What optimal home backup setup ? NAS ?

[rmaciag]

Wish me luck ...

Thank you all for your kind wishes as they worked the trick.


All worked fairly smoothly.
I wish I had more spare time last weekend to configure WHS 2011.

Managed to extend OS partition to the full capacity of the SSD (of course after moving shared folders to other HDDs).

Started adding user a/cs and loading software to the clients.
Once it worked fine, other time not.

Connector (?) messed up something in .NET Framework 4 / Microsoft Update as since that moment Update kept reporting missing updates that so far I have installed several times. Then I rann MS's repair patches plus forced Framework installation to repair itself but the problem has not gone.
I have unregistered that client, will remove Connector, uninstall Framework and start over again.
On other client nothing like that happened. Hmmm ...

VIERA TV connects to the server over WiFi but the speed is just so slow (even when downloading photos, I guess 54Mbps is just not enough (how long should i tatke to transfer 3.5MB picture ?, OK there is some overhead here and there but ... it is roughly 28-30Mb to transfer, a couple of seconds ? there was not much other WiFi traffic, I guess, when I tested that but loading a pic was taking several seconds, more line 10s or more).
Need to revisit the router config to see if I can locate any bottleneck there.

RE: IPs I reserved them in DHCP so they are effective static for machines that are hardwired i.e. the server itself and one of the clients. I may do the same for the remaining clients.
I have not got MAC filtering setup in the router but I am considering it. It could be a pain if any our visitors want to connect - WAP2 is already painful but then adding their MAC's to the routers table can be slightly over the top precaution, I suppose.

EDIT:

Connector (?) messed up something in .NET Framework 4 / Microsoft Update as since that moment Update kept reporting missing updates that so far I have installed several times. Then I rann MS's repair patches plus forced Framework installation to repair itself but the problem has not gone.
I have unregistered that client, will remove Connector, uninstall Framework and start over again.
On other client nothing like that happened. Hmmm ...

Sorted ...

Removed client from WHS list
Uninstalled Connector software
Uninstalled .NET Framework 4 components
Rebooted
Checked MS Update to see if offending updates were gone
Installed .NET Framework 4 from Standalone
Ran MS Update
Rebooted
Ran MS Update to test - all OK
Now installed WHS Connector
Rebooted
Ran MS Update - all fine

[rmaciag]

A quick update ...

Having some "fun" with the Microserver ... time permitting ...

Still plenty to do but I already see some first results and I am happy with what I see.

Configured first client backups and they seem to be running smoothly (so far but I am aware of WHS11 limitations in this field).
They still need some attention and configuring going forward.
However that was my main aim of setting up the server.

I have not yet considered setting up the server backup.
The N40L has 3 logical drives.
Extended C: on SSD contains OS, Add-Ins and some server related stuff like documentation, driver downloads etc.
I am exploring possibility of putting there some Oracle dbs for development work.
Therefore I think I should consider backing up C: at least.
D: holds Backups and E: holds Shared storage.
Backing up backups ?
That could be overkill in my case as I so far do not consider our data "mission critical".
Then in Shared folders I hardly have anything right now.
Those will be mainly used for streaming so I will have duplicates of all this data already somewhere else
(unless I decide to overhaul storage arrangements completely but for that I would require agreement from my less-techy family members).

Next I set up Lights-Out and again it will require some further tweaking.
Of course, before installing the add-in I had to update drivers e.g. ATI GPU one from AMD.

I may need to review the router setup. Already reserved some IP addresses in DHCP (for all current WHS clients).

Have not used Shared Storage much except for some basic testing. Streaming over WiFi 2.4GHz seems to be slow at the moment (especially for media to AV equipment) so I will have to re-visit the network set up.
Considered the 2.4/5 range extender (posted a question on another sub-forum) but after some testing gave up on this idea. Now I am having a closer look at powerline devices ...

On my old XP client I am getting LANConfigSvc.exe exception error.
Found some relevant info here :
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/e...c-bef469fa5ef7

Search on the web for ServicesPipeTimeout with WHS 2011 and XP. Old, slow computers have problems with starting all the .Net 4.0 infrastructure services within the default 30sec timeout. You need to change the timeout value and then it should work.

and a potential solution :

1.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
3. In the right pane, locate the ServicesPipeTimeout entry.

Note If the ServicesPipeTimeout entry does not exist, you must create it. To do this, follow these steps:
a. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
b. Type ServicesPipeTimeout, and then press ENTER.

4. Right-click ServicesPipeTimeout, and then click Modify.
5. Click Decimal, type 60000, and then click OK.

This value represents the time in milliseconds before a service times out.
6. Restart the computer.

so I am going to mess around with the XP registry ...

Also aim to configure RAIDExpert from AMD for RAID monitoring.

Altogether some proper "good fun" ...

EDIT :

A quick update re:

On my old XP client I am getting LANConfigSvc.exe exception error.
Found some relevant info here :
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/e...c-bef469fa5ef7

and a potential solution :

so I am going to mess around with the XP registry ...

So I did add ServicesPipeTimeout entry to the XP registry and it seems that cured the problem ...