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Thread ID: 87944 2008-03-09 21:14:00 home server plod (107) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
648063 2008-03-09 21:14:00 After doing some homework and looking at NAS drives I have decided to look into the WHS.
Not even sure where to start, HP do one but not available in NZ at the moment, it has hot swappable drives. So I will be looking at building one, or asking one of the wellington builders to do it, George, Wainui and any onthers.
A couple of requirements would be dual gigabit ethernet, onboard video will be adequate.
Would prefer intel, would a celeron be enough or would I need dualcore.
the ability to hot swap drives would be nice but depends on price.
Any serious quotes can be PM to me,

Thanks guys. 		plod (107)
648064 2008-03-09 21:24:00 I wouldnt rush to get WHS at the mo.

As there is a data corruption bug in it, and it'll corrupt all of your files.

This bug will corrupt Winamp, Itunes, Photoshop, Zune software if you use it.

And Money, Outlook 2007, Vista Photo Gallery, Live Photo Gallery, and SyncToy, but it also hits Quicken, Quickbooks. According to some sites

And a list of programs/files that may get corrupted are here (support.microsoft.com) 		Speedy Gonzales (78)
648065 2008-03-09 23:15:00 I wouldnt rush to get WHS at the mo.

As there is a data corruption bug in it, and it'll corrupt all of your files.

This bug will corrupt Winamp, Itunes, Photoshop, Zune software if you use it.

And Money, Outlook 2007, Vista Photo Gallery, Live Photo Gallery, and SyncToy, but it also hits Quicken, Quickbooks. According to some sites

And a list of programs/files that may get corrupted are here (support.microsoft.com)

I'm aware of that and had a look at the list, the only thing I can see would be itunes. 		plod (107)
648066 2008-03-10 00:11:00 Why do you need dual gigabit ethernet?

A Celeron or Sempron CPU would be ample for WHS as would a 1GB RAM.

I am running my WHS on an old AMD XP 2500+ Socket A with 1GB RAM.
2x 120GB IDE hard drives - WHS automatically sets up data mirroring to the second drive (This is what is causing the data corruption in some software)
The WHS box just sits in the corner with only power and network connected - no monitor, keyboard etc needed as you can do everything through the console software that gets installed on all the workstations.

I had the problem with corrupt data using Quickbooks so am just saving the data file directly on my laptop.

I am also running hMailServer as my email server software on the WHS and it works great. 		CYaBro (73)
648067 2008-03-10 02:27:00 I'm running WHS (trial version) and am very happy with it. I think Wainuitech runs it full-time (the RTM version) so it'd be good to hear his feedback..

Regarding the corruption issue, it's only a problem in certain circumstances. Those circumstances, for a user like me, are so rare that it does not become an issue. 		somebody (208)
648068 2008-03-10 03:00:00 Nice to be loved :wub :lol: Yep I run the full version - been running WHS since it was first available as Beta - The only problem I have ever had was when a board went belly up , and that wasn't the Systems fault - using OLD components to make a test PC - failures are expected.

The spec's on mine 3.0 CPU and 1 GB Ram The boards a 865 - currently its got a 320 & 250Gb Drive in it, It used to have more, but I "needed" some drives for one of my other PC's and "Stole" from the Server.

The RC versions only had a Cel 2.5 + 512 RAM.

Never had any problems running music from the server, opening files etc. Often we have 3 PC's accessing it all at once for various files / music using Itunes, WMP & Real Player or VLC Player. Never "jammed" it yet. The only time it "lags" slightly is when 2 PC's between 8.00 - 8.30PM are fully backing up daily & trying to watch a move & Play music all at the same time.

I do have data mirroring turned off. The drives are not hot swappable as when a drive is attached to the storage pool, it simply expands the amount of space to use and removing a drive as hot swappable would cause problems.

The backups work great - TWICE in 6 months I had to do a full recovery from the back ups, once was when I had a drive decide to die on my PC, and the other was when something went really wrong - call it "fiddling" :rolleyes: When I shouldn't have been trying/testing something on this PC and I needed to do a complete recovery - drop in a different drive, put in the recovery CD - 20-30 minutes later reboot to a completely backed up system - all data programs fully operational.

Remote access is a breeze. I have one set up in a small business of 5 people, they all have their working files stored on the server and often all are accessing it at once, Some of the files are used by several people and it simply pops up with a message saying the file is open if they try to alter one and someone else has it open - word documents, Excel, and their account program as well - never had any complaints about lockups, lags etc.
The server has a separate backup program installed doing a daily backup to a NAS device for double backups. 		wainuitech (129)
648069 2008-03-10 03:03:00 I've been running WHS (firstly in Beta/RC1 and then RTM) for over a year and am really happy with it.
You don't need a high end PC (graphics wise or CPU wise) to run it. There's a great developers community behind it writing add-ins for the O/S.

Try the We Got Served (http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/)website as a good starting point.

The data corruption issue can be problematic though depending on what you're using your WHS machine for. 		Chemical Ali (118)
648070 2008-03-10 04:03:00 dual ethernet for future proofing, not a must just a want. gigabit is a must.
so is firewire. I wouldn't be using data mirroring

So nobody has any ideas on a hardware. I thought there might of been some offers to build.... Get my redundancy check at the end of march so this is an april project.. 		plod (107)
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