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What a great source of knowledge this forum is. So I've seen many posts about WHS, of late mostly the downsides of performance of the storage pool. I've also seen some great posts on functionality, plug-ins, etc.
Thing is, (and yes, start laughing your @rses off), I have a ThinkPad T43 (Dothan 1.86GHz, 1GB RAM, 60GB 5400 RPM PATA & built-in GigE Intel NIC) running W2K8 Standard. Now, other than sharing all the media (DivX, MP3s and Photos) to my household via SMB, and IIS7 with a bastardised, yet supported, Gallery installation, there's nothing special about my needs.
W2K8 has been solid as. The only reason for considering WHS is the fact that the storage on this 'server' is all reliant on external USB drives. I presently have 2 x 500GB USB, 1 x 1TB and 1 x 250GB external USB drives. I can't help but think WHS with its storage pool would work well for this mish-mash. I've avoided doing a box build as the ThinkPad is small, extremely quiet and just works.
Any opinions on sticking with W2K8 or moving to WHS? Again, I'm looking to stay on the ThinkPad, so no need to try and steer me toward a tower with internal SATA drives, etc.
1) A very good backup system. All your PCS can be backed up automatically and without fuss. It just works.
2) The storage pool is easily eaxpandable using whatever drives you have available. No need for them to be all the same size or brand or whatever. Need another drive , add it. Repalce one, remove it from the pool and replace it. Easy.
That said, there are people who have had some issues with the storage pool. The only issues I've seen are some minor niggles when accessing from Vista Media Centre. Not WMP, just Media Centre. Search the forum and you'll see what's happening there.
I like WHS, but it is horses for courses.
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The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to GlenR for this information:
Thanks, Glen (I can't seem to find the Thanks button?) - think I might run up WHS in a VM and see whether or not I can get my Gallery running on it. I expect it'll be a dismal failure, and I don't really like the look of the WHS photo gallery.
I have been running WHS for six months in a PC that I built using cheap/old parts. It currently contains a mixture of 9 very old and fairly new HDDs. The system lives on a new 500GB drive.
I access it with a range of XP and Vista PC s and generally get about 30mB/s transfer speeds. Everything plays fine so speed hasn't been an issue. The backup works well, especially for my wifes laptop, because it happens in the background and there is nothing you have to do other than connect to the network. There are also some great add-ins. It is very easy to install and just works.
There is a lot of nice functionality that doesn't get much of a mention. The fact that you get a domain name with it and can access it from anywhere on the internet is pretty cool. I use it as a base for accessing/maintaining my networked PCs while I'm away from home. Using the webguide addin you can stream video/music and browse photos. I have tried it and managed to stream reasonable quality avi's while in a hotel in another state.
I'm not sure I understand the gallery that you are talking about and hence can't comment on whether it would work.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to krypto for this information:
Hey thanks, krypto. Gallery is just a nice piece of photo hosting software that's underpinned by SQL Server (MySQL on Linux), PHP and IIS (Apache on Linux). I've done some more searching and have found there is a version that runs under W2K3 and IIS6. Given WHS is based on the W2K3 core then perhaps I'm half way there.
Anyone have any idea if WHS can run/includes any version of IIS? Although now that I think about it, I obviously need to be able to pull in MS SQL Server Express as well as PHP support. Am I expecting too much functionality of WHS?
Cheers
Heyw00d
P.S. Where the heck is that 'Thanks' button everyone talks about? I'm in debit for two now, and still can't see the button anywhere!
P.S. Where the heck is that 'Thanks' button everyone talks about? I'm in debit for two now, and still can't see the button anywhere!
LOL - Hi Heywood, that's because you posted a WHS question in the pub instead of the WHS forum
We don't have the thanks button set up in the pub since it's not designed to be a support area - that's where we get into deep & meaningful debates which will no doubt one day change the world!
I'm moving this thread now which should see the magic button materialise and you can click to your heart's content
Mike
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The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to Mike for this information:
I think the key point you are missing between WHS & WS2K8 is the price.
A copy of WHS is like $200-odd whilst WS2K8 is approaching the $1000 mark, just to get started.
WHS has a limitation of 10 users, whilst WS2K8 starts you off with 5 for $1k, then costs another $200-odd per additional 5 user CALs.
In terms of file sharing, Server 2008 probably is quicker, leaner, as it's designed to be, but the learning curve for Server2008 is much larger and WHS has a pretty point and click, user friendly interface.
I guess it's like comparing a Rav4 to a Hummer, both can take you off the road, but if you want to start pulling cranes out of ditches, you better get that Hummer (ok, pretty crap analogy).
Thanks, guys - that's awesome! I think I'm getting closer here. Looks like SQL Server Express and PHP will still be an issue for me on WHS, but I might just pick up a copy of WHS, whack it into a VM and see if I can either make my original Gallery work on WHS, or check out what the Gallery equivalent that Whiist has to offer, or not offer.
Given my mass of external HDDs, WHS and its storage pool just seems like a sensible move to me given I don't want to move to a full-on case with internal drives, etc.
I have cheap mobo with a number of Sil3114 ($15 ea) controllers that play really well with WHS. Put all my HDDs in a coolermaster centurion ($80). They are relatively easy to access.
Seems like a neater solution than a wad of external HDD enclosures
i know i'd definately rather a built up case then a lappy with 4 external drives...
im currently running Server 2k3...i ran into a few issues with my ubuntu install...
so just blew it away and installer Server 2k3.
Once thing you can do, is create Dynamic Drives and span a partition over them, its sorta like the WHS storage pool. Its certainly not as user friendly and does have drawbacks, but if you can't do WHS, then it would be a good way to go.
I had issues with WHS corrupting Torrents that i was downloading. I had setup uTorrent with the WebGUI on my WHS, and the downloads you get that are split into 50~ RAR files would always get corrupted and i would have to tell it to "recheck" all the time.
