What Operating System for Home NAS?

I want to run a simple Home NAS that can connect to Computers running Windows 8 and Windows 7.
I do not want a Linux system.
I am a Technet subscriber and have access to all Widows Operating Systems so I want a windows solution.
Any suggestions are most welcome.
Thanks in Advance
Brian

You have 3 choices.

--Windows Home Server
--Windows Server 2008R2
--Windows Storage Server 2008R2

I would likely avoid the third choice above and go with either #1 or #2.


Since you want simple, Windows Home Server 2011 fits the bill nicely. It will handle any DNLA stuff right out of the box, so if you have a 360 or PS3, you can stream to them. Microsoft did remove the Drive Extender Tool for disk pooling. Since I liked that feature, I have looked at 3rd party tools like Stabilbit. (It's only $20) and from my testing with their 30 day free trial, works great. Windows Home Server also backs up your Windows client machines, and it's a file level and image level restore.

Server 2008R2 is an option. It gives you more flexibility as it's a full blown server OS, but you will have more setup and configuration to do. It won't handle the DNLA out of the box without installing and configuring third party tools. In order to the the bare metal and file level restores on clients, you will need to get some third party software. You could run a domain if you wanted to here to learn about active directory and group policy and all that jazz.

I'm looking to do a Windows Home Server 2011 box for myself as I too want simple and combined with the Stabilbit drive pooling software (for a mere $20), it provides me everything I want.

Well if ALL you want is NAS and don't care about it being a homegroup server or backups or all that jazz, you can't get more simple than just installing Windows 7 home premium or pro with shared folders...

However at my house I am using a WHS2 machine and it's all fairly simple to setup and use IF you want to switch to homegroup networking and if you like falling completely in line with micorsofts idea about how folders should be shared. I do not know how well it works with Windows 8 at the moment though...

Thanks for the quick reply, I installed Home server 2011 with the lights out Add in Yesterday and it would have been Absolutely perfect for my needs. I used Whs V1 on an earlier build but it does not support 64 bit so I want to upgrade to one that does.
The minute I booted up one of my Clients the server should have resumed from Hibernation and when the last Client shut down at night it would have gone into hibernation.
But I found out that my Server build does not support Hibernation???????.
My main Client has problems logging in(won't recognize the Password) so I probably need to reinstall so i Thought that there might be a better system that i could try
I know I should have posted this info in my first Post but I find that long winded first post don't get replies
Brian

I would not want my server hibernating. In my opinion, best to leave it on 24x7.

I'm looking into building a lower power unit myself and started a thread on it. Planning to do a Core i3-2100T (35 watt) CPU. 2 Samsung Green 2TB drives. Expect I'll pull right around 25 watts at idle :)

pparks1 said:

I would not want my server hibernating. In my opinion, best to leave it on 24x7.

I don't have any requirement for it at night after the last Client has shut down so I want to save on Electricity.

Our brilliant Government here in Australia have decided to implement a Carbon Tax and it is expected to increase Electricity by at least 25%
Brian

Gah

Yeah I don;t think there is anything like that built in, though with wake on lan enabled in your server BIOS and possibly a third party plug into shut the system down might work. But your server would be shutting down a lot and always take a while to come up.

What I did instead was I bought a low power motherboard, no extra video (in fact after setup you can disable video entirely from the server machine!) Have the drives sleep, don't need a KB or mouse either, don't use an oversized PSU and you can get the server down to just a few watts at idle.

With my one low power server on 24/7 and turning off all my other machines when not in use I reduced my power usage a LOT. Somewhere around $60-$75 a month

SOLVED.
What i did today was play around with WHS2011 and got it working the way I want it,it's a shame about Lights-out not working as it is a brilliant program.
I have set the hard drive and monitor to sleep after 10 minutes idle and Wake on Lan is active and I use a KVM switch so it shouldn't use a lot at night.
Thanks to all that have helped.
Brian