Why use server software like WHS instead of Win7 or other OS?

[imagoon]

That proves my point. Windows is much more likely to be a target for virus or malware.

It proves nothing.

That is because it is called rsync.

SIS is not rsync. Not even the same function.

Resources as in ram, cpu . p3-933 with 256Mb ram.

Fine if you want to go back to 10 year old hardware, I will give you that.

I could care less if anyone has a backup or how they backup. What I do care about is when people make claims about something that is untrue like saying that WHS implements software that nothing else can do.

Except no one said that.

 

[RebateMonger]

I've ran FreeNAS and WHS for extended periods.
I gotta say the WHS box has been more stable than FreeNAS was as well. I'm sure the tards will flip out about that statement now...

I've got about twelve WHS servers that I have installed at friends' or businesses. Most are 1.0 to 2.0 years old. I do NO maintenance on them. I've never had anyone call telling me their WHS is down or frozen or not functioning as intended.

Microsoft's suggested minimum system requirements are P3/1000 and 512 MB. All my WHS servers have 512 MB. I don't know what the slowest system is for sure. Maybe my 1.7 GHz P4 Celeron. I wouldn't expect a problem running it on a 1 GHz P3. That early P4 Celeron wasn't that much faster than my P3/1000s.

 

[JackMDS]

I wouldn't expect a problem running it on a 1 GHz P3. That early P4 Celeron wasn't that much faster than my P3/1000s.

The popular Intel ATOM is not much faster than the P-III 1GHz either.

.

 

[whoiswes]

"Is immune to virus and malware"

Nothing is immune. That's a naive statement. Just because something is less likely to get hacked doesn't mean it is less suceptable.

"Software Raid support for drives mean you get redundancy without special hardware needed."

Software raid is not an equal alternative to hardware raid. It's great if your broke, but for many people its a gimic. It relies on drivers to do its work, whereas a hardware solution is self contained and doesn't rely on OS stability. It has its uses for people who want a cheap raid 0 or 1 solution on a desktop, but I wouldn't use it for widescale file storage, but thats me.

I can tell by this statement you've never used an MD device.

Linux software RAID != MS Software RAID. I would (and do) trust /dev/md0 + samba to act as my home server/nas, and have zero problems (even through a drive failure) in the two years it's been online.

EDIT: I did not mean to sound condescending in my first statement, just meant to say that it sounds like you've never had any actual experience with linux software RAID. I would encourage anyone and everyone to grab a copy of slax, copy it over to a usb key, and boot a spare box up and start playing.

WHS has it's place but the lack of control is what turned me off - I want to know exactly where my critical data is at all times and have absolute control over said location.

 

[Red Squirrel]

How is the performance in WHS's "raid" system anyway? It sounds like all it does is a span with parity, or does it do more? Just curious. I've always been a big fan of Linux MD raid as it is easy to use, high performance from my experience, and is very easy to add new space on the fly, or replace a dead drive on the fly.

I put the OS on a stand alone drive and just image it for backup. With my next server I will see if I can put the OS on a USB flash device so I don't need to take up a sata port. Need to test this though, not sure what the performance would be like.

 

[RebateMonger]

How is the performance in WHS's "raid" system anyway? It sounds like all it does is a span with parity, or does it do more?

There's no parity. It's closer to RAID 1 (mirroring) than anything else. It's not like conventional spanning because a file is never split across multiple disks.

Folder duplication duplicates files on a folder-by-folder basis rather than on an entire-disk basis. You choose which folders you want duplicated. When folder duplication is enabled, all the files in that folder are duplicated on two different disks.

I don't recall ever seeing any data on WHS performance with/without folder duplication enabled. I haven't looked at the mechanics, since I prefer backups over redundancy if I don't have enough money for both. But I believe that WHS writes the original file like every other file (at "normal" write speed), and then the Migrator service does the folder duplication later.

