Windows Home Server?
Are there any users of Windows Home Server out there? I saw a blog entry by Major Nelson about it, and have been looking at the MS product site http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx and a few other places...I'm very interested in something like this, as the wife and I are accumulating THOUSANDS of baby pictures and video and having to foward emails to dozens of folks at a time is getting old. I like the idea of being able to create a family site, setup logins and let people come get the picts/videos they want. Also having automated backups and such would be nice - I'm not diligent enough about archiving off our photos, and having something do that for me would be cool.
Thanks,
-Ray!!!
Live Gamertag: texasRay
I'm presuming -- and this could be a wildly wrong presumption -- that Windows Home Server is a slightly-simplified version of the regular server software, using Microsoft's regular server management interfaces. If that's the case, I tend to think you'd be better off with Linux in this market. You don't get the same kind of GUI tools, but I found in actual practice that administering IIS was maybe more difficult than adminstering Apache. The settings were all over the damn place and poorly documented when I was last trying to use it; Apache mostly just runs. Samba, the program that does Microsoft-protocol networking, is also pretty easy, but in both cases you'll have to do some editing of text files, and you'll need to understand a little bit about the Unix filesystem layout. It's really not difficult... in a class setting, I could easily see covering everything you'd need in about three one-hour class sessions.
If you want to do as little as humanly possible, Microsoft's solution will probably involve less tinkering to get going, but you'll have less control over the finished product. Linux/Unix can be bent to do nearly anything server-related you can imagine; many of the world's biggest sites run it.
Basically, if you do it with Linux, you're taking responsibility for getting it going yourself. You'll have to learn whatever you need to learn to make it work. In exchange, you get total, absolute control of your system; nobody can ever force you to upgrade or take a patch or program you don't want. Nobody will ever shove something like Windows Genuine Advantage down your throat. The programs are less polished, generally, but highly functional. And, of course, it doesn't cost anything if you don't want it to, although you can pay for it and get support, just like with Windows.
If you go Microsoft, things will be easier out of the box, but you'll be a bit fenced-in by their tools. In general, I find the learning curve with Microsoft to be very gentle up to a point, but as soon as you hit that point, it turns absolutely vertical. They have a weird tendency to feature-limit their stuff to create artificial product differentiation to protect their other markets. I guarantee Home Server will be missing features in regular Server, because they'll be afraid of cannibalizing Server sales. And some of those features may turn out to be things you want to do, eventually. An example: Windows Media Center edition will not store login/password information for remote servers, meaning you can't transparently map a network drive and have it remapped every time you log in... which works fine on XP Pro. This is because MCE is based on XP Home + added features. So my Media Center PC ends up being less useful to me than it should, even though I paid a lot more for it than for XP Pro. I have zero doubt that Home Server will have similar gotchas.
You also have the potential problem that Microsoft can -- and has, in the past -- change its license terms retroactively, so even if you think you're getting a good deal now, they can and will change it on you. In order to get a service pack, you have to accept new license terms. The technical term for this is 'having you over a barrel'.
You just don't get that kind of crap with open source. It's harder up front, but it's a LOT easier than it used to be, and in exchange, that machine is yours forever.
Malor's comments sound pretty on. I've edited one book on Home Server (plug: Windows Home Server Unleashed by Paul McFedries) and my impression is that it's a pretty decent *luxury* product. It makes for a nice automated backup solution and local file/media sharing solution if you have a bunch of Windows-based systems on your network. I don't remember a lot about the sharing of media over the Internet. I know it's there, but I don't recall how convoluted it is to use.
The basic idea of the OS, though, was to make having a home server simple. So, if it's something you really want to have and you really want minimal setup/configuration headaches, it's probably worth looking into. I've never worked with Linux, so I can't comment on differences between the two once you get up and running. I also recall reading on Ed Bott's and Paul Thurrot's blogs that the pre-built Windows Server Setups often worked out better than building your own server PC and then running the OEM version.
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
I think.. I could be wrong though.. that Home Server does allow you to officially offload Media Center recorded material and still access it via your Media Center.
