I got fed up with the noisy beast that was previously the media/email/web server at home, so got myself a new toy yesterday.

I am in the processes of migrating the data across to a HP Mediasmart Server, which run MS Windows Home Server.

Initial impressions are promising, the automatic backup process works perfectly, and has backed up all the computers now.

The O/S can do quiet a lot besides, although I wont be using some of the internet based stuff. I have fiddled the IIS config so that my website will be hosted on the server and not the web frontend to the server. There is also built in data redundancy at the shared folder level, with 2 copies of data placed on different drives just in case one fails, this can be disabled on an individual share if the data is backed up elsewhere.

There is a bug in the O/S that worries me a bit, so I am not going to destroy the other server just yet. The bug relates to file corruption in certain situations, a fix is due in the next 4 weeks, that and the fact that there is no 64bit client just yet.

The server hardware is pretty neat, and is very small. Has 4 drive bays with caddies at the front for mounting SATA hard drives, each drive is monitored for its health and the status LED changes colour if the drive is about to fail. I have 2 drives in this one, and may add another today is the snow stops.

This is what I have

HP MediaSmart Server

I'm running a Home Server too, based on an old XP3200 machine I had lying about with 1.5 Gig of ram and 750MB of Storage spread across three disks.

Been up and running for about a month or so now and i've just started experimenting with the add ins you can get from We Got Served - The Windows Home Server Site

As you have mentioned there is a problem if you have multiple disks and use certain (mostly MS!!) applications to manage your data. So I have data backed up else where also.

All in all I quite like it and underneath it's a cut down SBS2003 so if I did want to monkey about with it (to certain extents I don't) I could!

Just dont do what I did yesterday. My other server is a 2003 box with active directory, so I thought I would have a go at using DCPROMO to turn the WHS into a DC. All went well untill the required reboot, and it never came back onto the network. The HP server has no screen/keyboard or mouse connections, so although the thing was running I was unable to see what was wrong. I ended up using the server restore disk and starting again.

Apart from that last problem, would you recommend it as a product?

I've got a few rigs I'd like to use and stream it down to my living room for example, sounds like this could be a good product for it

Hmm looks ok that.

Is Home server available to D/L? ive got a box i might put it on to check it out

I've got it running on an older box here too, and I'm impressed with it. The auto backup and available add-ons especially.

I'm not using replication either, because of the problems previously mentioned.

Steve

I quiet like it, although my dabbling may have made it a little sick again.

I added frontpage server extensions so that I can work on my website, and the thing has ground to a crawl.

No external connections on the HP box, hmmmmm. I've added Logmein to mine just in case as I would hate just having the Console to play with.

It works quite well as a media server as devices such as my 360 see it where as I would have had to leave my Vista Media Centre running in the past.

You can get versions on Torrent sites which will time out or order a 120 day evaluation kit on DVD from https://om.one.microsoft.com/opa/Validation.aspx?StoreID=3b8caa12-38dd-4505-9d20-2e4d23614d31&LocaleCode=en-us&JavaScriptOn=yes

The thing I am finding annoying is the strange filesystem, especially when you have 3 drives in the box like I do. The performance when copying files can best be described as SLOOOW. It took me less than 1hr to copy 70-80GB of DVD rips onto an external USB HD (old server), and so far has taken me 4hrs to copy less than half of it onto the WHS box.

When dealing with files larger than say 700mb, the filesystem gets bogged down, and disk I/O goes through the roof. Even with duplication disabled, the best I can get is 2-3MB per minute. With small files the thing flies, transfering at full network bandwidth.

Call me a tit but what does the home server do and what advantage is it?

Ben

Call me a tit but what does the home server do and what advantage is it?

Ben

It seems to be microsofts go at being a media "hub"

its a glorified NAS with a bit more power and resiliance behind it

Personally i think its a good idea, considering how many machines we have in our house, it would be nice to get all the data in a centralised place that doesnt still have IBM deathstars holding data :eek:

I am going to try recopying the data this evening. I have used the onboard disk tools to reduce the server down to a single HD, you can do this and remove the drives without turning the machine off. I'll see how it goes with just one drive and no data migration/duplication tasks running.

Call me a tit but what does the home server do and what advantage is it?

Ben

Introducing Windows Home Server should tell you all you need to know

Steve

IBM deathstars holding data :eek:

:jedi:

Still think I'll go mini/nano ITX and DIY it

I'm with Mr Cheeze on this one

I'm with Mr Cheeze on this one

OT I know, but I've got my specs finalised for an all in one system.