Basics of Drive Extender Technology:
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/08/11/why-raid-is-not-a-consumer-technology.aspx

More Advanced Description:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...103C894A5E2&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

 

[theevilsharpie]

Even MS tech support mentions that WHS can not recover an OS failure and you should use something like Acronis if that protection is desired.

I haven't personally used WHS, so if I'm wrong, someone correct me.

WHS is an application running on a modified version of Windows Server 2003, so you should support a wide variety of RAID controllers.

If you install WHS to a mirrored RAID set, you can use traditional RAID to protect the WHS system disk while still taking advantage of the flexibility of WHS's drive extender for your data disks.

 

[RobsTV]

When going from a PC and normal O.S as server to WHS:

How does WHS work with apps and drivers?
Besides its intended primary use, can you also install and configure as a game server for example?

I also have a USB to serial port adaptor that I need to use on the server, and a cardshare network app (rqcs).
If drivers and app work with Win7 and XP, does that mean it should be fine with WHS?

 

[theevilsharpie]

But I believe that WHS writes the original file like every other file (at "normal" write speed), and then the Migrator service does the folder duplication later.

I checked the document you linked, and that is indeed the case. Here's the relevant bits:

The Windows Home Server Drive Extender Migrator service has three major functions:
• To duplicate certain files
• To migrate files that are not already migrated
• To manage the storage across the hard drives

The Drive Extender Migrator service is run under the following conditions:
• Every hour, or to be more specific – after resting an hour after the last completion.
• When the Drive Extender Migrator service starts up – typically when you first turn on your home server.
• When a shared folder is added or removed using the Windows Home Server Console’s Shared Folders tab.
• When duplication on a Shared Folder is turned on or off.
• When a hard drive is added to Server Storage using the Windows Home Server Console.

So it looks like there's a rather substantial window where a file copied to WHS only exists on a single disk. That may be good enough for things like home movies or music, but IMO that's not acceptable for business critical data like Peachtree databases or backups.

 

[RebateMonger]

So it looks like there's a rather substantial window where a file copied to WHS only exists on a single disk. That may be good enough for things like home movies or music, but IMO that's not acceptable for business critical data like Peachtree databases or backups.

If, indeed, duplication is only initiated hourly, file changes would, on average, be 1/2 hour delayed. Actually, that could be an advantage.

So, with conventional mirror, a corrupted database is duplicated immediately to the mirror disk. With WHS, a corrupted database is duplicated 1/2 hour later.

It really makes no difference. If you want to recover from data corruption, you need backups, not redundancy.

I suppose that, in theory, the 1/2 hour delay could give you a chance to copy the "good" database before it gets overwritten by the corrupted database, where, with mirroring, both copies get corrupted immediately.

 

[RebateMonger]

If you install WHS to a mirrored RAID set, you can use traditional RAID to protect the WHS system disk while still taking advantage of the flexibility of WHS's drive extender for your data disks.

Yes, you can run RAID "underneath" WHS. WHS doesn't really care. If the RAID will work in Windows Server 2003, it will work with WHS (except for GPT partitions).

When WHS first came out, there were many folks doing RAID 1 on the System Disk. You don't hear about that as much nowadays, but it can certainly be done.

For the secondary Data Disk(s), redundant RAID arrays add considerable complication when storage expansion is needed. Much of the ease-of-expansion appeal of the Drive Extender is lost.

 

[theevilsharpie]

If, indeed, duplication is only initiated hourly, file changes would, on average, be 1/2 hour delayed. Actually, that could be an advantage.

Errr... no.

So, with conventional mirror, a corrupted database is duplicated immediately to the mirror disk. With WHS, a corrupted database is duplicated 1/2 hour later.

The odds of a database backup being corrupted in transit are pretty low, because TCP (and optionally, link failover) ensures that transient network errors won't corrupt the data stream, and RAID ensures that the system can still perform I/O if a disk fails. Any issue severe enough to disrupt those protections would cause the backup to fail outright.

With WHS, you can backup to the server successfully (and show as being completed successfully), and then there's a window of opportunity where the backup can get lost/truncated/corrupted/etc.

