TrustedReviews.com has a review of the Acer easyStore H340.
their 2 page review takes a good look at the Acer Home Server, which gets an impressive 8 out of 10 as an overall score.
You can read their review here.
The Home Server Show this week has all the latest Home Server news and the views from Dave and the trio.
You can listen to episode 80 here.
Some HP MediaSmart Server owners are still experiencing high CPU utilization when using Twonky Media even after installing the latest 3.0 Patch 2 software from HP which was supposed to fix the issue.
It seems that Twonky Media provided a fix to HP back in November 2009 in the form of update 5.1.2 of Twonky Media Server. There is always a delay between the time Twonky Media turn updates to HP and the time they deploy them in the actual field. We presumed HP distributed this fix in March as the 3.0 Patch 2 software, but it appears that the 3.0 Patch 2 software only included the Twonky Media Server 5.1.1 software, and not the 5.1.2 version as expected.
Hopefully HP will have version 5.1.2 of the Twonky Media Server available soon to existing MediaSmart Server owners.
Last month we showed you how to restart or shut down your Windows Home Server over remote desktop by using a keystroke combination. But there is another method using the faithful cmd.exe, which you can find here courtesy of ServeTheHome.com
"Turn Windows Home Server into a Small Business Server" is the title of an article on the Small Business Computing website.
IT consultant Ronald V. Pacchiano is surprised by the number of small business owners who do not use a server:
Most of them run their entire business from a handful of desktop and/or laptop computers. Why? They all say their business isn’t big enough to justify the expense of installing a small business Windows server.
Ronald continues:
..PCs configured in a peer-to-peer environment don’t provide much security or file management capability and can lead to questionable reliability or even data lost. A true network server does more than just provide centralized data storage. It also provides file and network security, increased reliability, remote access capabilities and even a unified backup solution.
Ronald recommends Windows Home Server and looks at some of the most important features that apply to small business owners.
This is a great read for any small/micro business owner, which you can read here.
Do you know how to restore your complete PC from a Windows Home Server backup?
If not do not fear as the How-To Geek has yet another step by step tutorial for you.
If your computer crashes or you get a virus infection that makes it unrecoverable, doing a clean install can be a hassle, let alone getting your data back. If you’re backing up your computers to Windows Home Server, you can completely restore them to the last successful backup.
You can find the article here.
March Madness has arrived at UK based Tranquil PC who are offering a FREE Xtreamer Media Player when you order any SQA-5H plus at least ONE extra HDD during the month of March.
The FREE Xtreamer is a tiny network media player that enables you to enjoy all of your movies, music, pictures and YouTube etc on your big screen
Although it is being offered FREE the Xtreamer is worth £99 and it is also being supplied with the XSC heat sink pre installed (does not include the WiFi option), which makes it an extremely good deal.
More details on the SQA-5H series, the Xtreamer and this deal are available here.
The add-in WHS Health has been updated, and is now at version 1.0.0.14
The add-in is a set of Web Pages formatted especially for viewing on modern mobile devices, where the pages read the data from the health.xml file that is generated on your Home Server beginning with Power Pack 3 and displays them in an easy to read format.
This latest version has the following key changes:
As well as these changes WHS Health is also localized into English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish based on the system or browser language settings.
You can download it from here.
As you are probably aware we have been running a competition to give away 11 copies of PerfectDisk 11 Windows Home Server Bundle which included a license for both WHS and a PC too.
We were giving away 2 copies per day (apart from Thursday, when we gave away 1 copy) with a prize fund total worth more than $549.
So without further ado here are the winners, as picked by the missus:
On Thursday March 4th we asked you to explain why you should defrag Windows Home Server and congrats to "diehard" who had this to say:
I have a large collection of Recorded TV shows, this is in the TB range, each file is very large. I Belive that streaming these recording to my 360 would be a lot painless if they were properly defragmented. PD11 could do this.
Friday the 5th’s question was to tell us about a new feature in Version 11 of PerfectDisk, and the 2 winners are:
Heaphus – While there are many, I’ll go with enhanced StealthPatrol. It already works great in the current version, but improved performance is always welcome.
Dave – Faster is always better, so that’s a big plus.
Day 3 of the competition and we asked you for your top 3 or 5 add-ins which you always install. Well done to both:
Adam – I just built my WHS, so only have 2 drives for now: 1 750 GB 7200 RPM, and a 1TB 5400 RPM. Looking to add some larger drives as prices drop. My favorite add-ins are Adminime, AutoExit, Avanced Admin Console, and lights-out.
Jeff Griesel – I have 1 120 GB drive for the system and 2 750 gb and 1 1 tb drive for most of the data. I will always install LightsOut, KeepVault, Disk Management, AutoExit, and PerfectDisk if I win it.
Day 4 and we wanted you to tell us your top 3 resources/sites you use to find out news, tips or tutorials on Windows Home Server. Well done to the following 2 people:
Jaffa – We Got Served, Home Server Land, Home Server Hacks
Chris Miller – MSWHS, UsingWindowsHomeServer, WeGotServed
Its day 5, and today’s question was to tell us the top 2 or 3 things you would like to see in Windows Home Server which are currently not in the product. Congratulations to both:
EWiZaRD – 1. Backup system partition 2. Easy migration if system drive to bigger disk 3. Integrated antivirus (Microsoft Security Essentials or something like th
WHS Fan – Sorry, I can’t keep it to 3. I have to go with counting down my top 5: 5) Integration with external network enabled cameras for home security / DVR / remote viewing support. 4) Backup of traveling or remote family PCs. 3) Automated backup of the server (shared folders and backup databases) to either external HD and/or the cloud. 2) Versioning of files in Shared folders. 1) Integration of Media Center features in the WHS (e.g. ability to add tuners directly to the box, Zune podcast downloads, etc.)
Finally for day 6 we said that if you were lucky enough to win a copy you would nearly save yourself $50. So the question was what would you spent that $50 on. We did like Blaine D’s answer: Well, first some sexy lingerie for my wife, and then something practical too. Nah, forget practical.
But the 2 winners are:
SteveI – I would use the $50 towards upgrading my wife’s laptop that she has soooo patiently waited for while I added goodies to my home server.
Samalama – I’d put the money towards buying decent paid for add-ins. Many are moving slowly from beta to paid for e.g. LightsOut, Disk Manager ertc.
Well done to all 11 of you, your email address’s have been passed on to Raxco Software who will be emailing you download and license information over the next few days. And if you didn’t win thanks for entering and remember you can for a limited period purchase PerfectDisk 11 Windows Home Server for a 20% discount – See here for details.
Here’s some bits and bobs regarding the HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo from around the World Wide Web
HP have started their TiVo advertising campaign:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/mediasmart-server/#/TivoExpander/
MediaSmart Home have an interview with HPs Charlie Shilling about the new MediaSmart Expander for TiVo add-in, which you can read here.
And its only just out, but MediaSmartServer.net has already found a hidden Easter Egg within the add-in:
