Windows Home Server Remote Web Access

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: dclive
Cool.

If you'd ever like a huge kick in speed and overall responsiveness, give it a shot.

Well, that would be one of the points of using WHS after all. Think I've figured out the install problem...hopefully.

 

[BD2003]

So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

 

[loup garou]

a

Originally posted by: BD2003
So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

If you have RDP client 6, enter /console after the ip to connect to the console session.

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: loup garou
a

Originally posted by: BD2003
So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

If you have RDP client 6, enter /console after the ip to connect to the console session.

/console works with the older RDP clients as well.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: stash

Originally posted by: loup garou
a

Originally posted by: BD2003
So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

If you have RDP client 6, enter /console after the ip to connect to the console session.

/console works with the older RDP clients as well.

I thought it only worked as a command-line argument prior to 6?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: loup garou
a

Originally posted by: BD2003
So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

If you have RDP client 6, enter /console after the ip to connect to the console session.

That was a bit better, but still wasnt properly compatible with mediaportal, so I'm still using VNC.

But now that everything is set up, I have to say its an amazing piece of software. It just works, and it works very well.

I'm also having zero problems running it as a hybrid HTPC. Good stuff!

 

[dclive]

What happens with RDP and Mediaportal that is a problem?

What do you think about Mediaportal? How does it compare to MCE2005?

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: stash

Originally posted by: loup garou
a

Originally posted by: BD2003
So far so good. The setup of the server is VERY straightforward.

Remote desktop connection is bizarre though...I was expecting a desktop mirror like VNC, but instead it's as if I'm logged on as another user.

If you have RDP client 6, enter /console after the ip to connect to the console session.

/console works with the older RDP clients as well.

I thought it only worked as a command-line argument prior to 6?

Nope.

 

[JesseKnows]

What AV/Firewall would one use for the WHS?

Especially if you run your torrents/news-reader on it, you'd want protection...

 

[dclive]

Any normal AV that works in Server 2003 will work in this. Symantec Corporate 10.1.5 is a great choice - Amazon's got it for next to nothing.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: dclive
What happens with RDP and Mediaportal that is a problem?

Several things. Firstly, mediaportal is a fullscreen dx9 app, and even with the console command, remote access can't get through it. On the PC, its actually taking up the full screen, but I just get a desktop underneath it that I cant click anything, and it just makes the entire mess unstable. On top of that, logging onto the server via remote access locks the workstation on the actual TV, and I have to break out the keyboard to C-A-D and type password instead of just turning on the TV.

When I connect via VNC, it just shows the fullscreen mediaportal, I minimize it, get to work, and then maximize it when I'm all done.

I can see the use for RDP, but in some ways its a hack, and I need to see *exactly* what is onscreen, not necessarily just use the resources of the remote PC.

What do you think about Mediaportal? How does it compare to MCE2005?

Its a very good app. It can be used to DVR and do everything MCE does, but I use it mainly to watch movies and the like. I havent actually tried MCE, because I'd have to buy a whole new OS just to do that, and thats pretty much ridiculous IMO.


Another problem I've had - the server storage does not play well with downloading torrents. It forces the server to "balance" 24/7 - its like it never stops flogging the disk, ever. And on top of that, the downloads are corrupt. It just does not like to save it directly to the server shares.

In order to get it to work, I had to pop in a third smaller drive (had an 80gb lying around), and not add it to the storage pool, but leave it as a standard drive. Then download all the files to it, and have utorrent move them automatically afterwards.

 

[Homerboy]

Ok.... I'm finally getting around to upgrading to RC1 now.
Can somebody please explain to me (again) why it is advantageous to have your largest HDD as your HDD0?
I still don't get that part.

 

[stash]

IIRC, it's because if you are mirroring data, the bits are first stored on the D partition on the first drive before they are copied to the final location. So if you attempt to mirror a file that is larger than the available space on D it will fail (I think).

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: stash
IIRC, it's because if you are mirroring data, the bits are first stored on the D partition on the first drive before they are copied to the final location. So if you attempt to mirror a file that is larger than the available space on D it will fail (I think).

ah so they are FIRST store on the D partition portion of HDD0 THEN copied to a more "suitable" final storage place in the rest of the pool later? Makes sense. This is obviously for the nightly backups too I assume. So if my client/workstation was 30GB to back up and I only had 10GB on that D" portion of HDD0 then I'd be screwed.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: stash
IIRC, it's because if you are mirroring data, the bits are first stored on the D partition on the first drive before they are copied to the final location. So if you attempt to mirror a file that is larger than the available space on D it will fail (I think).

I thought it was more since D help the catalog, and each catalog entry takes space, and the boot drive is the hardest to expand (image, restore todo so) that it made the most since to put the biggest storage there up front. Otherwise you could have plenty of storage space but not enough 'index' space on D....

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: bsobel
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: stash
IIRC, it's because if you are mirroring data, the bits are first stored on the D partition on the first drive before they are copied to the final location. So if you attempt to mirror a file that is larger than the available space on D it will fail (I think).</end quote></div>

I thought it was more since D help the catalog, and each catalog entry takes space, and the boot drive is the hardest to expand (image, restore todo so) that it made the most since to put the biggest storage there up front. Otherwise you could have plenty of storage space but not enough 'index' space on D....

Actually that was more along the lines of what I thought too.. that the more room you have on that primary drive the more space you had for the "tombstones" (as MS calls them)

Regardless, I guess I'll make sure to put a 250GB as my HDD0 this time... its not my biggest, but its the easiest to get installed there.

 

[stash]

Nope, I went back through my archive, and the amount of free space on the primary drive determines the largest file you can copy to your WHS.

