Why no WHS setups yet?

[imaheadcase]

November was suppose to be the month for all the companies to release WHS systems, sadly most are not out yet or the ones that are suppose to come out next month are delayed Till February.

Anyone else surprised Dell/newegg/etc have not offered WHS barebone systems?

Does anyone know a good company that sells something similar, like case/ps/cpu/ram barebone. Just add your own hardrive and WHS software?
What about that barebone for gOS they sell on clubIT, would that work for whs?

Everyplace I look for barebones sells hardware that is way to much for a whs setup, or included stuff not needed (ex: found perfect one, but included monitor that made shipping more than desired). I was going to build it myself, but would rather just get something I get put in some sata drives i already have lying around and order a copy of WHS myself.


Just seems like no perfect/cheap setup yet sadly 2 months after WHS was released.

 

[yinan]

Server 2003 > WHS. I use my copies I get with my Technet subscription

 

[Nole7]

What's WHS - Windows Home Server?

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah, WHS - Windows Home Server.

I do not know why there is No Mass release of WHS Rigs. I do not think that it is anything technical, probably has to do with lic. agreements with Microsoft and marketing considerations.

However, given the nature of WHS it is a computer/server that really pays off for Enthusiast to do it himseff.

As a frame of reference.

I run few WHS?, I do not care about the look of the server case since it is stores out of sight to begin with.

One is installed on an Old P- III 1GHz with 1GB RAM.

One is installed on a Celeron 2 GHz with 1GB RAM

One is installed on a P-4 2.4GHz with 1GB RAM,

All are equipped with 1 Giga Byte Network Car (NIC)*, either using on board Video, or leftovers from the old days of nVidia 32MB MX class cards.

Why these computer?

Coz they were all sitting around, or given to me by people who were glad to get rid of an old box.

I boosted the memory on each to 1GB, added Hard Drives, and 1 Giga NIC.

The different in CPU power doe not really matter much for server performance, at most large backups might take few minutes more (in the middle of the night) when done on the slowest Computer.

One of the advantages of WHS is that you can Mix Internal, External, PATA, SATA, USB, whatever as long as it recognized as a Drive, WHS automatically would consolidated it as one Big Drive call \\WHS

WHS initial installation must be install on a Drive that is at least 80GB.

The installation automatically partitions the first drive to 20GB for the OS and the rest joins all the other drive to be managed as one cohesive drive.

The OS itself can be found here, http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116395

*Note about Giga NIC.
Giga traffic can b achieved only between computer that have Giga NIC and using Giga rated switch.

More about Giga here.
Home Giga Network: http://www.ezlan.net/giga.html

Giga networking - http://www.ezlan.net/giga_net.html

 

[RebateMonger]

I've been recommending Windows Home Servers to my home-based clients who call me to fix their spyware-infested home computers or have had hard drive failures. I tell them to buy a retail WHS box, plug it into their network, and tell it to make ongoing backups all the PCs on their network. When something breaks or a PC gets infected, they should be able to recover their PC to the pre-failure state.

As much as I dislike HP, their WHS box with a single 500GB drive (and three empty drive slots) is about $500. It makes a lot of sense for non-computer-literate households.

 

[OdiN]

Yeah just buy the OS and build your own.

 

[imaheadcase]

yah build your own is what i WANT to do, but like I mentioned..
I'm actually shaking my head, amazing, not a single response to my questions just the same old standard "look how awesome I am and you suck" in so many words responses.

 

[JackMDS]

Hmm....

Quote: I do not know why there is No Mass release of WHS Rigs. I do not think that it is anything technical, probably has to do with lic. agreements with Microsoft and marketing considerations.

 

[RebateMonger]

Nobody but HP appears to have a case that's ideal for WHS. Ideally, it's small, but with lots of easily accessible hard drive bays, and enough cooling to handle those drives.

