Blog groovyPost takes us back to basics and explains how to add a Windows 7 client PC to version 1 of Windows Home Server.
From where to download the connector software from to the completed installation this guide takes us through the entire setup process for connecting a Windows 7 PC to WHS (v1).
You can find it here.
PC Doc on his blog "The Doc’s World" has an article on using Air Video to stream content from your Home server.
In his article the PC Doc explains how to setup the application on a iPhone, iPad or iTouch and explains how to install and setup the software on Windows Home Server too.
Air Video is an application for iPhone/iPad/iTouch that works extremely well for streaming directly from a local computer/server, and stream to your portable device. The PC/MAC is used for real-time transcoding and basically pulls content from your computer/server shares and streams it across your house as well as through the broadband connection. If the file is in an MP4 format, it will stream natively without the need to convert the format, although based on your network speed, still may transcode to lower the resolution. If however you have an MKV file for example, it will transcode the format real time as it streams it to you over your network or the internet.
You can read PC Doc’s full article here.
Covecube the makers of DrivePool have a great discussion in their forums on Microsoft’s pooling solution in Windows 8, Storage Spaces vs DrivePool.
Alex from DrivePool posted the following remarks:
I knew about storage spaces in Win 8 for a while, but Microsoft’s blog post explained a lot.
Obviously, this is a very bad thing for DrivePool. When Microsoft enters a market they dominate because of their sheer size. Plus, it seems like they’ve really built up an extensive system, so they seem serious about it.
I guess I’ll make some quick remarks:
- MS’s solution is soft-RAID like and not file based. A core requirement for DrivePool has always been to store your files in plain NTFS format for easy recovery. Black box RAID like solutions are only readable as long as the software functions properly.
- MS’s solution recovers from multiple drive failures. DrivePool can store more than two copies of a file without a problem. This has always been in the architecture. It’s not exposed in the UI now.
- MS has "parity" redundancy. An interesting idea. Need more information on exactly what this means, how it works, and what the impact is.
- MS can swap drives to a different system, background reconstruction of duplicated parts. DrivePool M4 does this. In addition, your files are stores as standard NTFS files so they are readable on any Windows system for emergency recovery purposes.
- MS can "provision" extra free space. In other words, from what I understand, you will see more free space available than there actually is on the pool, allowing you to "reserve" space for future expansion. I see this as a disadvantage and a completely unnecessary complication.
DrivePool always shows you the actual free space which can dynamically increase / decrease as you add and remove drives from the pool. This is probably a consequence of using a RAID-like system.- MS has "stand-by" disks. Again, very RAID-like. Need more information on exactly how this works. DrivePool has no stand-by disks. I guess a similar feature in DrivePool would need to mark a disk as suspect and have the balancer move all the files off it.
- To add a disk to MS’s system, the disk needs to be provisioned in some form and must be wiped. DrivePool doesn’t erase / format disks when it adds them. You can even store non-pooled data on a pooled disk.
I’m sure there are advantages / disadvantages on both sides. MS’s solution does seem like a very competent and compelling implementation.
Where does this leave DrivePool? What about a Windows 8 port?
DrivePool M4 and eventually 1.0 will get released for WHS 2011 (and similar) in Q1 2012. This will not change.
I’m not sure that there is a need for a port to Win 8 since pooling functionality is essentially built-in. Also, a port to older OSes doesn’t make sense as they’re going out the door.
The full thread with all comments can be found here.
On their Building Windows 8 blog Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky and Rajeev Nagar, a group program manager on the Storage and File System team revealed details of Storage Spaces a feature in Windows 8 which seems like Drive Extender (DE) implemented in a different way or reincarnated so to speak.
Many of us have been using Windows Home Server Drive Extender and have been hoping for an approach architected more closely as part of NTFS and integrated with Windows more directly. In building the Windows 8 storage improvements, we set out to do just that and developed Storage Spaces…
…some of us have used (or are still using), the Windows Home Server Drive Extender technology which was deprecated. Storage Spaces is not intended to be a feature-by-feature replacement for that specialized solution, but it does deliver on many of its core requirements.
So for those of you not in the know, this is what Storage Spaces will allow:
Data stored in the pool can also be automatically protected through mirroring across two or more disks as well as a parity attribute which adds redundancy information to your data, thereby enabling automatic data reconstruction in the event of physical disk failure.
A new feature which was not available in DE is thin provisioning, which allows the creation of a pool that is larger than the physical storage available within the pool, a process of having just "the exact required amount" of server space at the time it is required. For example allowing previously allocated physical capacity to be reclaimed safely whenever files are deleted.
As what does this mean for the future of Windows Home Server now that its previously implemented DE technology will now be made available in Microsoft’s next operating System? Who knows, but in the meantime I recommend you head over to the Building Windows 8 blog and have a read of this comprehensive post which explains a lot more details on the Storage Spaces technology and also contains a 21 item FAQ – Recommended reading for the Windows Home Server enthusiast!
The Serviio for Windows Home Server add-in has just had an update
The add-in which enables you to adjust the settings for the Serviio UPnP/DLNA media server from within the dashboard/console is now at version 0.6.1.0:
Okay, back to beta here. This is a long-in-coming release for the new Serviio 0.6.x platform that supports streaming web/rss/live-stream media in addition to locally stored media. Also (and this is the big news on the add-in side), this release includes a new add-in for Windows Home Server 2011. I’ve tested these not nearly enough to be satisfied, but everything works on my side. Give them a go and please let me know if any issues in the issue tracker.
This latest release can be downloaded from here.
The weeks storage news and CES 2012 preview is up in episode 168 of The Home Server Show podcast with Dave, Jim and John.
All this plus the weeks Home Server news which you can find here.
Sean Daniel is looking at more ways to take advantage of his low-powered Home Server to do more for him as an *always* on device. And over the holiday period had to print boarding passes prior to leaving for the airport:
It was frustrating to have to take out the laptop when the iPad is just right there. But without a compatible AirPrint printer, you can’t print from the iPad…Or can’t you?
By using a Windows (or Mac OS) application that installs on your computer that shares almost any printer connected to the computer, to the AirPrint service, Sean was able to get this setup.
In his write up Sean goes through the setup procedure including opening a port on your router and enabling Multicast which you can read all about here.
Newegg are now offering free 8GB RAM upgrade with the HP ProLiant N40L MicroServer.
The N40L comes with a 250GB SATA hard drive, which is ideal for installing the operating system on and with free shipping included the $319.99 asking price is a good deal
HP ProLiant N40L Ultra Micro Tower Server System AMD Turion II Neo N40L
Episode 72 of the BYOB podcast has just been uploaded:
"2011 Tech Faves, Tim’s server woes, Mike’s ESXi update, Michael’s Crossfire, AMD 7970 specs released, facebook client, AppRap"
For all Build Your Own Box enthusiasts, you can catch episode 72 here.
The ISO Mounter add-in for WHS V1 and WHS 2011 has been updated to version 1.20
The add-in allows you to mount ISO files (DVD and CD images) stored on your home server so they can be viewed directly through your servers folder share on all of your PC’s and laptops.
Here are the release notes for this release:
New Features:
Enhancements:
Installation tips for WHS/SBS 2011:
Installation tips for WHS V1:
This update is free for customers who have already purchased a license and can be downloaded directly from the add-in within the WHS Dashboard by simply clicking the "Check for software update" link.
New users can purchase a copy for $14.99 from here.
