WHS v2 - Vail Released to Public View.

[ViRGE]

AT put up an article last night discussing the drive extender changes. They pointed out the ZFS thing too, which isn't something that immediately occurred to me. Particularly with their explanation, drive extender really does sound like a pared-down ZFS. This could turn out to be very interesting given how much everyone gushes over ZFS (and then are afraid to call it production stable on non-Solaris OSes ).

Anyhow, for a beta Vail seems to be missing more features than I would have expected. Besides the client backup scheduling, there's also the missing pie chart, and even simple things like the ability to see the size of folders when configuring a backup are missing. The new Lanchpad is also proving to be annoying - it won't give you server alerts unless you're logged in, but logging in is a manual process even if it's set to remember your login credentials. I was expecting something closer to the existing client connector, where merely having the connector installed (and set to receive alerts) would be enough.

In any case, MS's desire to further simplify WHS has me worried. Without knowing what's not in the beta because it's not done and what's not in the beta because they're removing it for simplicity's sake, I'm concerned that some useful features may not be in Vail.

Also, the Dashboard is as ugly as sin. It suffers from the same design issue every other Vista/Win7 UI element suffers from when Aero is not available and/or Basic is in use - transparent things are replaced with ugly pastel things. It doesn't work for Win7 and it doesn't work here. The Dashboard either needs to have the appropriate Aero touchups, or it needs to be reskinned to use a style that is intended to work without transparency.

 

[BD2003]

What I dont understand is what is so damn hard about adding the media center functionality? Its based on Server 2008 R2, which is based on Windows 7, so windows media center *should* run on it. Once you've got media center running, it should be a piece of cake to connect an extender or 360.

If you log in to vail, can you run media center, or is it not installed?

 

[yinan]

One thing I have noticed is that it is still kinda difficult to get the connector. I had to map a network drive and install it manually that way.

 

[RebateMonger]

One thing I have noticed is that it is still kinda difficult to get the connector. I had to map a network drive and install it manually that way.

It's just a web site: http://<servername>/connector. SBS 2003 uses something like that (http://<servername>/connectcomputer.

 

[nerp]

What I dont understand is what is so damn hard about adding the media center functionality? Its based on Server 2008 R2, which is based on Windows 7, so windows media center *should* run on it. Once you've got media center running, it should be a piece of cake to connect an extender or 360.

If you log in to vail, can you run media center, or is it not installed?

I think MS doesn't want to blur the lines between a media center machine and a server. I think we'll see stronger connectivity between WHS and a media center box but it is unlikely they'll make it easy to use WHS as your TV farm anytime soon. I can see the rationale.

Personally, I'm OK with it. I already have an media center machine to handle all my watching, recording and streaming around the house. The server is simple a vault where all my recordings and media is stored.

 

[RebateMonger]

I think MS doesn't want to blur the lines between a media center machine and a server. I think we'll see stronger connectivity between WHS and a media center box but it is unlikely they'll make it easy to use WHS as your TV farm anytime soon. I can see the rationale.

I've always tended to be opposed to putting Media Center in WHS. I'm afraid it'd raise the price of WHS hardware considerably, since the servers would need a more powerful CPU, more memory, slots for tuners, and a video display. I could see a WHS box going from $200-$450 up to the $700-$800 range.

Plus, you'd probably have people working directly on WHS, which is always risky in terms of malware or user error or poor-quality software running on them. Two reasons that "servers" are so reliable are:
1) Nobody works directly on them
2) They don't have a lot of "junk" utilities running on them.

 

[nerp]

I've always tended to be opposed to putting Media Center in WHS. I'm afraid it'd raise the price of WHS hardware considerably, since the servers would need a more powerful CPU, more memory, slots for tuners, and a video display. I could see a WHS box going from $200-$450 up to the $700-$800 range.

Plus, you'd probably have people working directly on WHS, which is always risky in terms of malware or user error or poor-quality software running on them. Two reasons that "servers" are so reliable are:
1) Nobody works directly on them
2) They don't have a lot of "junk" utilities running on them.

All excellent points. I see MCE as an enduser application, which means that it would be something you run on the desktop. You don't want to be running desktop applications on a server. Although WHS points towards a more enduser based OS as compared to a raw server 2008 or 2003 machine, it doesn't mean the floodgates should be opened and the WHS box because an all-in-one machine that handles tasks that normally would be taken care of on client machines.

