You can remote into WHS's desktop just like your current setup, and run whatever services/apps you want from there..
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.
Thanks for the clarification.
So then it either comes with IE, or I can simply install IE8 like any other PC, and expect similar results as a normal PC with IE8, imageburn and other apps.. That would work for me.
Just was confused in part by add-on apps offered. Why have an add-on such as utorrent if normal utorrent for windows would work fine? See how this might look like special WHS apps were needed for normal things?
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?
WHS does not have built in DVD burning support. You would need to find an app that could handle being on the WHS server without wrecking the machine.
WHS only formats when you add it to the storage pool. You can plug it into the server and simply copy the contents to your current storage pool, then add the drive to the pool, where it will then be formatted.
Please tell me how FreeNAS would add this drive to a current RAID array without destroying the data? (for that matter, the data on all the current drives as well).
As for lack of control...I'm not seeing it. All data is stored in WHS on standard NTFS partitions. You can unplug a drive and plug it into another PC and pull your data off like you would anything else. How easy is it to recover data from a RAID 5 array if you have problems with the server or array itself?
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?
With anything but WHS including an OS even as old as win2k I can use my current drives for storage and just add files to it without formatting anything. If you only have a single 1TB drive you cannot install WHS, but I can partition that drive and install almost any other OS without losing anything.
With anything but WHS including an OS even as old as win2k I can use my current drives for storage and just add files to it without formatting anything. If you only have a single 1TB drive you cannot install WHS, but I can partition that drive and install almost any other OS without losing anything.
How easy is it to recover data from RAID ? How long does it take to swap out the drive ?
If a drive fails all I have to do is remove the bad drive, put in a good one and the data is rebuilt. There are going to be some pissed off people when they have backed up all their dvd collection to a NAS and have 2-3TB and the drive fails. Going to be fun ripping all those dvd again.
I see nothing of value with WHS except it is easy for people to install who don't want to learn anything. It is a hacked together version of windows server and I am really really surprised MS even produced it. To me it installs and works like something a group of hobby programmers would put together. For free there are a lot better alternatives out there and I'm not just talking about FreeNas. Any linux distribution can do more with less hardware and more features and the software is free. WHS is easy , other than that I see nothing special about it. I would rather use win2k than WHS for a nas.
Yes, but for each drive you add to the non-WHS NAS, you need to setup a new share and new mapped drive/shortcut/whatever on the client. WHS takes care of that - all storage is automatically added to the Pool and available under the same share. It formats because DE needs to control the filesystem, and the easiest way to be sure of that is to re-format the drive as NTFS regardless of what it previously was.
I don't really understand what you're getting at with the bolded part - you can install WHS on a single 1TB HD (you get a 20gb system/boot partition and a 911gb Data partition). As for partitioning and installing other OSes... why do you want to dual-boot a server that's supposed to be little/no maintenence?
The key to WHS is it's automation. It automatically balances storage, it automatically backs up client computers (and prunes the backups), it automatically updates itself, you see what I'm getting at.
You have no idea what you are talking about. If you lose a drive in WHS and you have duplication turned on for your shares that you want duplicated, it will rebuild the data when you replace the defective drive. It works differently but it functionally does the same thing you are describing. At least you have the option of only duplicating what you need, unlike RAID which you'll have to duplicate everything no matter what.
I'm glad you can install anything on a single drive and use it, but that isn't what WHS is designed for (and you seem to ignore the fact that you need multiple disks for your RAID setup as well, when it fits your "argument"). Plus how many times are you going to be installing WHS on your single drive with data on it? You're harping on an issue that MAY come up for someone one time, at installation.
I notice you have no comment to ease of storage expansion in a RAID environment? I guess that falls under your "no value" column. To some there is value there. There is also value in ease of use.
At least learn about a product before you try to bash it. This is just typical "Linux rules" dick waving on your part though.
How can it recover all data?
If you install WHS in a 100 gig drive, then later add a 1TB drive. All important data is saved on the 1TB drive. You have 800gig, then the drive craps out. All that is left intact is the original 100 gig drive. You are saying that is enough, and no data will be lost?
The benefit with using server based NAS is they support RAID. With RAID you do not have to worry about backing up the NAS because if a drive fails you just swap out a new one and it rebuilds the data, nothing lost. You don't have to install any backup software for a NAS to work. Plenty of Mac users do it with time machine and no special software needed. Also the *nix systems can read and write HFS so it is possible to take a drive from a Mac and install it in the NAS and read the content on the drive.
I find all the back and forth here laughable. It's silly that people would get so emotional over products that do pretty much the same thing, and barring unforseen technical problems will both perform equally well in the task at hand. Obviously nothing is equal and that both sides have benefits and negatives, but I think if your dealing with < 4 hard disks they will both get you to the same place. > 5 discs and drive extender has the edge for versitility (raid can't use firewire/usb for expansion, at least as far as I know). Otherwise, just use whatever makes you confortable.
For myself, I prefer WHS because my backup is in the 4-5 TB range with duplication, and I still need room to grow...and also because I like my backup to be easymode. I would prefer a nice expensive hardware raid option with Risc and lovely raid certified hot swap harddrives in a nice server tower, with spare drives on standby..but hey I can dream . In my view, the linux options are just as viable, sometimes more viable, albeit and little more hands on to setup. In some ways they are superior to WHS, but like I said earlier on....choose the right tool for the job you want done.
However, I'm assuming that there's a way to extend FreeNAS or a *nix equivalent to back up the storage pool (or part of it) to an external disk.
From reading posts on here, it seems that one of the disadvantages of RAID is that drives sometimes have to be added in identical pairs, and some claim that recovering from a failure is sometimes problematic (yes, this is debatable, but still it has been stated more than a few times).
Do any *nix NAS systems exist that let you add single drives to the storage pool, will back themselves up to an external drive, can run bittorrent and usenet clients, have iTunes and DLNA servers, will work with Time Machine, and have a thriving add-in developer community?
If so, I would be very interested in looking into it. Actually, as far as the bittorrent/usenet goes, for any NAS OS built on Linux you could simply install any Linux application on it, correct? By that I mean that you don't have to get special NAS OS-aware applications. You either run a headless app or VNC in and control it like any other desktop application?
> 5 discs and drive extender has the edge for versitility (raid can't use firewire/usb for expansion, at least as far as I know).
Just wondering: Does anybody know why MS decided to implement WHS using the WHS-console solution? Why not just build WHS based on a standard Windows Server 2003 release (or even better Windier Server 2008) with a couple of pre-installed extra services (e.g. the Terminal Services Gateway, a Backup solution, etc). Then they could add a standard Windows application with a GUI front-end for configuring those services (could be implemented e.g. in a control panel fashion).
To me it seems like that would be a much more customizable solution. Then you wouldn't have to rely on that every add-on functionality must be implemented as a WHS console add-in (to be guaranteed to not interfere with WHS). You could also more freely disable stuff you didn't want to use.
Could the reason that WHS is implemented the way it is be that MS intentionally wanted to 'cripple' the Windows Server OS and create a specialized solution that could not be used e.g. as a "normal" server for a company, thereby preventing companies from buying a cheap WHS license instead of an expensive Windows Server 2008 license?