By on October 19th, 2012

WhsDbDataDump v2.0.0.7 BETA

Covecube the company behind StableBit DrivePool have released WhsDbDataDump, a standalone tool to extract VHDs from the client backups database in WHS 2011:

This tool is designed to extract complete mountable disk images (VHD) from the Windows Home Server 2011 Client Computer Backups database of backups. It is self contained and has no external dependencies on the Windows Home Server 2011. It features a standalone backup database parser and a GPT / VHD disk writer.

WhsDbDataDump v2.0.0.7 BETA

This tool can be used for data recovery or backup extraction / migration and is free for personal or business use.

More information on this tool is available from here.

Other Software • Windows Home Server
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By on October 18th, 2012

CloudBerry Backup for WHS v3.0.1

CloudBerry Backup for WHS has been updated to version 3.0.1

This latest release for WHS v1 and 2011, SBS 2011 Essentials and Windows Server 2012 Essentials includes some more advanced features for Amazon Glacier such as data encryption, compression and restore directly from within the CloudBerry Backup interface.

CloudBerry Backup Glacier Restore

Amazon Glacier, a secure, reliable and low cost storage service designed for data archiving and backup. In order to keep costs low, Amazon Glacier is optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and for which retrieval times of several hours are suitable. With Amazon Glacier, you can reliably store large or small amounts of data for as little as $0.01 per gigabyte per month.

More details are available from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on October 18th, 2012

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 202

home_server_show_small

Episode 202 of "The Home Server Show" podcast is up, and this week:

“Tim Barrett joins us to talk more Essentials, SBS, and what the death of Windows Home Server means to the SBS side of the business.  Also, what to do with Essentials when faced with no Exchange server.  Cloud or no?  Is it a bitter pill to swallow?  A little bit of Surface and Meetup 2012 is coming your way!”

You can grab the audio from here or watch the video below:

News • Windows Home Server
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By on October 17th, 2012

Configure PC Backups on WS2012 Essentials

The Supersite For Windows takes us through the options available when configuring PC backups on WS 2012 Essentials.

“When you connect a PC to Windows Server 2012 by installing the Connector software, a few different things happen behind the scenes. Key among these is configuring centralized backup for the PC, and while you can’t change how this works during the connection, you can and should do so after the fact through the Dashboard.”

disk-layout2

You can find the article here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on October 17th, 2012

Using CloudBerry Backup with Amazon Glacier

If you are a CloudBerry Backup user and thinking of using Amazon Glacier with it, then the guys at CloudBerry Lab has written up a great tutorial for you.

The guide takes you through the sign-up process for the super cheap Amazon Glacier archival service and setting it up with CloudBerry Backup. Access Identifiers are also covered, as is creating a vault.

CloudBerry Backup - Amazon Glacier Account Setup

You can read their guide here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on October 16th, 2012

Add-In: Drive Bender v1.3.7.9 BETA

Drive Bender Logo

Version 1.3.7.9 BETA of Drive Bender has been released with some minor fixes from the previous beta:

  • Bug fix: The settings option is missing in the 1378 build.
  • Bug fix: When using the "drive swap feature" the newly added drive retained its drive letter.
  • Update: A number of changes to how mount points are mounted and unmounted.
  • Bug fix: When checking the "format drive" option, the designated warning messages was not appearing.
  • Bug fix: A number of installer 1378 issues fixed.

You can download this beta release of Drive Bender from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on October 16th, 2012

Lights-Out Mobile for Windows Phone

Lights-Out Mobile has been released in the Windows Phone marketplace.

Lights-Out Mobile works with Lights-Out on Windows Home Server, Small Business Server 2011 Essentials or Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

You can manage multiple servers and your computers with this application: Wake-up, save energy, shutdown or reboot.

Lights-Out Mobile - Select Server Lights-Out Mobile - Wake-up Server Lights-Out Mobile - Save Energy Lights-Out Mobile - Manage Wake-up

Lights-Out Mobile Lights-Out Mobile - Shut Down Screen Lights-Out Mobile - Options Lights-Out Mobile - Settings

More info on Lights-Out Mobile can be found here.

Other Software • Windows Home Server
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By on October 15th, 2012

Slow Performance in Storage Spaces

It seems more people are experiencing slow performance when using The new feature Storage Spaces which is in Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and WS2012e.

Storage Spaces - Physical Drives

One user by the name of David Trounce in a thread on the TechNet forums is stating that the performance issue is being caused by controller configuration and is suggesting using disks in pools in multiples of 8 and making sure these disks are as similar in size as possible.

Another article looks at possible design flaws in Storage Spaces, stating:

“A Storage Space operates at the block level while it should work at the file level instead. The benefit of potentially high read speeds (chunks from larger files are stored on different drives and can be read concurrently) is not relevant in SOHO scenarios. But the increased probability of error is.”

More on that article can be found here.

Storage Spaces may not be fast but at least it is as good if not better than our old friend Drive Extender.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on October 14th, 2012

Migrating to WS 2012 Essentials

Yet another post from Paul Thurrott on WS 2012 Essentials. And this time Paul is sharing his experiences with migrating to the RTM version of Essentials from both WHS 2011 and the Beta/RC version of Essentials.

alerts in WS2012e

Lots of information and notes from Paul, which you can read here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on October 13th, 2012

Add-In: Drive Bender v1.3.7.8 BETA

Drive Bender Logo

The beta release of Drive Bender for users of WHS 2011 and SBS Essentials 2011 has had an update.

Version 1.3.7.8 BETA has the following changes:

  • Bug fix: The activation dialog could randomly request a user name and password.
  • Bug fix: When enumerating a folder that is linked to a folder outside of the pool, each file can be listed more than once.
  • Bug fix: Folder linking was not supporting SymLink correctly.
  • Update: Core driver acrhitectural changes.
  • Big fix: S.M.A.R.T. monitoring feature was not displaying information correctly for some users.
  • Bug fix: A number of minor interface and server issues resolved..

you can find the download here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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