WHS vs Linux for a home server

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
N

NTB

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2001
5,179
0
0
My parents just bought a new house, complete with full CAT5 wiring :D Once they move in, I'm going to help them get their internet connection up and going, and I'd like to build a server to put in the 'closet' along with the router & switch. If it weren't for the $180 price tag, I'd grab WHS in a heartbeat, but right now I'm wondering if it's worth the price:

[*]there will be only a single Windows XP box permanently connected to the network

[*]other computers will come & go (my laptop, my brother's, etc.)

[*]primary use will be as an NAS box

[*]needs to be accessible from outside the house:
[*]terminal-style access for management - my mom and dad won't mess with it, and I live some 5 hours away.
[*]http/ftp access - I'd like to be able to run a small website or FTP site from it, as well

[*]Don't need to worry about setting up a print server

So, which one should I choose, and why choose one over the other?

EDIT: I should add that I use Unix at work, so running a Linux box would be a learning experience, but I wouldn't be a complete fish-out-of-water.

Nathan
 
ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
If you're not doing any backups, don't bother with WHS. The real power of WHS is the backup abilities augmenting everything else it does.
 
skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,647
5,761
146
If you're not doing any backups, don't bother with WHS. The real power of WHS is the backup abilities augmenting everything else it does.
Click to expand...
You can push backups at the linux server as well, using various backup solutions.

So, which one should I choose, and why choose one over the other?
Click to expand...
Linux
free applications for web, file serving, FTP, SSH for secure transfers and management, installed without a gui it uses very few resources.
a P2 300, 128 mb of ram, with a controller card for the drives will suffice for most home uses.
 
S

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
Originally posted by: Nothinman
http://blogs.technet.com/homes...edge-base-article.aspx

Since that's popped up I'd be pretty leery about using WHS.
Click to expand...

Just FYI...I do not see any indication that Microsoft has been able to reproduce this problem. I think it's a "better safe than sorry" article.

I picked up an HP WHS for Christmas. Pretty nifty thing. For the OP:

1.The permanent XP box and the other computers that come and go will get a nice backup if you just leave them on the net overnight.

2. Works fine as a NAS.

3. Outside the house access is nice. You get a domain at homeserver.com and an SSL cert. It does remote admin and also acts as a terminal server gateway to your other boxes. The web site it comes with is really geared towards your friends and family. It has web shares up (public, pictures, music, per-user, etc..) and also has a photo share website with some integrated thingy so your family can order prints.

Really if you are experienced with *nix you could go that route too. You might be interested in WHS for the same reason I am though: It's one less mouth to feed. Setup consists of plugging in a patch cable and a power cord and hitting the on button. There's like a 5 minute install of software on a client and a 10 min setup wizard to complete then you're done. Whole family is happy and I can leave the building of the photoshare site to my wife while I do other things.

I get pretty tired of fvcking with computers all day every day and it's nice to have something that works so easy that my wife and family can deal with it without my help.
 
nerp

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,865
105
106
Originally posted by: Smilin
I get pretty tired of fvcking with computers all day every day and it's nice to have something that works so easy that my wife and family can deal with it without my help.
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe I'm becoming an old timer, but the process is no longer as appealing as the end result for me.
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
Just FYI...I do not see any indication that Microsoft has been able to reproduce this problem. I think it's a "better safe than sorry" article.
Click to expand...

True, it does just say "Several users have reported..." so far but I'd still be cautious.
 
B

Brazen

Diamond Member
Jul 14, 2000
4,259
0
0
I use a linux server at home. I installed Ubuntu LTS Server on the bare-metal and then put Vmware Server on it. I don't touch the base Ubuntu/VMWare setup other than doing updates every once in a while. I do everything in virtual machines. This is nice because I always have access to the virtual machine and don't have to worry about borking something that would require me to get physical access to the machine (it's headless and buried). I just bork a virtual machine instead and can easily reload it remotely or connect to a virtual "physical" console.

So anyway, I've used Samba to set up a file server which gets heavy usage. A few nice things about this is, the slimmed Ubuntu LTS Server install is light on the resources - I've only assigned 64mb RAM to the virtual machine and it doesn't even use that. From some of the performance checking I've done, I could slim it down to about 12mb RAM and still not hit swap. The other nice thing is Linux's software RAID. My file share is on mirrored drives, so I get a little extra piece of mind. I COULD also use LVM to take snapshots of the file share also and make use of the Previous Versions Client, but I'm sure WHS can also do that and I choose save the harddrive space anyway.

I've also set up a few other virtual machines: one is a MySQL database server, one is a web server running torrentflux (nice having this is a separate vm, because I often have to reboot thanks to bittornado), and then one is a server for playing with RubyOnRails web apps, and one is for playing around learning BIND-DNS. So the nice thing about linux is the incredible flexibility you have without costing an arm and a leg, and the fact all these linux vms can run on one piece of hardware thanks to linux's slim resource usage.
 
