[arkay]

Originally Posted by ozGremlin

Greetings Arkay et al...

A few semi-random points: (I really can't be bothered organuising all the quotes!)

Windows Home Server is the first major solution (I know of) to utilise the single instance file system storage that was introduced in Windows 2003 R2. It means that when identical files are backed up from multiple machines they will only be stored once. (Much like the single-instance message store in Exchange). The space saving is obvious. In addition, the files will be stored in a compressed state - further space saving. MS are making some VERY OUTLANDISH claims about how much space is saved (Divide those by at least 10!)

I like it in theory but in practice I fear it is fraught with danger. How exactly is this meant to work. How does the server know that two files from two different machines is actually an identical file. Does it apply this to only OS files (where the version number etc is known). If not then how will it determine that two mp3's with the same name and size and actually the same song?

The more I talk about the backup solution in Home Server the more it mirrors both the capability and the functionallity of Altiris Client Recovery Solution. Interesting.

Maybe they've made an acquisition.

Forgot to signal my sarcasm when talking about the differences between media streaming and accessing content off a network share. I'm fully aware of how simple it is and how well it works.

Yep.

You'd love a McData at home - you can't afford it, and the missus wouldn't be pleased with the noise it makes, but you still want one! (It's a seriously big Fibre-Channel switch used in large end of town SAN's for those who might be wondering)

We have 6 here at work. I go visit them at lunch times

There is no doubt that the disk redundancy in Home Server is excatly as wasteful as a simple Mirror set. That is, everything is stored twice. The beauty, is the ease of re-arrangement, and the total invisibility of the underlying sub-system setup.

Yes, but where there's a beauty there's usually a beast If they really want to make something useful I would hope that this server has archiving abilities to DVD, HD-DVD, even tape (for those of us lucky enough to have it). I wish someone would make a half decent home Tape device with enough storage capacity to handle a decent media library, that way not all your eggs are in this one basket.

The "Joe Average" users won't be any more capapble of managing Home Server from the server end than they are of managing existing PCs. For them, this will be nothing more than a NAS that also does network based backups. They probably need a turn key solution from HP!

But you and I know that modern computing simply put, is not turnkey. I hear the term often but the reality is that very very few (if any) products in todays IT world actually function as designed without specialist intervention. Windows/Linux/MacOS they are all too complicated for it to work. We've had discussion before about how "Anything with an OS is going to crash" and sadly, this thing has an OS. It's not about if it will crash, just when and how badly.

Arkay raises a good point about not trusting your media to any one device - does Windows Home Server not provide a relatiovely good option to having a central copy and a backup of the decentralised copies?Anyway, my attention span is failing...
Thanks for the mental stimulation.

No probs. On that point though, this thing is marketed at the average Joe and advertised in the manner we've seen thus far I think data loss is inevitable. People with average knowledge don't back up their stuff in duplicate. I guess you can say their better off than they were before, I just hope they aren't lulled into a false sense of security by this. Similarly for the people that due duplicate important files (digital photos etc), what if they think this solves all their problems and the stop backing up to DVD as thins thing is so safe? Scary.

Last thought, I think I'll at least be building one just to check it out a bit more thoroughly, but in the meantime I'm giving the latest versions of FreeNAS, SMEServer, and ClarkConnect another look.

I'll definitely have a look if I can find enough hardware to do so. I certainly won't be blowing away my current server to check it out.

Much of this thread is speculation given the product is unseen and unproven. Healthy skepticism is a good thing though.

Cheers,

Arkay.