty neat, though Linux can do most of those things, it's just a bit harder and less geared towards non techies.

Exactly - WHS is a server for dummies. I have one and the brain dead simplicity is the best part.

 

[MStele]

The big hype is that WHS is actually good at what it does.

 

[RebateMonger]

The big hype is that WHS is actually good at what it does.

I'm sometimes surprised about how much good press WHS gets on these forums.

Microsoft DOES make mistakes and is far from perfect, but they did a GREAT job on WHS. It's not perfect, but it does what it claims to do and is a "nearly"-perfect backup and storage appliance for the bulk of homes and small offices.

People do NOT do backups. You can hand them a USB drive, come back a year later, and, at best, there'll be a single backup on it that's eleven months old. But with WHS, a whole household will have full image backups that actually work. Automatically.

And the file server part of WHS is perfect for the needs of most households. It'll provide very reliable disk redundancy with a mouse-click or two, and can be "infinitely" expanded with another couple mouse-clicks. All you need is hard disks and some way to hook the disks to the server.

 

[heymrdj]

It does its own thing, though if you insist on using raid you can set it up via hardware and WHS will just treat it like its own disk.

Its redundancy is duplication of designated folders. This allows drives to be replaced, swapped, added at will with minimal impact. Its not efficient as say raid 5 but its far simpler.

Raid is the improper way to enable hot swap, prevent downtime, and give redundancy. Raid is linked at the driver level, and should the card/mb that hosts the raid tables become nuked, there's a good chance your data just got nuked without an expensive data recovery company.

WHS simply stores it all within the NTFS file system. Any ntfs capable OS, including many distros of linux, will be able to recover files should the main OS or hardware of the WHS server fail. THIS to me is the epitomy of active redundancy.

This also allows you to easily move data. As the system isn't in a RAID, you can simply take the data drive from one WHS server, and have it rebuild the tombstones in another WHS server. Or simply use the data as is from the hard drive in any ntfs system. You can't do this with RAID.