Windows Home Server

[[GSV]Trig]

What plugin's are people using?

Just got mine up and running but as ever have a need to faff with it, add-ins seems a good place to start

[MadduckUK]

Just got mine up and running but as ever have a need to faff with it

well best to do it now before you start putting your stuff on it

utorrent plugin
home server disk management plugin
download manager plugin
webfolders4whs (dont use this, its got issues)
perfectdisk for whs (not really a plugin but has a tab in the colsole so meh)
TVersity (also not a plugin, but ace and free)

[Singh400]

• uTorrent via WebUI
• SABnzbd+ (tab on console)
• WHS Disk Management (great little thing)

And thats about it. Will add more once I get a HTPC up and running.

Been trying to find something that will execute commands locally via the console. So if I want the server to do the work of unzipping a multi-rar file/folder setup and then just install from the server to desktop.

Might need to get a drive balancing app though. One of my drives is 85% full while the other one is currently taking a break at 20%. Lazy sammy.

[asposium]

on mine i have

lights out
disk management

would like an ftp plugin, but haven't seen one yet

i remote login for O&O defrag, but generally leave WHS to it.

[Shooty*]

Can I just resurrect this thread? yeah? Great, thanks.

I've got a D-Link DNS323 with 2x 1tb drives in it at the moment, on JBOD.

I'm probably about to fill it

Was thinking about getting 2x 2tb drives, but the core problem is that whatever I do, with the DNS323, much as I love it, I'm limited to 2 hard drives.

so I was thinking of building a server, on the basis that I would be able to add several hard drives, get some RAID backup going (I've never done raid before), etc.

I know nothing about servers, and as you lot seem to have built/ bought some, wondered if you could give me some pointers.

Specifically: Most of the mITX boards I've seen only have 2 or 3 SATA connectors on board. Ideally, I'd probably be looking at 6 - 8 to have 3 or 4 spanning, and the other 3 or 4 mirroring. I've seen that you can get PCI to SATA cards, but will they "talk" to the onboard SATA headers to enable either spanning or mirroring with the mobo connected HDDs? (forgive me, I've never learnt which is RAID1, 2, 0, 5 or what have you).

I'm also running through a home plug network, which allows average speeds of 6meg a second transfer to and from the DNS323. If I plug the DVS323 directly into my router (O2 standard box) I get about 23meg a second. We might be about to move house, and I would get my house rewired to include PROPER network cables between the rooms, but what kind of hardware would I be looking at to get decent speeds between the computers/ server (a switch? Gigabit gaming router?) EDIT: or something like this http://www.pcuniverse.com/NETGEAR-Pr...NA/pd/p1243546
... can you plug your router with built in modem into this to distribute the internet connection to computer plugged into the switch?

Um... think that was about it. Hope the questions make sense. I feel completely out of sync with recent advances in tech, despite making an HTPC 3 months ago!

Mini-itx with FreeNAS?

[peterb]

Just built a mini-ITXsystem using a jetway board (mainly because it was fanless) The board itself only has two SATA connectors (but loads of USB) but I used a separate hardware RAID card - with a couple of 2.5" drives. 2.5" drive capacity is the limiting factor, but you could add a board with Esata and have external drives that way, or use the USB connetors.

Only drawback is that the case I used didn't have a CD/DVD writer slot - so I built it up out of the case and connected a CD Rom to it to load the OS, then duisconnected it, built it into the case and did any other update over the net.

Works a treat!

I use Fedora 10, but any linux distro would do the job - Mint, Ubuntu, Knoppix etc - whatever you are familiar with. Whole thing draws about 35 watts.

(But we have taken this Off-Topic as the original subject was Windows home server )

[TheAnimus]

Only drawback is that the case I used didn't have a CD/DVD writer slot - so I built it up out of the case and connected a CD Rom to it to load the OS, then duisconnected it, built it into the case and did any other update over the net.

Works a treat!

I use Fedora 10, but any linux distro would do the job - Mint, Ubuntu, Knoppix etc - whatever you are familiar with. Whole thing draws about 35 watts.

This is where WHS (Windows Home Server) comes in to its own.

