not that i dislike raid (its in constant use in business environments where i work), but at home i do like drive extender, especially for the following reasons, and have helped other people setup whs for these reasons as well: -file based replication: if a disk dies, and i need immediate access to data, i can use the other disk(s) on other systems and have instant access to duplicated files/folders. -can use any combination of disks, and can add more disks in the future to increase the storage. i find raid very limiting for this in home use, having to get same disks/type and be limited at that time to a specific raid setup
eshield I am new to windows server really get difficult to install it with 2 NIC. How can you install get so many server roles to work in 1 PC. Are you make use of the hyper-v and install several VMs on it. What are the roles installed in each VM. Would it be better for installing as many roles in 1 VM instead of different VM. Thanks a lot!
Any guru worth his salt knows that software raid is the way to go. What if LSI Logic goes out of business? Or if they changed their drive encoding schemes and your adapter dies? S.O.L.!
If LSI dies, by then this server will be in a skip, so no worries here Servers last 3 years before recycled in business sebus
2008 r2 is the superior of the two, whs and 2008 server are way too slow and heavy. In a way i wished that vista and 2008 server never happened as i find them both a chore. good luck with that choice of yours
Easy choice!!! This is one of the most simple questions I've seen in the forum yet. Simply put, Windows Server 2008 R2 is the convincing winner. Not only are there more possibilities and expandability with R2, since it's Microsoft's flagship server OS, support will be better and issues will be more aggresively fixed. The Home Server product on the other hand is not going to do very well in my opinion and Microsoft will eventually lose focus on it leaving you the user in the dark. The only bright side to WHS is the simplified setup for newbies who want a server along with the license price, but I would still opt to crack a book and go the R2 route. Trust me on this one, go R2 and disable unneeded features. I see no benefit to purchasing the Home Server product in any way.
I have a WHS License. I purchased it believing I would get some "server features" for media/file sharing on my network. Spent a couple of months on and off trying to get the s**t working as I wanted. There were several issues: - Some of my comps used x64 OS. - Comp backup never worked well or reliably - I never found a decent usage for the console or for the Features included in WHS, most gave erorrs or were hard to configure and never worked on all computers. etc... I am currently a decently happy 2008 R2 Standard user. All my file shares work, all my media shares pumps with little or no lag, I have successfully replaced all "My Documents" from local to roaming profiles (a bit tricky to keep track of saved games though), currently planning an upgrade to DC for AD user and Computer management and foresee no mayor problems once I figure out the net topology correctly. So, WHS license for sale. Anyone?
I still do not believe that people use Win servers for media/file sharing As much as it can do the job, is it worth (if not anything else then at least the idea of "being green") the money, when you can have a perfect low power consumption NAS drive from Synlogy, Netgear, Qnap sebus
Well in my case I need to learn and practice Server Features and Roles for work. My setup is clients <-> server <-> nas. As in my clients connect to a share on server and the server runs a backup to the nas. So I have a low power consumption on the nas, which is 5 1TB drives in RAID5...
I have been using WHS for quite some time and with the introduction of WHS "vail". I have been considering a change to either 2008 R2 or Vail but have a couple questions. Can you set 2008 R2 to do daily back-ups and restore from these back-ups like in WHS? With Vail being based on 2008 R2 would that be the "simplest" route? I have multile PC's (5) being backed up by my current WHS system and have never had an issue. I like to tinker and like to have the latest and greatest if for nothing more than a basic understanding of the tech trends. Any suggestions or helpful info would be appreciated.
Show me a rackmountable NAS enclosure with 8 or more 3.5" bays for under $100. It simply doesn't exist. I'm about to do a hardware refresh and get six 2TB HDDs and upgrade from WHS to 2008 R2. I'm going to use six HDDs for now, but I plan on stepping it up to eight later on. I'll get a new chassis and use my old chassis as a remote rackmounted HTPC. Many of us (people in the market for specialized mass data storage solutions at home) have multiple motherboards, processors, power supplies, memory, etc laying around doing nothing. We might as well put them to work.
It is a question of being green, I could use (spare) Dell PowerEdge 2950 with dual power supply, two dual Xeons & 16 Gb RAM, with space for 8 drives, but wouldn't it be pointless for home use? sebus
Recycling Dell Servers Some time has passed since you made this post. There are some fully loaded Dell 2850 and 2950 servers on Ebay for less than $200. Recycling used servers sounds like a green idea to me. Today, the Microsoft Server 2008-R2 OS is still going strong. The question was posed something to the effect that the need for home servers is kind of weak except as an exercise in learning to use technology. For some of us understanding and acquiring the skills to configure and use servers is good enough. Recently, we noticed that we had of 500 DVD's, or so, on our shelves. It became apparent that it would be useful to put them on a home server in order to allow everyone in the household to play any video anytime. Some family members have laptops, making it impractical to place a copy of the ever expanding collection on each laptop. This application seems to be best suited for a home server. Hackers have caused many of us to have increasing concerns about protecting our personal data. Every year when I prepare my income tax filing using Turbo Tax, I wonder if there might be a better way of protecting my data. MS Server 2008-R2 might be a good way to selectively protect sensitive directories from unwanted intruders yet allow easy access by selected individuals. I wonder if this would be adequate protection from hackers.