At least.. it better.
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Thanks for the information, I really appreciate it.
I guess I should've added the disclaimer that I'm very familiar with Microsoft stuff. We have Vista Ultimate and an XP machine at home, along with a Zune and a 360. Also, I'm a fairly seasoned .Net developer with lots of experience in dealing with their shortcomings on the server side of things. On the flip side, I haven't messed with Unix or apache type products in almost 10 years. Also, I don't have the time right now to build out something like Malor suggested - 5 or 6 years ago, I would've been all over it.
My main interest in WHS was in the media sharing and backups, and keeping things easy to use would be nice, because I'd need buy-in from the Mrs. If she can see that something is easy to use and sees how it will make things easier for her, then I don't have to do as much of a hard sell.
Along the lines of what ubrakto mentioned - this would be viewed as a "luxury" purchase, and therefore ease of use and all that would be a huge deal. Also, I'll take a look at that book thru my company's O'Reilly Safari membership - I didn't even think of looking there for info.
Thanks again for the info.
-Ray!!!
Live Gamertag: texasRay
Keep us posted, Ray. I'm considering a WHS myself - something to add to our Mac network when next I decide to upgrade our systems. A WHS setup would be a great way to backup our machines AND to serve as a repository for all our media files. Web-access to those files would be a nice treat.
Texas, then I'd guess WHS is probably right up your alley. In addition to checking out the book I mentioned on Safari, check out some of the WHS material (like the review) that Paul Thurrot has at his SuperSite for Windows (http://www.winsupersite.com/). If you end up taking the plunge be sure to let us know what you think of it. (For me, WHS is something I really don't need right now and, really, can't easily afford.)
Symbiotic, while I know that WHS is capable of interfacing with Mac systems, I seem to remember it wasn't quite as "elegant" as with other Windows machines. I want to say that it was stuff like having support for manual data backups, but not automated ones. Could be I'm remembering it wrong, though. I did a very quick search of the book I worked on and the main section on Mac support in WHS does state:
So even if there's a few headaches, like losing automated data backups, it does appear WHS would function just fine with a Mac network.
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
After some more reading and thinking - My pipedream in this project would be:
1. Easy, centralized storage for our family photos & videos (WHS does this)
2. A central location for all of our mp3's (WHS does this)
3. A very easy and trustworthy backup system for the family media (it sounds like WHS does this)
4. Easy enough to use that the wife can add pictures and setup access to them for extended family members & friends
5. It sounds like any Windows Media extender can be used to view stored photos, videos & mp3's (HUGE plus, here)
6. Now, this is the one that I'm not sure it can do, or is even possible, but I'd LOVE to be able to use it as a movie jukebox, where I have whatever the mp3 equiv of DVD's are (Divx?) and can easily browse them and play them from either of my 360's. *THAT* would be the GREATEST. Even if I had to buy a DVD jukebox, if WHS supported it, it would make me so, so happy. I know there was a DVD jukebox that was supported by Windows Media Center, but not sure if that made into Vista or WHS.
-Ray!!!
Live Gamertag: texasRay
You can use it as a video jukebox (meaning you can store your video files on it) but it won't/can't replace your HTPC, you'll need to use your HTPC to generate the content to copy it over to WHS (if that's allowable but I know people are ripping their DVDs to it).
I got my copy of the software on Xmas, I've still not set it up only because, I don't have room for *another* box right now, maybe after the house add-on and new home office. I may install it in a VM but just not activate it but I'm lazy. I'm also already running a 'regular' MS server (and two linux boxen Malor!) so the only real benefit I'd get from it is the daily snapshots of the workstation HD's (I have four windows workstations at home). With a standard server I can run WSUS (and am) for patching and while not getting images of the WS HD's on the bit level I am using robocopy to copy the profiles from each WS to the server and then the server copies these to two external HD's so if there's ever an issue I can grab those and go. I can always reinstall office, I can't just reinstall the files I've created with it.
