By on February 28th, 2011

Add-In: Home Server SMART 1.6.10.28 with USB Support Beta

The add-in Home server SMART allows you to monitor the health of your PATA/SATA/eSATA disks in your WHS. Most PATA, SATA and eSATA disks are supported. Support for USB, IEEE 1394 and most SAS implementations is more limited, but too can be monitored.

Home Server SMART Application Main Window

This latest beta release includes USB support so is now capable of reading S.M.A.R.T. data from many external USB enclosures. Not every USB enclosure will be supported but with your help a library of supported devices can be implemented.

Features, changes and bug fixes in this 1.6.10.28 BETA release:

  • New Features
    • Home Server SMART now runs as a Windows service, polling disks every 3 minutes by default. You can change how often to poll disks from as little as one minute to once every two hours.
    • Icon in physical disk selector displays a health overview icon next to each disk.
    • Added ability to ignore certain problems so they no longer raise alerts unless they get worse.
    • Added ability to purge "stale" disk data (disks no longer installed), and also reset various configuration settings.
    • Allow user to stop and start the Windows service.
    • Settings button that pulls up HSS settings directly.
    • Windows event logging.
    • Previous beta version added USB support.
  • Changes
    • Changed icons on menu bar buttons.
    • SMART data for each disk, along with other details, is stored in and read from the Registry for faster performance.
    • Refresh button triggers manual polling of the disks to get the latest SMART and health details.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a problem where disks attached Silicon Image SiI controllers displayed SMART attribute data but the thresholds were always zero.

More information is available from here.

Thanks to HomeServerLand for the heads up on this release.

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By on February 25th, 2011

Add-In: Advanced Admin Console 2011 Public Beta

As we announced earlier this week the new public beta of the Advanced Admin Console 2011 (AAC 2011) add-in for Windows Home Server 2011 is now available.

…AAC 2011 has been developed from scratch in order to fully harness the new features and capabilities available in the 2011 range of server operating systems from Microsoft.

Key Features:

AAC 2011 enables full Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer integration in the server Dashboard:

AAC 2011 Explorer Integration 1

AAC 2011 Explorer Integration 2

The Server Administration Tasks Panel provides a comprehensive list of administrative tools and resources. The goal is to make the Dashboard the central place of administration not only of your server but your entire network.

AAC 2011 Server Administration Tasks

You can even access other machines and devices on your network and connect to them via Remote Desktop Connection if they are running a supported operating system.

AAC 2011 Network Access

You can download the Advanced Admin Console 2011 Beta from here.

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By on February 24th, 2011

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 125

home_server_show_small

Episode 125 of The Home Server Show podcast is out with lots of Home Server news and views plus lots of add-in info this week, including an interview with the owner of Division-M the company behind Drive Bender.

You can find this weeks episode right here.

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By on February 24th, 2011

Add-In: CloudBerry Backup for WHS2011

CloudBerry Lab have just released CloudBerry Backup for WHS2011.

CloudBerry Backup for WHS2011

The add-in comes with all the features of CloudBerry Backup Desktop Edition and integrates seamlessly into the WHS Dashboard. It costs a onetime fee of $29.99 US per copy although existing WHS v1 customers can upgrade their add-in for free.

More details are available on CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server are available from here.

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By on February 24th, 2011

Asus TS mini Home Server Review

CDRLabs.com have a review of the Asus TS mini Home Server.

Their comprehensive 8 page review takes a good look at the unit both inside and out and takes a look at Asus’s 2 exclusive add-ins which come with the TS mini, Asus WebStorage and ASWM (ASUS System Web-based Management).

CDRLabs Asus TS mini Review

Benchmarks are also included for both read and write speeds, which you can find with all the details here.

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By on February 23rd, 2011

Add-In: Remote Notification 1.5.0.4

The add-in Remote Notification has had an update to add Twitter support.

Remote Notification AddTwitter Recipient

This update delivers functionality that allows your server to post Windows Home Server health notifications to a Twitter feed, either as status updates or as direct messages to another Twitter user. The Twitter recipient is highly customizable just like the other recipient types, allowing you to choose to receive errors and/or warnings, and to configure exclude filters for those notifications that you’d rather not see.

Remote Notification Twitter Updates

Changes i  version 1.5.0.4 include:

  • Add Twitter recipient type that supports both Twitter status updates as well as direct (private) messages
  • Explicitly set text color in HTML email reports so they render properly on OLED smart phones that invert colors to save battery power (thanks Jeff Z.)
  • Minor changes to improve error handling and logging

You can download this latest version from here, whilst documentation on how to add a Twitter recipient can be viewed here

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By on February 23rd, 2011

WHS Phone Demo Video

There is a YouTube video with a demo of a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 with the add-in WHS Phone.

The 5 minute video gives a good overview of the WHS Phone add-in.

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By on February 23rd, 2011

SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Available

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Server 2008 R2 (the under lying operating system behind WHS2011) and Windows 7 is available for download.

Windows 7 Logo 

The download will automatically come down from Windows Update if you have it enabled or if you prefer it is also available from the Microsoft Download Center  as separate downloads for either a X86 or X84 system or as a combined download at a massive 2GB ISO.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Logo

Various related documentation plus details of what hotfixes and security updates are included in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 are available from here.

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By on February 22nd, 2011

Drive Bender 1.0.1.6 Bug Fix

Drive Bender Logo

The early beta release of Drive Bender has had an update. Beta release 1.0.1.6  (2011-02-21) have the following bug fixes:

  • Creating a mount point using a drive letter now works correctly.
  • Installer now working correctly on x86 platforms.

This latest release which hopes to be Drive Extender’s replacement can be downloaded from here.

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By on February 22nd, 2011

Drive Bender Released for Windows Platform

As expected after a long day yesterday ironing out some last minute issues Division-M have released beta 1 of Drive Bender for all versions of Windows, XP and above.

Unfortunately the WHS add-in wasn’t released as the team ran out of time so it didn’t make this beta release but it still works great on WHS2011 by using the management console.

We will have more details shortly for you here at MSWHS.com, in the meantime more details are available from here.

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