Its designed for just this type of thing, you don't want an optical drive on the server, you won't be touching it. Instead you boot from USB. Once that has been set in the BIOS you don't need a keyboard, monitor or anything near it.

Plug in the USB stick, it will start a boot loader, put the CD in one of your PCs on the LAN and presto, install starts.

WHS is totally different to 'regular' server ideas. Its by no means high performance in the conventional sense (your IO and MB/sec are much less) but it has that it just fricken works factor, for everything. Searching for a file right now, say i wanted all revisions of my CV, i would just hit the windows key start typing CV the indexing service is lightningly fast, accross some 4TB of space i get results in less than a second.

Not to mention the backups of each pc, the one LED of my network health status indicators, the media serving been truely phenominal.................................

But anyway, get a mini-itx board, put in a RAID controller, its all software based dynamic disk style, so you can plug them in via USB if you wanted too!

[peterb]

The case hasa built in CF reader that is connected as an IDE drive (ideal for monowall (!) - especially as the mobo I used has dual network interfaces) I just need to put an iso on a CF as boot device, but as you say, once it is set up, there is no need for an optical drive - it was just the most expedient way of getting it set up at the time.

[Shooty*]

Plug in the USB stick, it will start a boot loader, put the CD in one of your PCs on the LAN and presto, install starts.

Would I have to set a static IP for the server if I've got DHCP (?) disabled? All of my machines are on static LAN IPs.

Am thinking of "liberating" my parent's old, old HP socket A machine to put windows server on...

but it's only got IDE...

Curses....

UNLESS I get a SATA PCI Controller to use in that... that would work, right?

Or maybe TWO PCI sata controllers... Wow... then I could sell the DNS323... and buy MORE hard drives...

Oh, man, someone please tell me that would work... And, um.... someone please recommend a decent, cheap-ish PCI sata controller.

[scaryjim]

You could buy 2 sata PCI cards, but you couldn't hardware raid across the 2 cards - you'd have to set up several RAID arrays. You could, however, buy 2 cards, set up 2 hardware mirrors on the cards, then software stripe them in Windows / linux (and presumably WHS?) - you can add as many storage drives as you like that way. That might well be making best use of the existing hardware available to you.

I don't really see the point of building a new home server on mITX - if you're building a new box use a full ATX board which will have loads of SATA connectors and put it in a cupboard somewhere - it's a server, it doesn't need to be small / pretty

[peterb]

<---snip

I don't really see the point of building a new home server on mITX - if you're building a new box use a full ATX board which will have loads of SATA connectors and put it in a cupboard somewhere - it's a server, it doesn't need to be small / pretty

True, but for home use low power would be an advantage, especially if it is on 24x7. Although there are some lower power atx (or mu atx) boards, itx tends to be lower still. There are advantages in both form factors, as always it comes down to specific requirements and of course, budget!

[Shooty*]

You could buy 2 sata PCI cards, but you couldn't hardware raid across the 2 cards - you'd have to set up several RAID arrays. You could, however, buy 2 cards, set up 2 hardware mirrors on the cards, then software stripe them in Windows / linux

I'm sorry, you lost me at "You".

[CrazyMonkey]

On mine (running for over a year now)

utorrent plugin
home server disk management plugin
Orbit (not a plugin, but i use it to grab downloads from my browser on normal pc and download via the server)
LightOut
And Advanced Console.

[Shooty*]

My parent's old machine is Dell with a Celeron at 2.2ghz (I think, from memory). It was running XP at glacial speeds, seriously unusable. Seems to run WHS fine. File transfer between IDE drives is strangely slow. However, shows up nicely on the network... I'm liking it. So far.

Think I'm going to go the "sata controller in PCI" and gigabit ethanet connection route... cheaper than building my own from scratch. The CPU is passively cooled, kind of, in that it's got a cowl connecting the case van to the top of the CPU cooler. Runs silent, which I've always liked about dells.

Serious limiting factor is that there are sod all hard drive bays. Like, 1, so I'm looking at some kind of internal cage. Scan don't seem to ahve any.

And I'll need to get a new PSU, but fortunately, the colour coding indicates that this is NOT one of the dell proprietory PSUs, so that should be OK.