More info from Paul Thurrot - http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/whs_preview.asp apparently confirming that:
"Microsoft will make WHS available in two ways: Bundled with new WHS hardware and software-only, the latter so that enthusiasts can install the system on the hardware of their choice."

I'm looking forward to it 'cos like many here, I have about 15 HDDs in my cupboard totalling about 1TB plus an assortment of PSUs, mobos and CPUs. So based on the recommended system specs, I may actually be able use most of it to set up at least one WHS - especially the hdds because (they say) the drives don't have to match to form an array.

So I guess for those (like me) who have no desire to mess with Linux, and with a nine (9) Windows PC wired/wireless + 360 network at home, I don't care if it introduces another raid standard or won't talk to Linux boxes, if it will work with what's already in place it seems likely it will provide me with simple & expandable server option which I've been missing until now.

My 2c

Mike,

Send me a case, mobo and the drives and I'll send you back a prebuilt linux box that does exactly the same thing if you like and it won't cost you a thing and it will work with all your devices.

One other thing they seem to be skipping in this whole arena is that you can do far more with a home server than just serve media.

My home server will eventually be my downloading box, my tv tuner (recording box), my web server, my backup server and an internet gateway for my kids so I can restrict and monitor their access. The file/print serving side of it is just a given.

Eventually I'd even like to add home security to it so I can monitor the house remotely etc, maybe even some automation.

I know this sounds great for the average person who wants a plug and play device but with a little effort you can achieve so much more using windows or linux.

Backup and filesharing is something computers have been doing for an awfully long time.

Seriously. A mapped network drive on each frontend machine to the server + a scheduled acronis job to do incremental archives daily and you're there already; plus you get to use whatever hardware and software you like on the server. Standard Raid, standard filesystems and it wouldn't require being trapped into 3rd party software just in order to be able to communicate with the server.

With what MS is already doing in bed with the content providers I'm surprised anyone would be brave enough to hand over authority of their media to MS. As soon as you install this app this is, in affect, what you have done, and the potential is there for MS to report back just what you have on that server. (but no... You're right. MS would never do any dial home type activities now would it....)

Cheers,

Arkay.

Arkay, your a very smart guy, but your ego's out on a trip this time! How are you going to create a server that can provide single automated backup of all network attached machines with single instance storage? How are you going to provide fully automated physical disk redundancy that requires no use of RAID? Also, how much integration can your server provide with an Xbox360 or other extenders? As for running other stuff, it's a windows machine - you'll be able to run almost anything. It's just that the other stuff you run may or may not integrate into the new UI.

Like you, I already have a home server that does nearly everything I want, and what I was really hoping for was a home server that could hold my TV tuners as a backend to my extenders (Much closer to what Myth does!), but the reality is, MS have a new product that does have some cool features, that the others don't have yet!

My thoughts only - none was hurt in the production of this reply!

My home server already does everything Home Server will offer. And I can play games on it

Arkay I understand and agree with pretty much everything you've said and I have no doubt that you and (a few thousand others around here) could set up all that stuff in a heartbeat given your training and passion for Linux as a workstation OS.

Problem is that I really can't be bothered trying to get my head around Linux and I don't have a the hours to spare each week for the next few months to figure out how to do everything you suggest, so from my perspective, WHS "appears" to offer what may be a far easier, almost plug 'n' play solution. It certainly has more appeal to me given it's features and expandability than those very finite, "toaster" style NAS boxes doing the rounds by Netgear & Linksys etc.

Now if it turns out that it won't handle divx and my mp3 collection is twitchy because they've turned Windows Server 2003 into a lite version of Vista - then I would definitely have to reconsider. But since they must be planning for it to be used by non-geeky consumers as a home media server populated by home videos of the kids and Aunt Marge and lots of ripped CD collections - I can't see them locking those file types out - if they did - what the hell would anybody use it for other than storing those other breaches of copyright files we all love so much - recorded TV ?

So sure, there'd be no doubt that a skillful system/server admin may be able to make his Linux box do more and do it easier and cheaper than a WHS might ever do - but not everybody is that capable or even so inclined.

