Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO

I used a little spare time between herding chooks, baking bread (my wife's product, actually) and picking her up in town to install MS WHS on a nice silent machine with twin 500GB SATA drives. I took some precautions, and spilled some blood (when removing an ATI Radeon 4850 from the machine and cut my index finger on some sharp edge...) I also took the cable off the boot drive (with Win7 Ultimate) just in case, and let the install wipe Ubuntu 9.10 from the other HD.

The installation went smoothly on auto-pilot BUT: the new system doesn't see my BiPac 7404VGO-M router with its network having all fixed IP addresses. Instead, HS asserts the network status is 'healthy" - and flatly refuses to connect to anything, including the Internet!

I obviously have some more reading to do... (once I've finished putting two more clerestory windows up in my shed LOL).

This thing WHS) looks like it might be worth the effort, even though at the moment it also refuses to recognise anything from 'multi-media controllers' (must by my cheap Leadtek DTV card) to high-definition audio devices and - you guessed it - an Ethernet controller. I am going to have fun!

Cheers,

LMH

carioca said:

I used a little spare time between herding chooks, baking bread (my wife's product, actually) and picking her up in town to install MS WHS on a nice silent machine with twin 500GB SATA drives. I took some precautions, and spilled some blood (when removing an ATI Radeon 4850 from the machine and cut my index finger on some sharp edge...) I also took the cable off the boot drive (with Win7 Ultimate) just in case, and let the install wipe Ubuntu 9.10 from the other HD.

The installation went smoothly on auto-pilot BUT: the new system doesn't see my BiPac 7404VGO-M router with its network having all fixed IP addresses. Instead, HS asserts the network status is 'healthy" - and flatly refuses to connect to anything, including the Internet!

I obviously have some more reading to do... (once I've finished putting two more clerestory windows up in my shed LOL).

This thing WHS) looks like it might be worth the effort, even though at the moment it also refuses to recognise anything from 'multi-media controllers' (must by my cheap Leadtek DTV card) to high-definition audio devices and - you guessed it - an Ethernet controller. I am going to have fun!

Cheers,

LMH

It HAS to be hard-wired, just fyi.

~Lordbob

carioca said:

I used a little spare time between herding chooks, baking bread (my wife's product, actually) and picking her up in town to install MS WHS on a nice silent machine with twin 500GB SATA drives. I took some precautions, and spilled some blood (when removing an ATI Radeon 4850 from the machine and cut my index finger on some sharp edge...) I also took the cable off the boot drive (with Win7 Ultimate) just in case, and let the install wipe Ubuntu 9.10 from the other HD.

The installation went smoothly on auto-pilot BUT: the new system doesn't see my BiPac 7404VGO-M router with its network having all fixed IP addresses. Instead, HS asserts the network status is 'healthy" - and flatly refuses to connect to anything, including the Internet!

I obviously have some more reading to do... (once I've finished putting two more clerestory windows up in my shed LOL).

This thing WHS) looks like it might be worth the effort, even though at the moment it also refuses to recognise anything from 'multi-media controllers' (must by my cheap Leadtek DTV card) to high-definition audio devices and - you guessed it - an Ethernet controller. I am going to have fun!

Cheers,

LMH

I used this site for how to's and tips to get my WHS up and going might be something of a help to you. Good luck to you.
Get Started With Windows Home Server | We Got Served - Windows Home Server & Your Digital Home

jimbo45 said:

I still don't see the value of WHS compared with a bog standard server such as Windows 2003 (probably one of the most robust and fastest OS'es MS has written to date) or even a Linux machine.

I'm not sure what is so hard to see. Windows Home Server is geared towards a basic home user that has more than 1 computer and wants a nice and easy place to store files so they are easily accessible. In addition, this solution out of the box provides ability to easily add/remove hard drives to expand capacity down the line and it also provides full backup functionality for up to 10 machines connected to it...and can restore these machines bare-metal. The key is that it's EASY, Automatic and Inexpensive.

People outside of these forums and such don't have Technet subscriptions so they don't have cheap access to Server 2003. Second, tons of people don't have the necessarily skill sets to setup the various things that Windows Home Server does out of the box. That's a whole lot of complexity to handle a few set of tasks that Windows Home Server can meet by design. And many of these people don't want to learn about setting up servers and learn how to do things...they just want a turn-key solution that meets their basic needs.

As a competent server admin for 10+ years, who is certified in both Windows and Linux...I totally understand the power and performance of "real" server operating systems. But I also understand that these aren't suitable for every environment. In fact, I've even considered replacing my CentOS linux server at home for Windows Home Server because WHS would provide 100% of what I need from my server with the advantage of easy backups of my Windows hosts.


And I don't agree with using your server as a workstation. A home file server needs to be available, online, and serving up files 100% of the time. I don't think you should install apps and surf the Internet and such from your server. That's what your workstations are for. Set up the server, keep it patched, but otherwise leave it alone and let it do it's thing.

JRS47 said:

For someone wanting to jump on the WHS bandwagon at a reasonable price new egg has a limited time special on the Acer H340 at 300 bucks a guy can't build a server for that.

Newegg.com - acer Aspire Easystore H340 Intel Atom 1.6Ghz 2GB 1TB GBLAN 4 Bay Hotswap Windows Home Server - Server Systems

Exactly, for $300 you get the hardware, the OS, 1tb of disk space, with the ability to add 3 more SATA drives for easy expansion. Through a simple web interface, you set up some shares, put your files on it, turn on workstation backups and you are done. I might even buy one of these and try it out. It's only $10 more than my 80GB SSD drive. Of course, I'll probably hold out for the HP server to be $399 again as it's going to have far better support after than sale than Acer.

You cannot get into Windows Server 2003 for this price. A technet subscription alone costs more than this...plus the cost of the hardware that you would have to buy, and then the 3rd party backup software (like Acronis True Image or similar), etc. Factor in the time and effort to set everything up, troubleshoot any issues and maintain the box and it's a bit too much for a simple home user that just wants to protect their data and make it available easily from other workstations in the home.

Tks LordBob, of course I was referring to the onboard Realtek chip rather than a separate card...

@ myzr7: will follow up that link - I've got as far as installing WHS on the host machine, setting up folders etc. and starting the beast, but it is still not been "seen" when I run the connector setup on a client machine. Will persist.

@ him/her who glowingly referred to Windows 2003 Server (I think), it is odd to see the WHS named "Small Business Server 2003" in the installation process somewhere...

Cheers,

LMH