WHS vs NAS

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: loup garou
My WHS is that box with 2GB RAM and 2x 500GB HDs. Works perfectly.
I'd recommend the Atom 330-based dual core version that is available now though.

I've used the MSI Wind barebones to build a WHS server, but I don't own it. Have you tried booting the motherboard to a USB memory stick (for installing or re-installing WHS from USB)?

If that works, it'd feel a lot more comfortable about populating the Wind with two hard drives, which, of course, uses up the space normally used by a DVD drive. Other than its two-disk limitation, I love the Wind as a "home-built" Windows Home Server.

Note that the original MSI Wind barebones is available now at Newegg for $125 after a $10 rebate. Shipping and California sales tax would be extra.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: loup garou
My WHS is that box with 2GB RAM and 2x 500GB HDs. Works perfectly.
I'd recommend the Atom 330-based dual core version that is available now though.

I've used the MSI Wind barebones to build a WHS server, but I don't own it. Have you tried booting the motherboard to a USB memory stick (for installing or re-installing WHS from USB)?

If that works, it'd feel a lot more comfortable about populating the Wind with two hard drives, which, of course, uses up the space normally used by a DVD drive. Other than its two-disk limitation, I love the Wind as a "home-built" Windows Home Server.

Note that the original MSI Wind barebones is available now at Newegg for $125 after a $10 rebate. Shipping and California sales tax would be extra.

Yes, I've booted WHS, Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu installers from USB memory sticks. USB optical drives work fine as well.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: loup garou
Yes, I've booted WHS, Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu installers from USB memory sticks. USB optical drives work fine as well.

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: loup garou
My WHS is that box with 2GB RAM and 2x 500GB HDs. Works perfectly.
I'd recommend the Atom 330-based dual core version that is available now though.

I've used the MSI Wind barebones to build a WHS server, but I don't own it. Have you tried booting the motherboard to a USB memory stick (for installing or re-installing WHS from USB)?

If that works, it'd feel a lot more comfortable about populating the Wind with two hard drives, which, of course, uses up the space normally used by a DVD drive. Other than its two-disk limitation, I love the Wind as a "home-built" Windows Home Server.

Note that the original MSI Wind barebones is available now at Newegg for $125 after a $10 rebate. Shipping and California sales tax would be extra.

Yes, I've booted WHS, Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu installers from USB memory sticks. USB optical drives work fine as well.

I tried creating a bootable USB flash stick but never got it working on my XP Pro desktop system. The process was rather complex and problematical. I didn't really need it at the time, I was just doing it to see if I could do it (got instructions at a user group meeting, and I subsequently downloaded a program that was supposed to allow me to set this up). If I get an MSI barebones, this would be an issue if I have two HDs. Under what circumstances would you want to boot from a USB stick?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Muse
Under what circumstances would you want to boot from a USB stick?

Exactly what you mentioned:

When first building a WHS, if you don't want to go to the trouble of adding a DVD drive. Or if you need to rebuild a WHS server and there aren't any free SATA or IDE drive connectors for temporarily hooking up a DVD drive for the re-installation of WHS.

 

[Twista]

Originally posted by: mike2fix
My NAS has the ability to Host web pages, it also has a built in service to DL torrents. I don't use the streaming, so I am not that familiar with its capabilities.

I have no problem using WHS, I have it and have fooled with it, not very successfully though. My workstation sees it but will not connect to it and I did a little troubleshooting but not much.

The NAS serves my purposes extremely well and was very easy to setup and configure.

Thanks for the good information, I just wanted a different perspective than my own.

Disable opendns if your using it on the main computer. Doing that will allow you to connect to thet connector software/server.

edit: Remove it from your router config also if your using OPenDNS as your DNS servers.

 

[Griffinhart]

I'm not sure of the features of your NAS but with my HP MediaSmart WHS It brings:

-Network Storage
-Easy Redundance with folder duplication
-Practically unlimited storage potential between the Hot Swappable SATA drives, USB ports and eSATA port
-An incredible PC Back up system that great for backing up multiple PCs. It wakes my computers nightly, backs them up, then they go to sleep again
-A secure HTTPS portal into your server for remote access to files, media and desktops
-A huge amount of plug-ins from a very active community
-Media Streaming through the web or to network devices and computers
-Basic Network health monitoring. It monitors what machines have up to date viruses (if you have the plug in), what PC's aren't up to date on patches, how long since their last back up, if local firewalls are disabled.
-I use it to share data with friends over the net. I have several accounts for them.
-Since it's basically win2k3 server, all the flexability that brings.

I'm sure the NAS you mentioned is a fine product. WHS is quite excellent too. I'm extremely pleased with it. I've been running one since last November and it has definately been solid, usefull and about as "set it, and forget it" as something like this could be.

I'm eagerly anticipating the next version. If they include some windows 7 features like "Home Group," and include basic Media Center features like Tuner support and allow Extenders to connect to them It will be my dream product. It would become my network centerpiece and be a central hub for all my media and data. Right now that work is split between WHS and a dedicated MediaCenter PC with a few TV tuners installed.