It's a fine line, though. WHS is for homes and is marketed as a consumer appliance. They need to include features geared towards solutions in the home. That means there will be situations where a user will expect certian things from the server that traditionally aren't suitable for a real server.

Personally, I don't like the idea of mixing up my important backups and user data with something that is running apps that is pulling content and code off the internet to run.

 

[VirtualLarry]

WHS = Windows Home Server.

It is Not WES = Windows Enterprise Server, hence the 10 HD configuration.

Jack, it's retarded that you are defending this decision of MS. WHS v1 was limited to 32 HDs. People with "big" WHS rigs aren't going to upgrade to Vail if MS continues with this. In fact, my WHS v1 design was going to be using more than 10 HDs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Description

Depending on the exact Western Digital hard disk drive model and firmware, Windows Server “Vail” setup may fail because of compatibility issues with the sector sizes that are reported by the hard disk drive.

Solution

It is recommended that Western Digital hard disk drives with Advanced Format not be used as the primary hard disk drive on the server."[/i]

WTF? I thought that Windows 7 was completely compatible with "advanced format" (4KB sector) HDs, being that the disk subsystem was re-written for variable sized sectors.

And I thought that Server 2008R2 was based off of the Windows 7 codebase.

So how could MS screw this up, this badly? It's as bad as WHS v1, which is based on Server 2003, which supports GPT data partitions, using only Basic partitions for the data drives, limiting their capacity to 2TB.

 

[RebateMonger]

Personally, I don't like the idea of mixing up my important backups and user data with something that is running apps that is pulling content and code off the internet to run.

And that's basically my concern. Right now, the only User account that can get into the WHS backup files is the Administrator account, which has, by default, a strong password and is (hopefully) not handed out to the kiddies.

Once the Administrator account starts installing all kinds of cute media center utilities, file converters, bittorrent software, etc., you've handed over control of the server to all of those applications, not all of which are built with the quality control expected of a server application. Or worse, that come with trojans built in by a malicious web site.

Paranoid? Maybe a bit. But I like to know that even if my whole network gets contaminated by malware, the odds are my Windows Home Server backup database hasn't been hit.

 

[RebateMonger]

So how could MS screw this up, this badly? It's as bad as WHS v1, which is based on Server 2003, which supports GPT data partitions, using only Basic partitions for the data drives, limiting their capacity to 2TB.

I'm not sure what's going on here. Other WHS2 notes say that 4KB Sector disks are fine for data disks. As are disks larger than 2 TB. It appears it's just the System disk that's being warned about. But I don't know why.

 

[BD2003]

I completely disagree...I wouldn't find whs half as useful as I do without running user apps on it. It's the only pc I leave on all the time, so I run stuff such as video/audio encoders on it, iTunes to sync and charge my iPod and ipad, torrent apps, and a few other applications. I have a separate drive in it not connected to the storage pool to handle some of these duties.

I do like the change where you can have the system drive not be part of the storage pool...that would simplify things a bit.

Whether or not it's "safe" is up to the user, and I trust myself not to download malware on it. My server is also powerful enough and then some to run all these apps simultaneously.

I have a separate media center pc, but that's a whole other pc that needs to be constantly on all the time, I'd much rather run a thin client rather than a whole other pc.

 

[RebateMonger]

Whether or not it's "safe" is up to the user, and I trust myself not to download malware on it. My server is also powerful enough and then some to run all these apps simultaneously.

MS is certainly leaving that option open, but with mostly third-party applications and custom-built servers. My biggest fear of integrating Media Center into WHS is an "arms race" where all the WHS makers feel they have to offer all of the Media Center features to compete.That'd leave behind many families and small offices that just need backups of their PCs and a safe place to store photos and documents.

 

[JackMDS]

I've always tended to be opposed to putting Media Center in WHS. I'm afraid it'd raise the price of WHS hardware considerably, since the servers would need a more powerful CPU, more memory, slots for tuners, and a video display. I could see a WHS box going from $200-$450 up to the $700-$800 range.

Plus, you'd probably have people working directly on WHS, which is always risky in terms of malware or user error or poor-quality software running on them. Two reasons that "servers" are so reliable are:
1) Nobody works directly on them
2) They don't have a lot of "junk" utilities running on them.

