what would you replace Windows Home Server with?

[KLC]

I have WHS version 1 running in an Acer Easyshare H340 box. It's been great for about 4 years but I'm having real problems with it all of a sudden. While trying to repair it I've been thinking about alternatives.

I know there are Linux based network solutions and I know there is a new version of WHS, both would require hardware. I originally bought WHS mostly for file sharing in our home between 2 PCs that were running XP Pro and Vista. The automated backups was nice but not vital since I've always been good about doing external backups.

Now I've upgraded both PCs to Win 7 Home Premium and I'm wondering if the simplest approach would just be file sharing between the PCs using a Home Group in Win 7. Then maybe buying Acronis and making images of the PCs and keeping up with backups.

What are your experiences? Would the home groups do what I need? And is there a software solution so I could sync all of the files on both home PCs, so that each one would contain up to date versions of all our files, photos, etc?

 

[Ketchup]

I ran a trial version of Windows Home Server, and I did enjoy its features, but it ran too slow for me (I was running it on old hardware) and I didn't care for its disk management. I just got a copy of server 2003 and it does everything I need (in my case, it was free though the school I was attending at the time). If you can get a copy of the disk, I have seen licenses go for pretty cheap on eBay.

I am sure there are Linux distros that will do just as well for free, but I'm not much of a Linux guy.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Linux and mdraid. It's been around forever and probably isin't going anywhere. The issue with proprietary solutions like WHS is future sustainability, as MS clearly has shown by discontinuing the product, after first butchering it.

There are solutions like Open Filer and Freenas that can automate the administration. But honestly, it's not that hard to do command line and once you know the commands they will work on any distro. I usually use CentOS.

ZFS based solutions are also worth considering. I don't have any experience myself with it though but some people swear by it, and from what I hear it is pretty good.

 

[Cerb]

Now I've upgraded both PCs to Win 7 Home Premium and I'm wondering if the simplest approach would just be file sharing between the PCs using a Home Group in Win 7. Then maybe buying Acronis and making images of the PCs and keeping up with backups.

What are your experiences? Would the home groups do what I need?

No. My experience with HomeGroups is that they offer some the hassles of AD, but none of the benefits. IMO, just turn them off, and go to user/pass sharing. They're a neat idea, but they should have gone to a restricted peer-controlled AD model, complete with policy management available in home versions, instead of the half-baked walled garden concept with some shared folders.

And is there a software solution so I could sync all of the files on both home PCs, so that each one would contain up to date versions of all our files, photos, etc?

Now that is a good question. It might be easy enough to set up backup software to do it at short intervals, if someone doesn't know of a utility to do just that. This is definitely an area where MS wanting to change how we think about our files, instead of just implementing the damn feature, and letting others make front ends, has kept this something of a special case (remember the old briefcase? ).

 

[kmmatney]

Well, I haven't found a good alternative to WHS yet, as far as automatic backups. If you don't require automatic backups, I don't think you really need WHS. I really liked WHS v1 with the Servio Add-in, which made it an excellent media server. What fmade me upgrade to WHS 2011 was the 3 GB RAM limitation - I needed more RAM to run a custom Minecraft server with lots of mods.

The main problem with upgrading to WHS 2011 was that I previously had a mismatch of hard drives with drive extender. With WHS 2011, you need to use RAID 1. Luckily, windows built-in RAID has no problem forming a RAID array on mismatched drives (I even had laptop drives RAIDed with regular drives), but it wasted space. Trying to use Homegroups with WHS 2011 was a complete disaster, and I eventually had to turn off homegroups. Even without the server, I haven't had much luck with homegroups.

Anyways, if you just want to share files, then a simple NAS would do, but I haven't found a good alternative for automatic backups. I like WHS over other alternatives as I use it for automatic backups (I especially like how it keeps past incremental backups), as a media server, a shared scanner server, and a gaming server. So I get really good use out of it - sharing a scanner has been really useful.

The problem I had with other backup solutions is that they didn't automatically wake the computer to make sure that the backup happens. I want soemthing that I don't have to think about, and WHS is great for that.

 

[ControlD]

I ran WHS v1 and then WHS2011 and finally made the switch to unRAID a little more than a year ago. unRAID is so much better than WHS I wish I had just skipped WHS 2011 in the first place. No more database corruption issues? That is worth its' weight in gold.

 

[IamDavid]

Windows server 2012 essentials.. I absolutely love it.

 

[Doomer]

I moved from WHS to Server 2012 Standard. I don't know what I'm missing by not going with Essentials but Standard works just fine for me. as for backups, lots of 3rd party solutions out there for that.

 

[Binky]

WHS2011 + drivepool or drivebender.

This is the simplest option but I still think it's one of the best for most home users. Drivepool or drivebender have major downsides compared to other solutions, but none are as easy or idiotproof.

I also had an Acer H340 now I'm running an HP N40L with WHS2011. I couldn't be happier with this little thing. It runs without any hiccups and I've got all kinds of extra services installed. I think the automated nightly backups are a huge plus and I wouldn't give them up without a fight.

WHS2011 was on sale in the last few days for $35. For that price, it's hard to go wrong.

 

[kmmatney]

I just installed Stablebit Drivepool on my WHS 2011 server last night. It was real easy to install and get working. I simple broke my RAID 1 arrays, and reformatted one of the previous RAID drives as a basic NTFS partition. I then added those drives to the drive pool, and just copied the server folders to the new drive pool. Once the files were copied, I reformatted remaining RAID drives, and added those to the pool as well. It is actually better than the old drive extender, as it uses standard formatted disks, which you can pull out and read from any computer. You can also add disks with data already on them - the current data files remain in place, outside of the drive pool. If you move those files into the pool, then the drive pool gains that space.

My only regret is that I didn't get DrivePool earlier. One nice thing about it is that it can stripe across 2 drives during reads, for a performance boost. I like knowing that I can buy a single 3TB drive on sale in the future and just replace an existing drive, and "poof" have more redundant storage.