PC Pro have just reviewed the Acer easyStore H340, where it got 5 stars out of 6 as its overall rating.
Not the most energy-efficient server, but well specified and comparatively affordable
You can read their review here.
Brent Friedman has been busy updating WHS Mobile and has released details of what is to come in version 1.5.3.4, which should be available within a couple of weeks.
The three major changes are push notifications of server alerts/health, being able to create shares from the device and video streaming.
Alerts from push notification will show the title and body of the alert, whilst users will be able to create users and their shares, edit the share name and description and change user permissions on existing shares.
How do you backup the Windows Home Server data itself?
One option is to use an external hard drive and the How-To Geek takes us through the process of adding the external drive and how to remove it afterwards.
You can read their tutorial here.
CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Home Server has been updated to version 1.4 with the following new features:
As an online backup solution for WHS users, CloudBerry Backup for WHS features:
More information is available from here.
Redec Syslog is a simple syslog server add-in which enables Windows Home Server to become a syslog server for your network devices and receivers.
Syslog is a standard for forwarding log messages within an IP network and is typically used for computer system management and security auditing.
In my case I wanted my Linksys WRT54GL Router, which runs the open source Tomato software to display its logging information within the add-in.
To do this I enabled Logging from within my Routers web interface, inputting the default syslog port of 514 and the Home Server’s IP address. But remember it will be different for each software or hardware device which supports the syslog standard that you wish to configure.
The add-in interface is configured to display the entire syslog entry by default but it can be filtered to show just errors, warnings, information, or a combination of all three.
You can download the add-in (msi file) direct from this link.
Here’s a quote from from Martign Brant, a Dutch IT pro which I picked up the other week from Twitter. I had to post it as it nicely sums up a new new users experience with Home Server:
The Home Server Show has a post for Outlook users which shows you how to publish your Outlook calendars using the WebDAV capability of the Windows Home Server.
WebDAV is a protocol used to publish content to the IIS web server which is built into Home Server and also enables you to manage that content too.
This comprehensive which takes you step by step through the process is available to read here.
If you are building your own home server you might have a hard disk controller that isn’t supported by Windows Home Server. It could be a RAID device that you will use in drive only mode or it might be a unit that is quite new and the drivers are not built into the installation media. Also to get most SATA controllers working in AHCI mode rather than IDE Emulation you will need to install the drivers using this method.
First select to Boot from CD-ROM – if you have a blank hard disk then most systems will automatically boot from CD-ROM if not you will have to tell you computer to boot from a different source by pressing a certain key at boot time to bring up a Boot Menu. You will need to refer to your motherboard manual , keys such as F10, F2 might work – look carefully at the screen when your PC first switches on for clues as to what key to press. It is also possible to go into setup and select which source to boot from also.
Larry Lentz has a great story where his wife accidentally wiped the contents of an important Note she was keeping in Outlook, but since the Windows Home Server went in at Christmas, Larry was able to to recover Outlook’s OST file in a couple of minutes.
Larry takes us through the steps here.
The Computer Techno website has a brief history of Windows Home Server from its incarnation in late 2007 through the Power Packs to Windows Home Server v2. The post also takes a look at the various manufacturers providing WHS hardware.
You can read it here.