-4 * SATA II, case with drive caddies, 1GB RAM with a spare slot and either a 1GHz fanless or 1.8GHZ fanned system, 1 * 1GB LAN, 1* 10/100 LAN.

Should only eat up about 60W full bore and cost about £400 inc drives.

I seem to have improved the HPs performance by upgrading the ram from 512MB. Still not there yet, so the CPU is next on the list.

I seem to have improved the HPs performance by upgrading the ram from 512MB. Still not there yet, so the CPU is next on the list.

How much will that have set you back by the time you've done the RAM and CPU?

Also is changing the CPU going to affect the thermals as if you you might need to keep a close eye on the hard drive temperatures. I say this as I'm guessing they have provided the minimum cooling they can get away with.

I already have an Infrant ready NAS (4 x 750GB disks, raid 5) running for my storage side of things. As for a little server, I was thinking of this:

1 SY830WA31-A 225.00 225.00

transtec SENYO 830 PC:

- Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor E2160, 1.6 GHz, 1 MB

L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB

- Intel® G31 Express chipset

- 1 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM, PC667 (2x 512 MB), 2 slots

- 80 GB serial ATA II hard disk drive

- no floppy drive

- 16x DVD-ROM drive

- Intel® GMA 3100 onboard graphics card

- Realtek® 8111B Gigabit Ethernet Controller onboard

- 6-channel (5.1) Intel® High Definition Audio Codec

(Realtek®

888)

- Extension slots: 1x PCI Express x16, 1x PCI Express x1,

2x PCI (32-bit)

- Interfaces: 2x PS/2, 8x USB 2.0 (2x front, 4x rear, 2x

internal), 1x audio (mic in, line in, line out), 1x RJ45,

1x VGA

- transtec slimline keyboard (country-dependent), transtec

optical mouse

- Mini tower

- Operating system as an option

Warranty: 3 years pick-up

1 OPT-P4/E840 80.00 80.00

Intel® Core2 Duo Processor E8400, 3.0 GHz, Dual-Core, 6 MB

L2 cache, 1333 MHz front side bus instead of standard

processor

1 OPT-1G/24G6 46.00 46.00

4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz (2x 2 GB) as option

1 AD3-2S160K7 30.00 30.00

160 GB Serial ATA-2 hard drive, 7200 rpm, 3.5"

1 RD3-2S080K7 -24.00 -24.00

Withdrawal of a standard 80 GB Serial ATA-2 hard drive

1 OPT-MKBMP-NO -19.00 -19.00

Removal of standard mouse (black), standard keyboard (black)

and mousepads

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 TSPK20-GB 10.00 10.00

package and transportation rate

Warranty: None

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Net Amount 348.00

VAT 17.5% 60.90

total £ 408.90

How much will that have set you back by the time you've done the RAM and CPU?

Also is changing the CPU going to affect the thermals as if you you might need to keep a close eye on the hard drive temperatures. I say this as I'm guessing they have provided the minimum cooling they can get away with.

Ram: Free, got from work.

CPU: £29.99 from lamda-tek.

There should be no issues with cooling, the upgraded cpu uses less energy than the oem cpu. Others who have used this same cpu have seen a drop in cpu core temperature. The hard drives, are cooled by 2 very quiet fans on the rear of the machine thats constantly drawing air over them. The lower fan is also used to draw air across the cpu and out the back of the machine.

CPU should be delivered today, although I must say just upping the ram has made a big difference.

I was thinking maybe get one and run Linux/BSD on it

I still think I'm going to build my own however as I really want the thing using under 60W full bore with 4 drives. That only leaves me about 20W for the main board to play with.

Instead of a server then, can I just set up my old laptop witht he file sharing set up over the network and use it that way?

I'm not too worried about backing things up, just somewhere I can put music and films etc to share/play over the wireless?

Ben

Instead of a server then, can I just set up my old laptop witht he file sharing set up over the network and use it that way?

I'm not too worried about backing things up, just somewhere I can put music and films etc to share/play over the wireless?

Ben

Could do as such, but not sure I'd do it with an old 2.5" disk. They are not designed to be used in that way and will fail quite quickly.

Ok, thanks,

I think I'll just godown the NAS route

Ben

Just installing WHS on a box i have lying around now (twas my old bittorent box before Upnp worked right in Vista) will have a mess around with it, although im not sure what benifit it will be to me saying is i already extensively use synctoy to backup the stuff i want to backup.

Hehe, just noticed when it reboots into the familiar "bluescreen installer" it says windows server 2003 for small businesses