Welcome to my little corner here on MyDigitalEntertainer. In this space you will find my views, reviews, news, tips, tricks and take on what I find interesting on the Internet and in the world. Hopefully you find it entertaining to read and maybe learn a few things in the process (and of course, you can always correct me if I'm wrong).

So, on to the first "Bits in the Bucket".....

Windows Home Server - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

Microsoft has release a Server Operating System aimed at the home user called (drum roll please) Windows Home Server (WHS). WHS is a Server OS based on Microsoft's stable Windows Server 2003 and has been reworked to make it easy for the home user to configure and use through a simple user interface.

WHS Client Console

It enables homes with a single or multiple pcs to have a central repository for all the important data and digital media they have been collecting and makes it available to all pcs on their network. It includes the ability to backup Windows based pcs (clients) in case of a hard drive failure or a virus infection and restore lost files or even a full restore of a pc. When multiple machines with the same version of Windows is backed up, WHS only store one copy of the Operating System for all machines with that version. So if you have four pcs with Windows XP Pro, only one copy is stored on the server and is used when restoring which cuts down the amount of space used on the server.

It has remote access capabilities to control your pc from anywhere you have Internet access and Internet Explorer 7. It also provides a personalized Web address for sharing your photos and home videos with anyone you allow to access it. This makes it easy for Grandma to see those pictures of Billy's birthday party without having to use a 3rd party website. With a little configuration of your firewall, you will have a secure webpage that you can access to or grant access to, from the Internet. It is also expandable by simply adding another hard drive to it. It is currently available on units called an appliance which is just a server without a keyboard/mouse (headless) and is configured and managed via a client interface loaded on a pc on your network. Units are currently available from several manufacturers including:

Hewlett Packard     

Fujitsu                  

MAXDATA              

Simply purchase a unit, power it on, install the client software on your pc and configure your server. You control who has access to what data and which machines get backed up. It is also available as OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) for system builders from websites like Newegg.com and many others. If purchased as OEM, you can use an old pc as your WHS. The only thing is since you purchased just the OEM software, then you are the system builder so "you" are your support. If purchased on an appliance, like from HP, then you could call HP if you have any issues during your warranty period for support. You can call Microsoft but you will be charged for the support call.

The Bad

WHS has the ability to allow you to remotely connect and control your Windows based pc at home from anywhere in the world (as long as you have Internet access and IE7). The only problem is it doesn't support all versions of Windows. The versions supported are:

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Windows XP Tablet Edition with SP2

Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Enterprise

Notice that even though it is called Windows "Home" Server, it doesn't support the "Home" versions of Windows XP or Vista. This is a very big mistake in my eyes as most home users run the Home Editions of Windows. Microsoft hopefully changes their mind about this and fixes WHS with a patch to allow connections to these versions. Another issue is backups of the 64bit(X64) versions of XP and Vista are not supported as of this writing. They plan on releasing Power Pack 1 which will add this capability in the very near future.

The Ugly

WHS includes a replication system that duplicates your data on multiple drives called "Drive Extender" (DE). DE allows for storage expansion by simply plugging in a supported drive (USB 2.0, SATA, Firewire, etc). You can mix any interface and capacity and DE does the rest. DE uses a file-base replication system that provides multiple disk redundancy, meaning it stores a copy of your file on 2 drives. If you lose a drive you don't lose your file as it is also stored on another disk. The downfall is it cuts your storage in halve, so a 200Mb file actually takes up 400Mb of space. Not really an issue if you have lots of storage.

And all this isn't ugly at all, it's actually very good. Why would I put this under "The Ugly" you ask? Because there is currently a very ugly corruption bug that causes files to become corrupted in a multiple drive system when accessed by certain application. Single drive systems are not affected from what I have read about the bug. Any application that accesses the file and changes its properties can cause the files to become corrupted. Microsoft has a list of applications in a Knowledge Base article (KB#946676) that cause corruption which includes (but is not limited to):

Windows Vista Photo Gallery 
Windows Live Photo Gallery 
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 
Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 
Microsoft Money 2007 
SyncToy 2.0 Beta 
Intuit QuickBooks
uTorrent

Microsoft currently is testing a fix for this issue and states the fix will be available sometime in June 2008. This is a major bug that should have been addressed before they ever released this software to any Manufacturer (OEM). Hopefully they resolve this issue quickly because it puts users at risk.

The Good, the Good and the Good

If Microsoft fixes the corruption bug and also allows remote access to all versions of Windows, then everything will fall under "The Good" and I can rename the sections. Until then, I guess it can be called "The Spaghetti OS".....

Also see my article Using Windows Home Server with Netgear's EVA8000

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