That said, I think that WHS could benefit the 'normal' joe but there are some issues. You're still running a workgroup, WHS includes an agent that you install on all the WS's in the workgroup (10 is the limit) so you have to do what you normally do in a workgroup to share drives. You need to set up the same usernames and passwords on each workstation and then set those up in WHS if you have 3 users and 3 pcs that's 12 accounts you have to create (3 on each WS and 3 on the server). If the passwords/accounts are off, you'll have to log in twice once to the box and once for the agent. Another perk with a thorn that WHS has is that similar to the Drobo there is no raid to configure. In an ideal world, you have a small(er) drive for the system and JOBD for the storage area, WHS sees all the non-system stuff as one big share and sets up parity itself. The thorn with this type of storage setup is that it can take awhile to get a drive offline in WHS depending on how much stuff you have on it and none of the other nodes can access the data while this happens (in other words set it up to happen overnight).
For me, the biggest gripe is the no single point of login authentication, the chances of Microsoft developing an ActiveDirectory-lite or directory service that just handles users (I don't need GPOs, replication, etc,etc) are about nil. Since the WHS can't join a domain (it will stop working after 24 hours if you run DCPROMO on it until you run DCPROMO again to turn off AD) it helps MS keep small businesses more interested in Small Business Server rather than WHS though I guess WHS can run in a domain (it won't join it but I guess if you install the agent it still does its thing). Microsoft is all about keeping the revenue running and gutting their business market for a few home enthusiasts isn't a reason to do it.
Here are some links I found in the past few weeks for WHS:
WHS Team Blog
WHS Forums
Homeserver Hacks
A guy who does some plugins for WHS
A WHS build I'm interested in
There is a bug with WHS currently that is pretty rare but it can corrupt data, be safe rather than sorry and wait for the patch.
All that said, as Malor said, if you want cheap (I got my WHS from the MS store for 40$) linux is the way to go and you can learn a lot implementing SAMBA and it's not all that hard anyway. You won't get the backup, patching, web or RDP capabilities but if you just want to set up a share drive and have it reliable then you could do worse than a samba box. You can then script jobs to run nightly to copy your data over to it, after a bit of time and everyone is used to saving their stuff to the network you can then worry about how to backup the data to an external device or two.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
CNet has posted a review of the HP Mediasmart Server here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2247237,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530
After reading this, I think I will be pulling the trigger on the Terrabyte version within the next 3-4 weeks.
-Ray!!!
Live Gamertag: texasRay
Is there a commercial option that does both the NAS and Media Center jobs yet?
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WHS doesn't appear in our MSDN Univeral subscription, either. I'm betting he's reffering to a Microsoft Campus Employee store. I've seen some sweet deals in there when attending training at their Irving campus.
I read in a blog or newsgroup (sorry, no link) that right now, building your own WHS isn't a simple process due to drivers and such - I'm sure it can be done, however and maybe
Eezy could give us an idea as to how painful it is.
-Ray!!!
Live Gamertag: texasRay
If you have friends/family that work at Microsoft they can get it from the employee store for that amount, sorry for the confusion.
From their forums (which I linked before) most XP/2003 drivers work OK but if you've got some wierd card you may run into issues. The 'Power Pack' was just announced which will fix some issues (look for it around Easter me thinks) and add some new features.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
The public beta of the Power Pack has been released, the (rare) data corruption bug has been quashed so go bang on it already.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Every home server that I know of is Linux based. There is great cross compatibility between Linux and Windows applications for media server applications.
Have a look at Wired, Engadget, DL.TV, TekZilla for some tutorials.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I myself run a SAMBA box and Linux can offer a cheaper solution, but WHS does have some unique features. It backs up all user files and system files for complete restoration at a later date if needed pretty much automatically. It also gets rid of RAID configuration, alowing you to throw in disks and have the space allocated and paritied w/o having to futz with RAID cards/bios's or software. Finally, it allows remote access to all of your PCs from the WHS essentially an RDP gateway.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Wow that cool! Thanks for the pointer!
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