As a sysadmin, I would never rely on a storage device with questionable data integrity for irreplaceable data like a Peachtree database, customer contact lists, etc.

I suppose that, in theory, the 1/2 hour delay could give you a chance to copy the "good" database before it gets overwritten by the corrupted database, where, with mirroring, both copies get corrupted immediately.

Attempting to "beat" WHS would probably result in ever more data corruption.

 

[RebateMonger]

If drivers and app work with Win7 and XP, does that mean it should be fine with WHS?

Drivers and apps that work with XP should, technically, work fine. The exceptions include drivers or software that refuses to run on a "server", and software that insists on writing directly to the "D :" drive, rather than writing to the data share ( \\WHS\Videos, for instance). If it's data going into the Shared Folders, it should be managed by the Drive Extender.

 

[RebateMonger]

The odds of a database backup being corrupted in transit are pretty low, because TCP (and optionally, link failover) ensures that transient network errors won't corrupt the data stream, and RAID ensures that the system can still perform I/O if a disk fails.

I don't think you and I are talking about the same thing. You mention "backups" and "database corruption" in the same paragraph. I wasn't talking about backups at all. I'm talking about hosting a shared file on a WHS server and using Folder Duplication to replicate it.

Personally, I would never put a Quickbooks or other database ON the WHS server. I'd leave the active databaset on one of the client PCs. I'd use WHS to make daily backups of the database.

If you need more frequent backups of the database, then you should use backup software on the client PC that makes near-continuous backups. WHS is not capable of keeping the "continuous" backups that you might need when hosting a high-use, multi-user database.

Regarding WHS "backups" (the real backups, not folder duplication):
I put UPSes on my WHS servers to avoid power-related shutdowns. I've also had Evaluation copies of WHS servers that were rebooting every two hours (Microsoft's way of sayig you've exceeded the four-mounth evaluation period). Sometimes the reboot would occur in the middle of a backup. The backups were NOT corrupted and WHS reported that the backup hadn't completed successfully.

WHS also scans its backup database, looking for errors. There's a utility to attempt a repair of the backup database. Finally, those ARE backups. A failure of a backup system that's detected BEFORE the client PC fails isn't a disaster. It's

Separately:
If replication occurs once an hour, then the average delay between a random file change and the wait before the next replication will be 1/2 hour. No?

Example:
If you change a file and replication JUST occurred, then you'll wait an hour before the next replication. If you write something at the very end of the replication period, then replication will occur almost immediately. The average delay, as near as I can tell, will be about 1/2 hour.

 

[theevilsharpie]

I don't think you and I are talking about the same thing. You mention "backups" and "database corruption" in the same paragraph. I wasn't talking about backups at all. I'm talking about hosting a shared file on a WHS server and using Folder Duplication to replicate it.

There would be no folder duplication in this instance. From the WHS desk extender white paper you linked to:

The Migrator service will not duplicate a file while it is open. If an application tries to open a file while the Migrator service is duplicating it, the Migrator service will immediately release its handle to the file, and the Open request from the application will succeed.

Separately:
If replication occurs once an hour, then the average delay between a random file change and the wait before the next replication will be 1/2 hour. No?

Example:
If you change a file and replication JUST occurred, then you'll wait an hour before the next replication. If you write something at the very end of the replication period, then replication will occur almost immediately. The average delay, as near as I can tell, will be about 1/2 hour.

That would be the average delay to initiate a migration. So the delay between file changes would be 30 minutes + the amount of time it takes to actually replicate the file. For a large file like a backup, this could take hours before you have a redundant copy. On top of that, WHS will immediately terminate the replication if anything opens the file.

I'm leaning in the direction the OP had early in this thread. The more I read about it, the more I believe that WHS is inappropriate for any environment where data integrity is critical. From Microsoft's own white paper:

Caution
You can lose files if you remove a hard drive. To safely remove a hard drive, click the Server Storage tab on the Windows Home Server Console.