 

[junfan77]

Can one of you WHS guru's answer a quick question please, I want to make a WHS server, however is it true you have to format any drives you add to the server? Right now I'm have 2 500GB and 1TB drives I would add to the server, all formatted NTFS and currently have data on them, having to add/format one drive at a time will be an arduous task.

 

[ViRGE]

Yes, you would. Any drives added to the storage pool are automatically reformatted by WHS.

 

[junfan77]

Ugh, that's what I had gathering through doing some research, but never knew for sure. Had one last question, is it possible to keep your files organized on the drives, for instance I like to keep my files on their respective drives, ie; drive one has TV shows, drive two has HD movies, etc... I'd also like to keep the operating system on a separate drive, is this all possible?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: junfan77
Right now I'm have 2 500GB and 1TB drives I would add to the server, all formatted NTFS and currently have data on them, having to add/format one drive at a time will be an arduous task.

Adding the drive isn't an ardous task. You click on "add" and in a few moments it's part of the storage pool. But if you have data on the drive, you'll need to copy it elsewhere and then move it back to the WHS server.

Had one last question, is it possible to keep your files organized on the drives, for instance I like to keep my files on their respective drives, ie; drive one has TV shows, drive two has HD movies, etc... I'd also like to keep the operating system on a separate drive, is this all possible?

No, you have very little control over these things. WHS requires a 65 GB minimum hard disk for the Primary disk and it'll create a 20 GB System paritition and the rest will be the first Data partition. WHS will try to use the Secondary disks for storage as much as possible, but will store its "tombstones" (catalog) and will likely store data and backups on the Primary disk, too.

Storing particular types of files on particular drives won't help with WHS, since you can't just move disks around instantly. If you remove a disk, WHS will empty it of data. If you re-add it, WHS will again empty it of data.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
You click on "add" and in a few moments it's part of the storage pool. But if you have data on the drive, you'll need to copy it elsewhere and then move it back to the WHS server.

Just a note of clarification: You do not have to add new drives to the storage pool. When you add a new drive to the system, WHS asks if you want it to be part of the storage pool; if you answer NO, it's just a normal drive that can be shared by anyone with permission.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Athena
You do not have to add new drives to the storage pool. When you add a new drive to the system, WHS asks if you want it to be part of the storage pool; if you answer NO, it's just a normal drive that can be shared by anyone with permission.

True. But if you do that you lose all the data management functions of WHS (for that disk). You'll have to set disk sharing permissions on the Server 2003 manually, won't be able to use shared folder redundancy, and can't use the disk for any other WHS function.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
True. But if you do that you lose all the data management functions of WHS (for that disk). You'll have to set disk sharing permissions on the Server 2003 manually, won't be able to use shared folder redundancy, and can't use the disk for any other WHS function.

You don't loose "all" the advantages, it can be indexed and included in W7 libraries for instance.

Our WHS has 3 disks in the storage pool and 2 additional disks with files that are shared among 4 client machines. The 2 extra disks (400GB and 300GB) are 30% and 80% full and we didn't have enough space to handle backups for 4 machines and copy that much data when we set up the Server. Now that we've added a 1.5TB disk to the storage pool, we're going to transfer the contents of one of the shared disks to the WHS shared folders so that it will mirror those files. In the meantime though, just having the files on a system that never sleeps and is accessible from the outside (the clients are not), has made a big difference for us.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Athena

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
True. But if you do that you lose all the data management functions of WHS (for that disk). You'll have to set disk sharing permissions on the Server 2003 manually, won't be able to use shared folder redundancy, and can't use the disk for any other WHS function.

You don't loose "all" the advantages, it can be indexed and included in W7 libraries for instance.

Our WHS has 3 disks in the storage pool and 2 additional disks with files that are shared among 4 client machines. The 2 extra disks (400GB and 300GB) are 30% and 80% full and we didn't have enough space to handle backups for 4 machines and copy that much data when we set up the Server. Now that we've added a 1.5TB disk to the storage pool, we're going to transfer the contents of one of the shared disks to the WHS shared folders so that it will mirror those files. In the meantime though, just having the files on a system that never sleeps and is accessible from the outside (the clients are not), has made a big difference for us.

RebateMonger is right, if you simply want to add simple disks to your system then server 2003 would work just as fine. You do lose all the WHS improvements to disk management vs 2003 server.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: bsobel
RebateMonger is right, if you simply want to add simple disks to your system then server 2003 would work just as fine. You do lose all the WHS improvements to disk management vs 2003 server.

I think bothof you are missing the point: The whole idea bechind WHS is that is a simple, user-orieinted server system that does everything for the user with minimal technical skills. It does automatic backup and provides access to shared resources. Yo don't forfeit any of the former just by opting to have additional shared volumes that are not part of the storage pool.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Athena

Originally posted by: bsobel
RebateMonger is right, if you simply want to add simple disks to your system then server 2003 would work just as fine. You do lose all the WHS improvements to disk management vs 2003 server.