WT

WT

Diamond Member
Sep 21, 2000
4,816
59
91
I was planning on building a WHS box and even picked up two HDs last week for it, but I then read the problems just two days ago with the backups being corrupted, and I do hope that a fix is in place when I get around to assembling it. With MS bashing being the popular thing, it doesn't bode well for WHS, even tho I think it was a great idea and found the beta ran very well once I had it set up on a test rig.
 
B

Brazen

Diamond Member
Jul 14, 2000
4,259
0
0
Originally posted by: WT
Click to expand...

Off Topic

I think you should change your sig to this:

For long you live and high you fly.. And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry.. And all you touch and all you see.. All your base are belong to me.
 
S

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
Originally posted by: WT
I was planning on building a WHS box and even picked up two HDs last week for it, but I then read the problems just two days ago with the backups being corrupted, and I do hope that a fix is in place when I get around to assembling it. With MS bashing being the popular thing, it doesn't bode well for WHS, even tho I think it was a great idea and found the beta ran very well once I had it set up on a test rig.
Click to expand...

Backups being corrupted?!?! Where did you read this?
 
S

stash

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2000
5,468
0
0
The backups are not being corrupted. The potential corruption is because of the way the migrator moves files around multiple disks. Backups are not duplicated at all, so they are not subject to this problem.
 
S

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
Originally posted by: Brazen
Originally posted by: Smilin

Backups being corrupted?!?! Where did you read this?
Click to expand...

this is where I heard it: http://hardware.slashdot.org/a...l?sid=07/12/27/1457240
Click to expand...

It doesn't say anything about backups being corrupted. Don't freak me out man! I'm using this thing for backups (one of several redundant methods..but still)

The article it links to just mentions the same things that KB 946676 already stated...user reported problems when editing directly off of file shares (not backups) from within certain applications. MS is still trying to get a repro to troubleshoot.
 
N

NTB

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2001
5,179
0
0
Originally posted by: Brazen
I use a linux server at home. I installed Ubuntu LTS Server on the bare-metal and then put Vmware Server on it. I don't touch the base Ubuntu/VMWare setup other than doing updates every once in a while. I do everything in virtual machines. This is nice because I always have access to the virtual machine and don't have to worry about borking something that would require me to get physical access to the machine (it's headless and buried). I just bork a virtual machine instead and can easily reload it remotely or connect to a virtual "physical" console.

So anyway, I've used Samba to set up a file server which gets heavy usage. A few nice things about this is, the slimmed Ubuntu LTS Server install is light on the resources - I've only assigned 64mb RAM to the virtual machine and it doesn't even use that. From some of the performance checking I've done, I could slim it down to about 12mb RAM and still not hit swap. The other nice thing is Linux's software RAID. My file share is on mirrored drives, so I get a little extra piece of mind. I COULD also use LVM to take snapshots of the file share also and make use of the Previous Versions Client, but I'm sure WHS can also do that and I choose save the harddrive space anyway.

I've also set up a few other virtual machines: one is a MySQL database server, one is a web server running torrentflux (nice having this is a separate vm, because I often have to reboot thanks to bittornado), and then one is a server for playing with RubyOnRails web apps, and one is for playing around learning BIND-DNS. So the nice thing about linux is the incredible flexibility you have without costing an arm and a leg, and the fact all these linux vms can run on one piece of hardware thanks to linux's slim resource usage.
Click to expand...

I like this idea :thumbsup: :D

I am a programmer by trade, and though I've been at it a year or so already, I'm still learning all sorts of stuff, so I frequently find myself doing research and writing little things to see what works and what doesn't, how something works, etc. Being able to do so on different OSs, and not having to worry about hosing something, would be great.

Nathan
 
ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: skyking
If you're not doing any backups, don't bother with WHS. The real power of WHS is the backup abilities augmenting everything else it does.
Click to expand...
You can push backups at the linux server as well, using various backup solutions.
Click to expand...
You won't find any consumer-level commercial software that is half as good. It uses the Volume Shadow Service to run backups, which means it gets to take advantage of single instance storage and other higher-end features. The end result is that it conserves a lot of space and makes for quick backups; it only has a single copy of any backed up file, so it basically only backs up the OS of one of your clients once, all of the other clients reference the same backup for their OS rather than needing space for their OS backup and the time needed to transfer that additional data. This is stuff you generally need enterprise level backup software to get.

And hell, it gets even better once you realize that you can use the backup/restore feature as a way to do imaging.;)
 
F

FireTech

Senior member
Mar 17, 2006
258
0
0
I really like WHS.
It does everything I need of it and it does what it says on the box.
Like others here, I have tinkered with Linux/FreeNAS etc but this is so simple to use it's laughable.
I've even tested it's restore facility and that works wonderfully.

The data corruption is a worry but that's mostly because of the panic spread by the vagueness of the kb article etc as to whom it affects and how it occurs.
All I'd like is more detailed information from MS (such as has been given by ed bott) and a rapid fix for the issue. :)
 
nerp

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,865
105
106
Yeah when you look at the nuts and bolts of WHS it begins to look more and more impressive. It's a complete solution. Although you can get it done similarly with linux, is a heck of a lot less elegant and requires a lot of different components working together.

* edit -- if you want or enjoy a more handmade approach, linux is the way to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom