MS Windows Home Server

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 173

Episode 173 of "The Home Server Show" podcast is up, and this week:

“What do we have here?  Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 8 Server Beta.  That’s what we have!  These two products were released for download a few hours before the recording of this show and we have both loaded up to go over as well as some news on Windows Home Server, Add-In’s, and a little Synology.”

You can get episode 173 from here.

Windows Server 8 Storage Technologies

There are lots of great features in Windows Server "8" Beta including the Drive Extender type "Storage Spaces", native thin provisioning giving the appearance of more physical space than is actually available to you and the new Resilient File System (ReFS) providing automated corruption scanning and repair.

And what is this to do with Windows Home Server you may ask? Well, as you may know Windows Home Server is built upon Microsoft’s server offering and the next version of WHS will be built upon the Windows Server 8 storage technology. So now is a good time to learn about its storage features and we have plenty of great resource material for you.

An overview on the beta storage technology in Windows Server "8" Beta
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/v8-storage-availability.aspx

Also available on this page is a 4 minute video on Storage spaces:

Next a 7 page Storage Datasheet:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/F/1/7F1A0EB5-3139-4EA6-AEB6-A6045EE64BD3/WS8%20Beta%20Storage%20Data%20Sheet.pdf

A 6 page High Availability with Windows Server “8” Beta datasheet:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/2/B/C2B6BEBB-B885-465C-9802-BE05ADAF5CB6/WS8%20Beta%20Storage%20and%20Availability%20Data%20Sheet.pdf

A 48 page Storage White Paper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/B/7/BB7FFB3E-3A3A-490F-B94E-91417C7C99F2/WS8%20Beta%20Storage%20White%20Paper.pdf

A 49 Storage and Availability White Paper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/7/6/676CCB32-8ECC-4793-A698-68D0AFD2F1A9/WS8%20Beta%20Storage%20and%20Availability%20White%20Paper.pdf

Understand and Troubleshoot Storage Spaces in Windows Server "8" Beta – This Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide (UTG) enables you to learn technical concepts, functionality, and troubleshooting methods for Storage Spaces in Windows Server “8” Beta:

This 84 page document is available from here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29002

Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows Server 8 Beta Debut

The day has finally arrived. Microsoft has released the Windows 8 consumer preview for download as well as Windows Server 8 Beta.

The new ReFS file system previews in Windows Server 8 Beta, which compliments the Drive Extender type technology called Storage Spaces which also appears in the consumer preview edition too.

So without further ado here are the links you need for both versions:

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/consumer-preview
Or if you prefer the ISO versions: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

Windows Server "8" Beta: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/v8-trial.aspx

WHS 2011 Computer Monitoring Error since UR2

I updated my install of Windows Home Server 2011 with Update Rollup 2 (UR2) and iv started to get a computer monitoring error popping up in my system tray and a warning alert in the Alert Viewer and it seems I am not the only one.

One user submitted a bug report for the issue and so far 30 users have stated that they can reproduce this bug. Community forums are reporting quite a few users are experiencing this issue too. So far Microsoft have responded with the following statement:

This alert is caused by an internal error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object", we are investigating the root cause, a quick workaround is you could "Ignore" this alert, do not "Delete".

If you are experiencing this error too may i suggest that you report it here so this issue can be resolved.