That's an extra 1/2 cent

It's going to be interesting to see how some of these announcements tie together in the nearish future and their impact on what is currently out there. For instance is home server a first step towards moving media center boxes out of the lounge and having Xbox360s taking their place. Otherwise why have a replication of hardware and storage? (Backups I know but as many have pointed out this is more an issue of people being bothered to do it than current systems not supporting it.)

If this is what MS are gunning for then I have a few concerns for down this part of the world. Xbox360 might be getting snazzy IPTV but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen down here considering I have seen that it requires a 12Mb connection as a minimum.

Also what is the intention towards MPC plugins? I have to admit that I haven't seen the Xbox360 extender but I'm sure not all plugins will support the extender.

Finally if we lose access to the GUI then how about custom guide downloads or other tools. Currently I'm using Bladerunner and XMLTVNZ but will this sort of setup be an option if we go down this possible MS Home Server path.

It could be great for North America and Europe but unless they really start to sort out support for smaller countries I can't see too many benefits over what we already have.

Quiet easily and exactly the same way MS will do it. A little client code on the attached machines with a mapped network drive to the server is all that is needed. That's why in the above post I suggested to use acronis trueimage in incremental mode as a scheduled task where the image is stored on the server drives. Acronis takes care of the incremental (read delta, versioned backups) and the server stores it.

Why do I not want to use raid? LVM under linux has more than enough power to configure any type of redundancy you require. You could use 2 of the drives mirrored for OS level (acronis from above), images, including the server OS itself. Fully redundant.
The rest you could stripe or raid5, whatever rings your bells. All as safe as houses.
In addition lvm supports the easy relocation of data, dynamic disk filesystem resizing, logical and physical disk install/remove etc etc. There's nothing it can't do in terms of adding, replacing or removing storage.

Now, that's an interesting point. From what I've read about Home Server it's nothing more than a file server. What exactly needs to integrate into an extender? It has no tuners, it doesn't house guide data etc etc.. At preset you point MCE at a network share for videos, audio and photo's. It wouldn't be any different in this solution. Network accessible folders.. That's it.

I see that statement as incorrect. MS is putting together a "solution" that they can market and sell that is in essence NO DIFFERENT to the basic function of any other computer on the planet. The only real benefit in this solution is the automation of backup of attached systems and the possible automation of adding additional storage. Something that is not difficult to manage with a few scripting skills and a basic computer knowledge.

Cheers,

Arkay.

Mike,

Not a problem and I understand where you're coming from. But given that this solution will be offered in two forms. One prebuilt, plug and play and the second a DIY install on your own hardware I'd have to question whether you'd still go with the MS $$$$ product if I really did come up to Sydney, built you a server, wrote the backup code and provided you with everything you need. It would never need to be touched other than to add more storage.

Or alternately if someone made an Open Source product to do exactly that and you could buy it pre-installed on a server. The only configuration of which would be adding an IP address to it after you turn it on?

It sounds like a lot of hoohaa for what it really is and to me once again shows MS's ability to sell sand to the Arabs but for non technical people it could be very useful.

It'll really come down to just how plug and play it really is.

Cheers,

Arkay.

They should be copying Mythtv functionality.
Make the server the backend with all the TV cards (PCIe duals for obvious reasons) and just boot a frontend, whether it be a xBox360 or a slower spec PC with good video.

If you used the network boot method, maybe then you could run decent TV resolutions, because you're not running a desktop. If you ran it as a frontend, you have a desktop as well which can also be the GUI to the server.

I like the idea in principle, but will they do the same thing again....get it 80% right and let the community sort out the rest.

Lester

Hey Arkay,

In the spirit of a good arguement only....

But your server still needs to be providing a single instance storage solution. Your backup solution also needs to be tracking which files belong to which client. I hadn't even thought about the "image using delta's" question, but I assumed that the latest generation "image backup" tools can all do this (Never used Acronis - but all the enterprise class ones can!)

Like you, I'm very comfortable with RAID, but as you well know, it has big fat hairy bits! It's not simple to change the RAID levels of an existing RAID set, it's very ineffecient at using randomly sized disks, and it does take skills and knowledge. A solution that simply ensures that every "shared folder" is present on two different physical disks is not as space effecient, but is both elegant and versatile! So too is removing the drive letters from the "storage pool" (I know this is very unix like - and a good thing too!)