+1

It is like adding a Bulldozer's Shovel to my Lamborghini. :\

 

[nerp]

I have a separate media center pc, but that's a whole other pc that needs to be constantly on all the time, I'd much rather run a thin client rather than a whole other pc.

Ahh, you just have an excuse to get an atom box for your WHS machine like I did. ;D

 

[notposting]

I definitely don't want MC per se integrated into WHS but a way to use it as a dedicated server farm plus one guide for the whole house would be nice. More of a backend setup (mythtv like?). And I need to look into this plugin talk...I do appreciate my rock-solid WHS bwing the one "clean" and stable machine in the house.

 

[BD2003]

Ahh, you just have an excuse to get an atom box for your WHS machine like I did. ;D

Eh, the last thing I'd ever want in any system is an atom. A low end pentium is hardly more expensive, run several times faster, and the power savings of the atom add up to a few dollars a year at best.

It's great for netbooks that need good battery life but I don't think it belongs anywhere else, even in a low power server or htpc.

 

[Dahak]

Ok... I must be blind, but I cant find the download links for the beta? I get stuck in a loop on the connect windows home server site, tried to click to join but does not join unless i'm missing something

 

[RebateMonger]

Ok... I must be blind, but I cant find the download links for the beta? I get stuck in a loop on the connect windows home server site, tried to click to join but does not join unless i'm missing something

The download links are still there: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/Downloads

Do you already have a Connect account and Dashboard? Or not?

 

[Dahak]

Do you already have a Connect account and Dashboard? Or not?

yep, have a connect account, and had added it to my dashboard but did not see the link to download it


hmm... weird, when I use my main windows live id it does not give me the link to apply for participation on the join page.

but when I used my alternate windows live id, it did give me the apply for participation link and I had to finish filling out my live id profile.

Wonder if it is because on my main one its set to canada?

 

[RebateMonger]

Don't know what to tell you. Here's Connect's support form:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Main/help/emailsupport.aspx?Category=3

 

[ViRGE]

I'm not sure what's going on here. Other WHS2 notes say that 4KB Sector disks are fine for data disks. As are disks larger than 2 TB. It appears it's just the System disk that's being warned about. But I don't know why.

It's all rather weird. From what some of their engineers are writing, right now they're taking advantage of the fact that 4KB sector disks are emulating 512B sector disks, which allows them to get away with their ECC'ing of 512B sectors. I haven't seen anything from them yet where they indicate they have a solid plan for dealing with native 4K sectors.

I'm hoping (praying?) that they weren't so dumb that they're doing 512B-aligned writes on their new drive extender. The 1GB chunks should be 4K-aligned, but we still don't know anything about how they internally operate.

 

[pjkenned]

It is like adding a Bulldozer's Shovel to my Lamborghini.

On the whole MC thing... I must have missed why this is such a bad thing. You map a WHS share as a directory on a MC box and just record over the network. I know there is something I am missing here...

Since I'm running a Core i7 w/ 12GB of ram (and about 52TiB raw storage) atm for my WHS v1, I do any transcoding of recorded witness preparation in a VM. WHS V2 works GREAT in Hyper-V, WHS v1 works perfectly fine in Hyper-V. If you really want to run other apps on WHS (either version), the main thing is that you run the program as a non-admin user.

 

[BD2003]

What you are missing:

Computers cost more money and are far more complicated than thin clients/extenders. People have more than one tv. People don't want to have to buy a computer for each tv, nor do they want to leave a bunch of computers on 24/7. By having all the recording done in one central location, it is easy to branch out from there. If you're just going to store the files on the server anyway, it's obviously the best place to do the recording in the first place, rather than setting up some convoluted system with network drives.

There are certainly arguments against it, but the reason why people want it should be plainly obvious.

 

[BD2003]

I still hope there's some new features that they havent announced yet, and the first beta just isnt showing them.

Is anyone else baffled by the direction theyre going with the web sharing? Has anyone ever actually utilized this feature?

If I have a laptop with the connector installed, why should I have to access anything on my server through a web browser? They could have done some sort of VPN or such that would enable transparent access over the net even if the computers werent on the same network. Its such a wacky scheme with the server website they have, and theyre extending further in that direction...thats what I dont get.