Ideally, the system will try to keep the free space on the primary drive maximized, by trying to only keep tombstones there. The system is designed to only fill up the primary drive with actual data when the secondaries are full.

This doesn't only apply to duplication, so I was incorrect on that earlier. But if you do have duplication enabled, that could affect the free space on the primary, since the system will always put copies on different volumes. So it will put a copy on the secondary and the primary. If the file is not being duped, it will always put it on the secondary if there is room. But the rule of the largest file you can copy is the amount of free space on the primary still applies.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: stash
Nope, I went back through my archive, and the amount of free space on the primary drive determines the largest file you can copy to your WHS.

Ideally, the system will try to keep the free space on the primary drive maximized, by trying to only keep tombstones there. The system is designed to only fill up the primary drive with actual data when the secondaries are full.

This doesn't only apply to duplication, so I was incorrect on that earlier. But if you do have duplication enabled, that could affect the free space on the primary, since the system will always put copies on different volumes. So it will put a copy on the secondary and the primary. If the file is not being duped, it will always put it on the secondary if there is room. But the rule of the largest file you can copy is the amount of free space on the primary still applies.

Understood and thanks for the clarification(s)
Now who wants to help me mirror ~2TB of data?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: stash
IIRC, it's because if you are mirroring data, the bits are first stored on the D partition on the first drive before they are copied to the final location. So if you attempt to mirror a file that is larger than the available space on D it will fail (I think).

Yeah, thats how I understand it.

Now that I've had home server going for a while I can say a few words how it works over time.

The good:

The backup solution is most excellent - it isnt gimped like the vista one where you have to restore ALL your drives or none at all, and you can exclude folders as well. I'm able to just image the OS partition and just that. I had a problem the other night and actually had to restore my entire C: from the backup, and I was sweating a bit. It worked like a charm (it even gave me the option to access the disk manager app to repartition any drives), the only issue being that it took about 45 mins to restore a 10gb partition. But it worked, and thats whats important.

It is also quite intuitive to add hard drives...works just as advertised.

And the home server remote access is pretty damn killer - I dont think I could give it up.


The bad:

The scheduled backups started failing after a few days. I have no clue why - it tells me "reason 5". Strange thing is, I can still do a manual backup just fine - must be a bug.

The "media sharing" feature is a joke. Once I moved all my music to the server, I found that WMP wouldnt just treat the share as a standard drive; it wouldnt recognize the files stored there as actual music files. And thus I was forced into the media sharing. And it didnt share more than 10% of my library - and those that it did, it didnt fully utilize WMP's regular interface.

So I tried itunes, and that didnt work until I literally mapped a network drive to the music share - it works, but it was agonizingly slow creating the library (left it on overnight), and it takes a good minute or two just to add a new album - network speed is holding me back, but it absolutely insisted on reading each file in full basically, and that just didnt help. (50gb+ music) So until they come up with apps that do a much better job of recognizing the music on a server, you'll have to live with a little slowness.

The most irritating to me is the "storage balancing". What you gain in ease of use you give up in performance. It insists on flogging my disk constantly - if I were to add a single movie to a share, it'll probably end up crunching away for at least a half hour, as if it had to reorganize every single byte across the hard drives. It also insists on running chkdsk every 6 hours, which is excessive, and I cant quite figure out how to turn that off or tone it down. Its more of a problem for me because I use the server as a HTPC as well (which otherwise works great), but you're definitely going to want to use silent disks for your server. Performance-wise, the I/O coming off the server is much slower than I'd like because its constantly doing this balancing if you so much as add a single byte to the share.

And the balancing just does not go well with bitorrent, or any other P2P program. At first, I had it saving directly to the shares, and they were just plain corrupted. I had to add a third drive that I didnt combine into the storage pool to use as temporary storage just so downloads would work, although I didnt move quite a bit off stuff onto that drive so its not all wasted space.

So, WHS is good stuff, but some of it is of questionable use to enthusiasts. I'd highly recommend a gigabit network if you plan on using it though.

If you have your own backup scheme thats been working fine, you are capable of setting up VNC with dyndns to access a server remotely, can work out sharing issues yourself, and are alright with wasting a little space or splitting shares across drives/RAID yourself, then you prob wont need WHS.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: BD2003
And the balancing just does not go well with bitorrent, or any other P2P program. At first, I had it saving directly to the shares, and they were just plain corrupted. I had to add a third drive that I didnt combine into the storage pool to use as temporary storage just so downloads would work, although I didnt move quite a bit off stuff onto that drive so its not all wasted space.

That doesn't sound very good. Why would something like that happen?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: BD2003
And the balancing just does not go well with bitorrent, or any other P2P program. At first, I had it saving directly to the shares, and they were just plain corrupted. I had to add a third drive that I didnt combine into the storage pool to use as temporary storage just so downloads would work, although I didnt move quite a bit off stuff onto that drive so its not all wasted space. </end quote></div>
That doesn't sound very good. Why would something like that happen?

Cause their storage pool scheme constantly moving stuff around doesnt seem to work too well with files that are in the midst of being downloaded, especially the way torrents download randomly instead of sequentially. Maybe they'll fix it for RTM.

Or it could be a conspiracy by microsoft to stop bitorrent once and for all.

 

[Seeruk]

There is now a FANTASTIC utorrent download plugin for WHS. Just discovered and tested it for 24 hours. So far its working flawlessly.

http://forums.microsoft.com/Wi...stID=1717779&SiteID=50

 

[wiin]

I have the beta downloaded but been unable to burn the ISO. I keep getting a "must use the same type of dvd media" error message. What does this mean? My burner is double layer and am using dvd + disk. Never had problems burning ISOs
before.