Here we agree - Home Server seems to offer almost nothing to the MCE crowd, exept a potentially big NAS and an improved backup. Media streaming? Please... Cant we just map a network share and open the file using our favourite player?

Agree on the integration with an extender. What I wanted was for the extender to act as a front end to an interface-less version of MCE running on my Home Server (With every tuner I could pile ino the box!) That does not appear to be where they are going. Myth on the other hand...

Don't agree on how simple that is. I'd get paid a lot less to manage storage networks if it were that easy! As for Home Server being no different, I disagree on that too - there are some new features there that will be useful.

Your turn...

It would not suprise me too much if it started rejecting itunes or divx/xvid files but seemed to bakup wmv or dvr-ms files okay, or better yet deleted your non DRM music / video files and gave you a link to a site where you could buy them. Sorry but I just can't trust an MS product.

Definately

Not sure I understand what you mean about single instance storage solution. If you mean all the storage needs to rest in one place and be accessible from anywhere then this would be accomplished with a storage array made up of motherboard SATA controllers only (array could be hardware or software in any flavour raid or even straight concats to use all the storage, or any mixture thereof dependant on the nature of the data). This would be structured in the necessary mountpoints that make sense and shared out via samba to any other machine on the network (either password protected or not, per share). The shares could be video, audio, photo's, personal files etc etc. They would map automatically from the MCE machine one configured within the MCE interface.

For "per machine" backup you would have a directory per machine (also mapped via samba), to which acronis true image is pointed to on a given client. Incremental images can be sheduled via the Acronis interface to write directly to the relevant share for that given client machine. This is of course more manual than the MS solution but just as effective and with a little scripting could be made to happen automatically.


True, raid can be inefficient but one wonders how MS can implement any form of redundant backup or irregular sized disks without losing some of that storage space. Simply put if you are managing copies of data then logically you have to have the same amount of space available to mirror it to. It would have to waste some space, somewhere. Hiding it behind a "it can do this" statement, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Yes you can.. and it's not hard to set up at all. That's exactly what I do right now.

Agreed. It's not really THAT useful and is fairly limited in it's approach given modern technology.

Fair enough but a home server is far from a corporate SAN in terms of level of technology, complexity of management etc. I can't see any of us needing a McData at home any time soon. With 750GB drives available now and bigger to come shortly it's quiet easy to set up a 4 disk system straight from the motherboard sata ports without the need for much complexity and this gives you quite a lot of space for a home server.

Cheers,

Arkay.

As expected, HP announced their first Microsoft® Windows® Home Server product, the HP MediaSmart Server this week at CES. Details here.

Patricio

Seems The "impact" operating system would be a better solution for the airbus aye? I guess we make the assumption that MS "Strive" to make an unstable OS... Im pretty sure thats their business plan when they come up to End of Financial year... "So everyone, how are we going to develop an unstable OS this year?"

I think the Home Server is a cool idea. They are targetting Families and people who don't know how to build their own server or even know where to start with what a "real" server is for. Sure other companies will bring out versions of their own, but we all use MCE, when there is at least 5 other software versions out there of the same thing, but we all choose to use MCE for some strange reason...

I am pretty sure we all know this for fact when talking OS stability... Woo Unix is stable, but WHEN it crashes while in say Level 7 Mode... good luck if your data is still their after you spend 30minutes rebuilding the directory structure... If your MS system freezes up, you reboot and your back and running in under a minute with all your data still there.

Stability and Userfriendly don't go hand in hand... MS is robust and unstable, Unix is Stable but fragile... Sorry my choice is MS.

Arkay, I agree, but we (As a group of people who are computer minded) know how to do this. You try explaining how to setup and manage a home server, built either by yourself or a computer store to someone who doesn't know anything past the power button, the keyboard and the mouse and the monitor... They are not targetting us, MS is targetting the "dumb" consumer, the "home" user, who wants to store everything in one place where it is "Safe".

I already have the RAID in place, but you said RAID to a brick layer and they will look at u going "ahh what?". You say "Buy this EASY and SIMPLE solution for all your "stuff" to be stored on and accessed from anywhere" and you will get a "where do I sign?"

Working in retail taught me a lot about the mentality of the average person.

regards,
Stefano