Use WHS at your own risk

 

[RebateMonger]

There would be no folder duplication in this instance.

You are right about this. That's another reason why I wouldn't use WHS to serve multi-user, frequently changing databases. Keep those files on another PC and use WHS to make backups of that PC. Feel free to use RAID 1. WHS WILL make "backups" (real backups) of open files on that PC, retaining multiple versions of all files over days, weeks, and months.

I don't think anybody has postioned as an enterprise-level file server. The one place I've mentioned (facetiously) is as an enterprise backup server. I reserve this comment for when Forum users report their IT staff has just lost their entire enterprise's data, when the whole thing could have been backed up by a couple of 1 Terabyte USB drives or a single WHS server.

If you need "continuous" backups, you need $1000 (or more) backup software. If you need a large-scale database server, you need a $5000 (or more) server, not a $400 one.

Caution
You can lose files if you remove a hard drive. To safely remove a hard drive, click the Server Storage tab on the Windows Home Server Console.

That means that you don't voluntarily "yank" disks from a WHS server. You first tell WHS to remove the disk from its Storage Pool, migrating files to the remaining disks.

ANY non-redundant file server will lose files if you yank out a disk. If you enable Folder Duplication in WHS, you shouldn't lose a shared file, even if you do "yank" a disk.

 

[theevilsharpie]

ANY non-redundant file server will lose files if you yank out a disk. If you enable Folder Duplication in WHS, you shouldn't lose a shared file, even if you do "yank" a disk.

And this is the crux of the argument.

With WHS, even if you have folder duplication enabled, there are still numerous instances where the data is NOT duplicated, particularly when working with large files. Since backups are usually very large files, WHS folder duplication leaves a huge window of opportunity for hardware failure to cause data loss or corruption in case a drive gets yanked (or Murphy yanks it for you). Most instances where I've needed to recover from a backup have involved hardware failure of some sort, and I certainly would never accept a backup solution where there's always a lingering question mark over the integrity of my backups.

OTOH, RAID is designed specifically to address this problem. I can yank a drive from a RAID array if I damn well please :awe:

I suppose you could avoid this problem by storing your shared folders on a RAID array, but then why use WHS?

 

[RebateMonger]

And this is the crux of the argument.
I suppose you could avoid this problem by storing your shared folders on a RAID array, but then why use WHS?

You might also ask that, since you need backups IN ADDITION TO RAID, why use RAID?

They each have their purpose. WHS gives simplicity, standardized disk partitioning and formatting, low cost, ease of expansion, automation, and automated company- or household-wide notification of success/failure.

I've seen a lot of data lost on redundant RAID arrays. Particularly RAID 5, which tends to lose everything. But I've also had my own Exchange database on RAID 1 corrupted by a power outage and a failing UPS.

There's a ton of difference between losing even a day's work and losing EVERYTHING. Which is what happens far too often with redundant RAID.

Notice that people don't post on AnandTech complaining how they lost changes to a single file. They post about how they lost everything because they had zero backups or their RAID array just went bye-bye and took everything with it.

 

[imagoon]

And this is the crux of the argument.

With WHS, even if you have folder duplication enabled, there are still numerous instances where the data is NOT duplicated, particularly when working with large files. Since backups are usually very large files, WHS folder duplication leaves a huge window of opportunity for hardware failure to cause data loss or corruption in case a drive gets yanked (or Murphy yanks it for you). Most instances where I've needed to recover from a backup have involved hardware failure of some sort, and I certainly would never accept a backup solution where there's always a lingering question mark over the integrity of my backups.

OTOH, RAID is designed specifically to address this problem. I can yank a drive from a RAID array if I damn well please :awe:

I suppose you could avoid this problem by storing your shared folders on a RAID array, but then why use WHS?