The OEM case makers got burned by BTX, so they probably aren't in a hurry to develop tooling for yet another form factor. HP obviously committed to this desgn a LONG time ago, just like it did with Windows Media Center.

 

[JackMDS]

Actually.

Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo Home Server

HP Mediasmart Server EX470/EX475

Hush HS1 Home Server

Iomega HomeCenter

Life|ware Life|storage Sytem

Medion MD 90110 Home Server

Norco DS-520 Home Server

Tranquil PC T2-WHS-A2 Harmony Home Server

Tranquil PC T2-WHS-A3 Harmony Home Server

Tranquil PC T7-HSA Harmony Home Server

Velocity Micro NetMagix Home Server

Some of the above take orders and would deliver in few weeks.

Some are availble only in Europe.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Some of the above take orders and would deliver in few weeks.

Some are availble only in Europe.

Good list. The only one I've actually seen for sale (and in stock) anywhere in the U.S. is the HP. Now it looks like the HP is backordered.

Engadget claimed (a few days ago) that the Hush HS1 was available, but it's fanless and only has space for two internal hard drives. Ouch. It and the Tranquil look like European models.

Iomega. Yuck. :thumbsdown:

 

[ViRGE]

I'm wondering if the cost isn't part of the issue. I know OEMs pay less than end users, but dear god the quasi-retail OEM version is expensive; $170 when I can get an OEM version of any other version of Windows for much less. It's certainly scaring off some of the enthusiasts.

 

[RebateMonger]

Well, with no need for keyboard, mouse, monitor, sound card, etc., it should be pretty easy to build a cheap device. A typical family or home business should quicky get good value, since it does away with backup software, disk cloning software, and the pain of data loss and the extraordinary time it takes to rebuild PCs back to their current state.

The OEM price of WHS is the same as XP Pro/Vista Business. It remains to be seen if large vendors (HP, Dell, etc.) will get the kinds of deals they get with XP Home from Microsoft.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Well, with no need for keyboard, mouse, monitor, sound card, etc., it should be pretty easy to build a cheap device. A typical family or home business should quicky get good value, since it does away with backup software, disk cloning software, and the pain of data loss and the extraordinary time it takes to rebuild PCs back to their current state.

The OEM price of WHS is the same as XP Pro/Vista Business. It remains to be seen if large vendors (HP, Dell, etc.) will get the kinds of deals they get with XP Home from Microsoft.

I can get XP Pro OEM for $120, the cheapest I can find WHS for is $170. You're right that in total costs it's cheaper due to the lack of hardware needed, but I'm looking at things from a spare-parts enthusiast perspective. That's pretty pricey, it's approaching the cost of retail versions of Windows.

 

[JackMDS]

WHS is a subset of Windows 2003.

I.e. It is a server OS, so the price is along the server line.

No direct comparison, but Managed switches cost 10 times more than simple switches.

Taking into a consideration that a PSU that can be designed correctly by any decent single engineer and cost $10 to build are sold to enthusiasts for close to $100.

The price of OS' is Not bad at all if you consider that it is thousands times more complicated to design OS' and it takes hundreds of Millions $$$, and team of hundred to develop.

For good or bad, the enthusiast needs are Not the major factor in Market consideration.

 

[Madwand1]

I wouldn't describe WHS as a simple subset. To me it's more like a subset with a wacky storage management layer on top, which is fine if that's what you want, but can be a little nutty if you try use it together with the underlying 2003 layer to do something the WHS team didn't care about.

Edit: To get back on topic. Op, what exactly are you looking for? I don't understand why you think the various barebones aren't good enough for your needs. You can get them at various performance levels, e.g. the Asus VIA boxes at the low end, but part of the justification for WHS is that they use standard well-performing desktop class hardware instead of the low-end low performance hardware that are typically included in competing NAS boxes, and the differences can sometimes (*) be seen in performance results.

(*) OTOH, sometimes WHS performs worse than other OSs including XP, IME.