I think bothof you are missing the point: The whole idea bechind WHS is that is a simple, user-orieinted server system that does everything for the user with minimal technical skills. It does automatic backup and provides access to shared resources. Yo don't forfeit any of the former just by opting to have additional shared volumes that are not part of the storage pool.

Automatic backups require storage pool disks. Simply sharing volumes can be done with any server. Not adding drives to the storage pool is non-optimal. There are situations for it (such as an additional backup or server backup) or staging such as in your case. But WHS realy is designed to handle the drive management itself.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: bsobel
Automatic backups require storage pool disks. Simply sharing volumes can be done with any server. Not adding drives to the storage pool is non-optimal. There are situations for it (such as an additional backup or server backup) or staging such as in your case. But WHS realy is designed to handle the drive management itself.

"Optimal" depends on the overall objectives of the users. The fact that WHS really shines in the way it manages the storage pool, doesn't mean that's the only thing to use it for. Given that you can add an almost unlimited number of disks to the server, it makes a lot of sense for some users to have both kinds on one system.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Athena
Given that you can add an almost unlimited number of disks to the server, it makes a lot of sense for some users to have both kinds on one system.

One thing that WHS apparently provides is unlimited connections to shared disks on the server. There are account limits, but apparently no connection limits. XP Pro is limited to ten simultaneous connections, and XP Home is limited to five connections. But Server 2003 (WHS) has no built-in limit. This could be useful in a small office that wants a "server" beyond XP, but doesn't want to buy full Server 2003/2008.

Note: I haven't tested this.

 

[Muse]

I guess I'm confused. I thought WHS is an operating system (MS), but that NAS means Network Access Server, a hardware+OS system that provides networked resources to satellite computers (e.g. in my case, a couple of desktops connected by ethernet to my wireless router and a wirelessly connected laptop). I'm planning to build an NAS. Am I misunderstanding something?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Muse
I guess I'm confused. I thought WHS is an operating system (MS), but that NAS means Network Access Server, a hardware+OS system that provides networked resources to satellite computers (e.g. in my case, a couple of desktops connected by ethernet to my wireless router and a wirelessly connected laptop). I'm planning to build an NAS. Am I misunderstanding something?

NAS means 'network attached storage'. In reality a NAS box (as you pointed out) runs an OS (often Linux) that provides the capability to be on the network and 'share' the drive (usually over FTP and SMB).

WHS is also an operating system but it tends to run on larger more pc like hardware and does provide additional funtionality over most simple nas implementations.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Muse
I guess I'm confused. I thought WHS is an operating system (MS), but that NAS means Network Access Server, a hardware+OS system that provides networked resources to satellite computers (e.g. in my case, a couple of desktops connected by ethernet to my wireless router and a wirelessly connected laptop). I'm planning to build an NAS. Am I misunderstanding something?

NAS means 'network attached storage'. In reality a NAS box (as you pointed out) runs an OS (often Linux) that provides the capability to be on the network and 'share' the drive (usually over FTP and SMB).

WHS is also an operating system but it tends to run on larger more pc like hardware and does provide additional funtionality over most simple nas implementations.

OK, thanks, I think I have a better picture. So, in terms of the topic title I guess it means "what advantages are there to running a box with WHS installed as a network server over just having something like an NAS enclosure with HD."

 

[bsobel]

This article talks about the differences http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2189704,00.asp

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bsobel
This article talks about the differences http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2189704,00.asp

Thanks.

I'm quite curious about this sentence in that article (I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as well):

WHS will also allow users to take full remote control of their attached PCs, provided that this feature is enabled on the server?no third-party NAS box does that.

The way I've seen this described before, they said it can provice access across the internet. My question: If I have an NAS server machine running WHS and so configured (i.e. this feature enabled), would I have remote control so that I could run an application on one of my PCs over the internet using, say, a Mac? Just as though I were using the PC? My concern here is not speed, particularly, I'd just like to be able to run an application remotely on the internet and have the access to its data on screen.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: bsobel
This article talks about the differences http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2189704,00.asp

Thanks.

I'm quite curious about this sentence in that article (I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as well):

WHS will also allow users to take full remote control of their attached PCs, provided that this feature is enabled on the server?no third-party NAS box does that.

The way I've seen this described before, they said it can provice access across the internet. My question: If I have an NAS server machine running WHS and so configured (i.e. this feature enabled), would I have remote control so that I could run an application on one of my PCs over the internet using, say, a Mac? Just as though I were using the PC? My concern here is not speed, particularly, I'd just like to be able to run an application remotely on the internet and have the access to its data on screen.

Yes, so long as the computer you're intending to have execute the program can work as a RDP server, which means XP Pro or Vista Business and greater.