I think your going way over board with this. Windows Home Server is not touted to be an enterprise CPS type system. Even Raid is not perfect. Most controllers on RAID cards are single processors that stagger data out to drives in the disk sets. Granted this amount of time is much smaller, there is still "a chance" that a cluster would make it intact to one disk and only be 33% written to the second and 66% written to another when the array faulted. The more access that goes to an array the more of these "smaller chances" there are. When the array comes back up these 1/3 and 2/3 written clusters could be construed as a mutli disk error and the controller may panic the array out. This seemed to be more common in the SCSI arrays rather than the SAS arrays. I have had a faulting SCSI disk lock the SCSI bus up and eventually panic out that subsection of the array.

There are always trade offs in a redundancy scheme. For home users pushing data to a WHS, that average of an 1/2 hour may not matter for the pictures they just pushed up there. Heck in the enterprise it may not matter. Many companies rely on SAN replication and other techs like DFS-R and rsync to synchronize off site. It is acknowledged that in general, it is better to sync off site and risk 30 minutes worth of data than to lose it all because the RAID array in server X just panicked it's little brains out and now we are restoring from tape using last nights backup.

You use WHS at home because it gives you a ton of features for system backups that are generally only in enterprise apps such as single instance store backups and automated network image restore abilities and the like. If you don't know, it can generate a CD for you to boot your now dead PC with its new HDD in place and do an image restore of the machine from the night it failed. In my test it took only 45 minutes to go from 'dead' to ready to go again via a network restore. I would expect it to be faster if I broke down and bought a gig switch for home.

It really is not a bad little setup for $99. Or free for the Technet people.

 

[imagoon]

When going from a PC and normal O.S as server to WHS:

How does WHS work with apps and drivers?
Besides its intended primary use, can you also install and configure as a game server for example?

I also have a USB to serial port adaptor that I need to use on the server, and a cardshare network app (rqcs).
If drivers and app work with Win7 and XP, does that mean it should be fine with WHS?

Perusing the internet I have found many comments about people using them for other things. What you need to be aware of is the machine is configured differently than an normal windows 2003 box. For example the storage pool disks don't get drive letters. The default install will only show a C: drive that is about 20 gig in size even if you have 10 TB of disks in the machine. From what I can tell, most people pop another disk in the machine and use the console to configure it and give it a drive letter (doing this makes it disappear as a usable disk in the WHS storage manager) and use that as an apps drive. It is 2003 SBS at the core so most anything that will run on 2003 server will run on it fine.

One example was people using TVersity on it instead of media player to serve video for example. Tversity gets installed on a small apps drive that they added and then they pointed the "video source" directories at the network share by doing something like \\localhost\videos

Apps that "Require" d:\videos however would not work unless you network map a drive letter to the share. You basically need to install everything like your accessing it remotely with SMB even though it is local.

 

[Modelworks]

WHS has it's place but the lack of control is what turned me off - I want to know exactly where my critical data is at all times and have absolute control over said location.

One of the biggest issues I have encountered with WHS and people not wanting to use it is MS insistance that it wipe every drive installed in the system before install. A lot of people have drives that already contain a lot of data and the idea they now need to back up several TB of data somehow so they can do the install then copy it all back just isn't worth it for many people. I can install freenas to a 4GB compact flash drive and boot from it and use all my drives just as they are.

I agree about the lack of control. I want to know exactly where my data is located on each drive not have them located in a virtual pool of drives.

 

[smirk]

Guys, this spirited conversation has been immensely informative for us lurkers. Thank you.

I need some type of network attached storage, and so for the past week I've been intensely researching technologies and products. For me, it's pretty much coming down to a BYO system running either FreeNAS or WHS. I'm not particularly a fan of Microsoft, and the whole aspect of FreeNAS appeals to me. But I think I'm leaning toward WHS, simply because it seems like it will be easier to add features onto it.

For example, I think I would want to back up the NAS periodically. Maybe these two OS's can do that already, I don't know. But assuming they can't, I would know how to install backup software onto WHS and get it running, but I'd have no idea how to do that in FreeBSD -- and I'm primarily a Mac user who drops into the terminal almost every day. It sounds like home users like me are WHS's target market.

