Jon Honeyball over at PC Pro is talking about the new file system that Windows Home Server “Vail” will be using. He goes through the pros and cons to a file system that has always been controversial.
It is an interesting article where he shares his own experiences with WHS.
You can find it here.
Written by
Matthew Glover
How-to geek have just posted a walk through of how to setup Windows Home Server “Vail” in VM Player, this will be great for those that haven’t got a spare machine but want to checkout the new features in Vail.
They show you everything from downloading VM Player to fully adding connector software to your workstations and setting up the shares.
You can see the full walk though here.
Written by
Matthew Glover
Windows Home Server MVP Sam Wood has just released a new add-in that emails you about your backups. It will let you know when your backups have completed, failed or not run at all.
Example output:
CLIENT1 (192.168.1.22)
———————————
Last Good Backup: 31/07/2010 2:58:01 p.m.
Last Backup Status: Complete
Current Health Status: Normal
CLIENT2 (192.168.1.23)
———————————
Last Good Backup: 1/08/2010 4:31:20 a.m.
Last Backup Status: Complete
Current Health Status: Normal
CLIENT3 (192.168.1.24)
———————————
Last Good Backup: 1/08/2010 6:11:19 a.m.
Last Backup Status: Complete
Current Health Status: Normal
Backup is running
I haven’t had chance to test this yet but I will try and get a review done sometime this week.
You can find out more here.
Written by
Matthew Glover
We have reviewed external drive enclosures before, they are a really good way to increase capacity if you have no space left in your server. But the Icy Dock MB561 is a little different; why? Because it’s not ugly and it’s not finished in shiny gloss black paint, so is it a good enclosure or just a pretty box?
Right from the minute you hold the packaging, you know this isn’t going to be your typical PC peripheral. ICY DOCK know they have created an unusually attractive design, and have even cut a hole in the box to give you a glimpse of what awaits inside.
And what’s inside is a quad bay external enclosure finished off with a solid aluminum alloy outer case and white end panels, offering connection to your data via USB 2.0 or eSATA connections.
The aluminum outer casing makes this enclosure feel incredibly solid and strong, and the silver and white theme even extends to the white LED activity lights for each drive caddy. The ICY DOCK web page lists the MB561-S4-1 as having a ‘Mac Mini design concept’, which I can sort of see, but the reality of it is simply an attractive modern design that will look good partnering any server and not just with a Mac Mini.
Since its first release back in September 2009 Microsoft Security Essentials has given those who hadn’t got Anti-Virus or didn’t want to pay for Anti-Virus, the chance to protect themselves from the nasty’s of the internet, the program itself is quick to download, easy to install and very easy to use, it was never ground breaking or feature rich, but certainly filled a gap in the market, the free market.
Many people since its release have been calling for the program to have the ability to be able to be installed on Windows Home Server, after 10 months since first release Microsoft have announced version 2.0 due for release around the end of September 2010, this next version does now have the ability to be installed on Windows Home Server v1.0 and Windows Home Server Vail v2.0.
There has been much discussion on the web as to whether Microsoft will with draw support for Windows Home Server during the final release, that at the moment remains to be seen but this has certainly been a big talking point, Microsoft have sought to clarify the situation:
“Installing Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) Beta on Windows Home Server is not supported at this time. As MSE is in Beta, the Windows Home Server team is in the process of ensuring the use of MSE with Windows Home Server will meet customer expectations. We will release a statement of support once the validation is complete, when we are confident that this combination will meet customer expectations.”
We clearly know that this product can be installed on WHS, but officially for now at least it seems Microsoft will not confirming this until the WHS team has authorized the product for use on WHS, this doesn’t mean you can’t install until then, this just means you would do it without Microsoft’s backing and that means if anything goes wrong you’re on your own, my advice for now would be try it only in a test environment.
You can get the beta release by going to http://connect.microsoft.com/securityessentials where you will be able to download the program and see the release notes and install instructions.
Episode 100 of The Home Server Show podcast is available.
In celebration of episode 100 there is not a lot of news this week but instead the focus is on past episodes as well as plenty of FREE swag for the Home Server community.
You can catch up with the weeks goodness here.
The How-To Geek website gives you a screenshot tour of the Windows Home Server Vail install process.
They go through the actual installation process of the server and (of course) provide plenty of screenies to show you what the process looks like, which you can view here.
Cloudberry Labs have added Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) improvements to their CloudBerry online backup software.
RSS was introduced in version 1.5, but now in version 1.6 you can decide it you want it on the account or plan level with an an appropriate option added to the Compression and Encryption step.
This enables you to have several backup plans with different storage classes. For example, one with standard storage class for the data that under no account you can lose and another one with RRS storage class with the less important data.
More details on CloudBerry Backup for WHS is available from here.
Only a couple of days left to grab yourself a copy of HomeServerSync Beta 10 before the beta program closes – Interested? Then drop a line to newaccount@homeserversync.co.uk with "beta" as the subject line for a chance to play with a copy.
Online backup provider KeepVault today announced new features for small and medium business customers which will be coming on August 4th 2010.
The success of the ‘KeepVault Pro & Business’ (www.keepvaultpro.com) solution is its ground-up design targeting small to medium businesses (SMB); easy to setup with no special IT skills required, almost no maintenance thanks to its automatic operation, and it is significantly cheaper than the competition with prices starting at under $7/month. Most other SMB vendors try to re-purpose highly technical enterprise solutions, resulting in a poor user experience and high prices with hidden bandwidth and per seat fees.
Importantly we also listen to our customers and we continue to improve our service based on their feedback; which has helped to shape these new SMB features:
Enhanced Administrator Control & Reporting
Ensuring data is secure and that backups are functioning successfully is of particular importance to business owners, where any loss of data can jeopardize their company. The KeepVault Pro & Business software ‘admin lock feature’ prevents unauthorized changes to settings that control, amongst other things, the what, when, where of backup, and how much bandwidth each device uses. These controls are now enhanced with the new ‘web-based admin console’ which provides an overall backup status report as well as health reports for each device being protected. The administrator or account owner can review (per device) the date of the last backup, device status, and the amount currently protected. These reports are in addition to the existing automated ‘health’ notifications via SMS, email, and Twitter.
Access to data via the web is included at no additional cost for ‘Pro & Business’ users. The new admin console allows the administrator to control web access, greatly enhancing overall security. Web access control and backup ‘health’ reporting can be managed on a ‘sub user account’ basis for extra flexibility.
Sub User Accounts
Securing sensitive financial data, personnel or patient records, or product roadmaps is now a lot easier with the Sub Account feature. As the name suggests, account owners/administrators can now create sub accounts within their main account, easily letting them section-off data for different departments within the company and prevent unauthorized access. Best of all we’ve kept it really simple and easy to use, no complicated permissions rules to manage or keep in-sync. For example, a 100GB account could be subdivided with 20GB for the accounting department, 30GB for senior management, 50GB for marketing etc. As needs change, those storage amounts can be increased or decreased with the click of a button. Usage, status, web access can all be tracked by sub account.
