By on September 12th, 2014

Thecus Announce Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials

NAS producer Thecus (and surprisingly not Microsoft) has announced a NAS sporting the unknown until now, Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials.

“The Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials software allows small businesses to protect, centralize, organize, and access their data anywhere by using almost any device,” said Peter Han, Vice President of Worldwide OEM Marketing, Microsoft. “We believe offering our software on Thecus NAS devices will provide an excellent solution for those small businesses looking to protect their data while optimizing their resources with a hybrid, on premise, and cloud-connected offering.”

Looking like a cut down version of WS2012 R2 Essentials for the NAS market, Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials will be available from Thecus in a 2-bay W2000, a 4-bay W4000, and a 5-bay W5000.

Thecus Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials NAS

The hardware will be based on the Intel Atom platform, serviced by dual LAN ports and no less than 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and all featuring media connectivity (HDMI and VGA).

These will be the world’s first NAS running Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials and will be available from this October, when we should have more hardware info including pricing.

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By on September 11th, 2014

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 268

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Episode 268 of the Home Server Show is on pfSense vs. Sophos:

On this episode we’ll be comparing pfSense to Sophos with a little bit of Untangle mixed in as well.  Which one is the better router?  Ten TB hard drives, yes 10TB! News and Meetup 2014.

You can find episode 268 here.

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By on September 10th, 2014

A 10TB Hard Drive

Seagate announced last month its plans to ship a 8TB hard drive on a single 3.5" platter and now Western Digital have announced its 10TB HelioSeal hard drive.

WD10TB

WD are the first to ship a hermetically sealed, helium-filled HDD, which reduces internal friction and power use, runs about 5 degrees cooler than today’s 7,200 rpm drives. Sealing air out of the drive also keeps humidity and other contaminants from getting in. By using helium instead of air, Western Digital was able to stack 7 platters and drastically reduce power usage.

Also unlike Seagate’s 8 TB drive, which will ship next quarter, WD’s drive starts shipping now and is available from now.

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By on September 07th, 2014

Add-In: My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution v5.10 Pre Release 8

My Movies for Windows - Home and Essentials

Another pre release update for My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution.

This latest version (5.10 Pre Release 8) has the following change log:

  • Fix: Pre Release 7 contained a fix to avoid allowing multi-selection in the add titles dialog. This fixed ended up resulting in a new bug where the dialog would continue to prompt you to select a title when adding titles. The original fix have been reverted, and will be addressed again in a future release.

As always more info can be found here.

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By on September 04th, 2014

Add-In: My Movies for Windows – Home and Essentials v5.10 Pre Release 7

My Movies for Windows - Home and Essentials

The pre release version of My Movies for Windows – Home and Essentials has been updated.

Version 5.10 Pre Release 7 has the following change log:

  • Added: Movie Contribution Guide link added to help menu.
  • Change: Moved contribution comment prompt to before the file upload.
  • Change: Contribution encouragement for disc titles is no longer done through a popup message, but shown in the top of the profile in Collection Management instead. Just as it does with Movies and TV Series.
  • Fix: Collection numbers were sometimes shown on movies and TV series under disc titles.
  • Fix: Contribution of movie data failed due to an incorrect order of parameters.
  • Fix: Titles for movies were stored as empty strings and not null values, meaning titles with inherited data did not display the title in Windows Media Center.
  • Fix: Movie profiles displayed with "slim" view, even if "detailed" view was configured.
  • Fix: Playback from UNC paths could fail on Windows 7 Embedded, as it did not have a patch that Windows 7 SP1 had. This attempts to bring back some old code to correct that.
  • Fix: Non-disc based based TV Series were not displayed if you configured to show TV Series on disc as disc titles.
  • Fix: If you selected to show disc titles with movies as movie data, the not existing group selection on the movie was used and not the disc titles group.
  • Fix: Some disc connected movies was not downloaded after database restore.
  • Fix: Bug made it impossible to create manually added TV Series.
  • Fix: If a movie title was connected to multiple disc titles, it would say no playback options were available on playback.
  • Fix: Purchase price and value per amount was -1 when editing personal data for movies, when not set.
  • Fix: It was possible to make multi select in the search results when adding titles. This is now removed.
  • Fix: User selected backdrops could be overwritten if backdrop update from service was enabled.
  • Fix: Locally created movies weren’t removed from connected disc titles if the movie was deleted.
  • Fix: TV Series episodes were not correctly coupled to mapped disc titles in some scenarios.