I think I also got a little turned off by FreeNAS when I read that the developer said it is too inflexible and so he's starting a new project to rewrite it in Linux. But really, doesn't it sound like a toss-up between the two, depending on what you want out of it?

 

[RobsTV]

While waiting for memory to arrive, things keep popping into my head.

Keep in mind, this whole thing is in regard to switching from a PC O.S. as a server to WHS (or possibly 32bit Windows server 2008 or server 2003 R2).

Looks like running apps on the server will not be as easy as on a PC used as a server. Probably doable though.

What about a web browser and DVD burner?
For example, now if I wish to access my technet account, with my wireless laptop I simply remote access my server PC (pcanywhere), browse to technet website, find the desired ISO to download, and it then starts MS download manager and saves to the PC server.

After downloading, I run image burn to DVD burner on that PC server, and done.

Easy and painless.

If I only had a file server, I would need to access the technet website with the laptop, start MS download manager from laptop, indicating network storage location desired, then file would come from the net to Router, then wireless to laptop, then wireless back to router, then wired LAN to file server. If I shut off laptop during the download, download would stop. Of course that is not the way to go. So access to normal and easy apps like IE and imageburn on the server is mandatory.

Any problems doing things like this with WHS?
Or will pretty much everything require special apps and tweaks to make it work on WHS?
Just thinking the effort needed to be put in for the gains that come out in the end.

Another question about backups.
PC currently uses hardware raid.
Plus, using Acronis to backup important server data to another drive on a networked PC.
Has anyone used the latest Acronis that does live constant backups, plus has features like picking and choosing individual folders and or files easily from it's manager? Seems like a lot of what WHS does might be close to the same or better with Acronis and a PC as server?

 

[BTA]

You can remote into WHS's desktop just like your current setup, and run whatever services/apps you want from there. I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned already that WHS is just Server 2003 with WHS apps over top of it (not quite that simple but for discussion it's good enough). I run all kinds of stuff on my WHS box that isn't necessarily a WHS application.

FreeNAS is the one that would work as you are describing.

You might want to peruse the forums at http://www.wegotserved.com for your questions regarding Acronis and WHS. I've never used Acronis but I imagine it would work fine as long as you are using the correct paths for your folders on the WHS server.

 

[BTA]

Guys, this spirited conversation has been immensely informative for us lurkers. Thank you.

I need some type of network attached storage, and so for the past week I've been intensely researching technologies and products. For me, it's pretty much coming down to a BYO system running either FreeNAS or WHS. I'm not particularly a fan of Microsoft, and the whole aspect of FreeNAS appeals to me. But I think I'm leaning toward WHS, simply because it seems like it will be easier to add features onto it.

For example, I think I would want to back up the NAS periodically. Maybe these two OS's can do that already, I don't know. But assuming they can't, I would know how to install backup software onto WHS and get it running, but I'd have no idea how to do that in FreeBSD -- and I'm primarily a Mac user who drops into the terminal almost every day. It sounds like home users like me are WHS's target market.

I think I also got a little turned off by FreeNAS when I read that the developer said it is too inflexible and so he's starting a new project to rewrite it in Linux. But really, doesn't it sound like a toss-up between the two, depending on what you want out of it?

I liked FreeNAS for the most part when I first installed it but it eventually became a bit of a headache.

There are compatibility issues that I ran into which required using nightly release versions and screwing around with configuration changes and cron jobs and all this nonsense. All this just for a networked storage drive...I had other applications that I had to have a completely separate Windows server running.

Eventually I needed to expand my storage capacity and that is not easy with FreeNAS and RAID setups. I briefly considered unRAID as well but that was yet another solution that doesn't do much more than act as a file server.

Figured I'd just combine my two servers onto a single box, and WHS met the requirements I had. Have no complaints what so ever.

It even detected a failing hard drive before it was completely dead...couple clicks and WHS moves the data off that drive and removes it from the storage pool. Take out the drive, RMA it, plug new drive in and add it to the storage pool in WHS and you're done.