A welcome to new site MyHomeServer.com dedicated to following the home server revolution. I practically like their tutorial, Upgrading the RAM on your HP MediaSmart Server. Welcome aboard guys!
SyncToy is now available as version 2.0 Beta for download from the Microsoft Download Center. SyncToy allows you to synchronize folders between your home computers and your Windows Home Server by creating multiple folder pairs that you can keep synchronized.
I use it to synchronize my photos and music on my laptop and my Windows Home Server so that when I am out and about with my laptop I always have local copies available.
Other tools which have the same function include RoboCopy, included with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools, the Robocopy GUI (Make sure you checkbox the /Z in the Copy Options page) and SecondCopy, which runs as a service on WHS and can be used to backup your server to another unit.
More info available at the Windows Home Server Blog.
Good news for those of you that are using Windows Vista on client machines with Windows Home Server. The release candidate (RC) of Windows Vista SP1 is available via Microsoft Connect to beta testers, and to subscribers to TechNet and MDSN. In addition, the RC will be available to the public next week via Microsoft’s Download Center.
With the networking fixes included in Windows Vista SP1, transferring files over my network has improved tremendously. In its original release, Vista had some design problems with its networking stack, resulting in slow file transfers, especially when connecting to computers running Windows XP, Server 2003 and Windows Home Server. In Vista SP1, file transfer speeds have dramatically improved. I actually found it to be up to 300% faster, which is a huge improvement and accessing file shares on my Windows Home Server is also much more responsive too.
Two sites for you today that have information on how Windows Home Server has saved their day and some usability tips too. First up is WindowsObserver.Com with a real time test:
“Well, I woke up this morning to a dead computer. Actually it was not so much dead as it was locked up (screens were dark but on, computer fan was spinning). Or so I thought…”
The story continues here.
Next up is blog “Just your average techie” which details 4 points to keep in mind about using Home Server including:
“When manually restoring files from a Home Server backup, you may want to temporarily disable your anti-virus.”
We Got Served has the details that French manufacturer Omwave has released a WHS product named Omserver. The unit can even be rack mounted if required and is available in configurations from 1TB to 4TB. The units are available in France for €960 for the base configuration.
More details from We Got Served and the Omwave website. (Translated by Google language tools).
As discussed in our last post the book at Stay-At-Home Servers has now had pages added to it, and is now the complete 24 page version. The same as what will be available to buy at Amazon.
The Windows Server Solutions division of Redmond’s Microsoft is producing a 24-page children’s book, Mommy, Why Is There a Server in the House? that will be sold on Amazon.com.
While Microsoft plans to distribute the children’s book at events, it hopes that people will purchase a copy on Amazon.com. “It’s designed for the technical enthusiast,” said Steven VanRoekel, senior director, Windows Server Solutions Group, Microsoft. “We can’t just produce T-shirts anymore and hand them out at shows.”
The book is the same title, but a longer version of the one displayed on Stay-At-Home Servers which today added another video entitled Home Sweet Server where a reporter interviews a family about why they bought a home server by asking them increasingly inappropriate and insulting questions. At one point he says to the mother, “You think your family would need a home server if you were, say, a better mother?”
Eric Maurer has released a new version of the add-in Client Info which enables you to see hardware information about your home server and all client computers; including processor, memory, IP address, drive size, drive temp, and if a drive SMART failure is predicted.
Changes to this new version 1.0.2:
More information and the download are available from here.
If you are like me and enjoy testing the different features of Windows Home Server and all the different add-ins available for it then it is a good idea to set up another copy of WHS in a testing environment.
One way of doing this is within a virtual machine that allows you to install a complete copy plus applications into a virtual (emulated) computer, complete with BIOS and hardware configuration options.
This way you can create a custom test environment that can be rebuilt at any time, and can easily be restored to previous states without going through a full installation of Home Server.
For full details on how to accomplice this the website I Hate Linux has the walk through using the free Microsoft Virtual PC software.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7MbDBYlqDY]
A podcaster has posted what he thinks should be included in WHS. The 8 minute video can be viewed from above or from here with details on what he thinks are the potentially missed opportunity with Microsoft’s Windows Home Server product.