More information on this pre release are available from here.

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By on September 03rd, 2014

Microsoft Re-Releases 3 Security Updates

Microsoft have re-released its 3 security updates that were withdrawn shortly after release in August for WS2012 R2.

The downloads are available from Windows Update or from the Download Centre:

Last week Microsoft also re-released MS14-045 when known issues came to light.

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By on September 02nd, 2014

Storage Related Hotfixes Post RTM for WS2012 R2 Essentials

TechNet have available an updated list of storage related Hotfixes post RTM for WS2012 R2, which naturally also includes WS2012 R2 Essentials.

Remember that these are not available in Windows Update and that a hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in the relevant article. You should not apply the hotfix if you have not seen the symptoms.

Storage Related Hotfixes Post RTM for WS2012 R2

A link to bookmark in case you encounter a storage related issue, which you can find here.

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By on September 01st, 2014

Add-In: StableBit Scanner v2.5.0.3048 Beta

StableBit Scanner Icon

The beta build of StableBit Scanner has been updated for WHS2011, WS2012 Essentials and WS2012 R2 Essentials users.

Here is the change log for version 2.5.0.3048:

  • Temperature equalization was sometimes considering disks that don’t properly report their temperature.
  • Suspended scans were sometimes incorrectly being restarted immediately after being suspended.
  • Cleaned up core scanning algorithm code.
  • Fixed crash on row rearrange.
  • Fixed an issue with the automatic temperature threshold’s Fahrenheit / Celsius conversion.
  • Tweaked performance / disk queue mini-charts. First point used to be 0 sometimes.
  • Implemented a workaround for a Telerik bug where some list items would show up as empty after adding / removing a disk.
  • Updated to the latest Telerik controls.
  • Fixed Office 2013 theme issues.
  • [Issue #5232] Blacklisted the Rockbox Internal Storage / SD Card Slot as per reported issues.

More info on StableBit Scanner can be found here.

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By on August 29th, 2014

Add-In: My Movies 5.10 Pre Release 5

My Movies for Windows - Home and Essentials

My Movies 5.10 Pre Release 5 is available for WHS2011 and Windows Server 2012 Essentials users with the following change log:

  • Added: Collection Numbers on TV Series
  • Added: Total movie count in bottom of Collection Management
  • Added: Toolbar button to store meta-data.
  • Added: Icon and text now asks user to contribute movie data if it is improved compared to the webservice.
  • Added: Option for adding a comment with each contribution to the service.
  • Change: The Pre Release now no longer requires 2500 points.
  • Change: Error message about reading sector x failed, now gives information that cause is likely dirty or scratched disc.
  • Fix: AnyDVD not running had a red error state, but it is with current implementation perfectly valid that it is not running until a disc is copied the first time after a reboot. Fix: AnyDVD is now restarted by the service user, after it has been updated, and the machine have been rebooted. Not doing this could leave the server in a state where it would not take in discs to copy.
  • Fix: Some of the new groups were mixed.
  • Fix: Flac file did not get meta-data added.
  • Fix: Not connected databases could result in an object reference exception in log.
  • Fix: IMDB import did not work on Home and Essentials Server
  • Fix: movie search on IMDB id could fail as a parameter was set wrong.
  • Fix: Folder monitoring had problems in various situations with read-only files and root file shares.
  • Fix: Several minor issues with collection synchronization that made it seem like there was always inconsistency between webservice and client.
  • Fix: Media information did not get stored if you selected a folder as path for movies.
  • Fix: If directories was selected as path for movies, playback would fail.
  • Fix: After creating a new database, you were asked if you wanted to synchronize, but you can’t because you are not allowed to upload an empty collection.
  • Fix: Contribute data icon was missing from the toolbar for movies and tv series

More information on this pre-release version is available from here.

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By on August 29th, 2014

The Home Server Podcast Episode 267

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Episode 267 of the Home Server Show podcast is up and this one is on servers and more…

John Zajdler is back to talk servers, Storage Spaces, Drive Extender, MyMovies, and a whole bunch of other Home Storage goodness.  We also put WHS 2011 and Essentials Server 2012 head to head!

You can catch episode 267 here.

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