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News Windows Home Server 'Vail' preview ready for download

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by arcticstoat, 4 Feb 2011.

  1. arcticstoat

    arcticstoat Minimodder

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  2. neonplanet40

    neonplanet40 Minimodder

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    Should you not mention that they dropped drive extender making it a pointless OS for a server? Without drive extender your safer using Linux :)
     
  3. doggeh

    doggeh What's a Dremel?

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    Completely agree with neonplanet40... Drive extender was the ONLY good thing about WHS.
     
  4. thogil

    thogil What's a Dremel?

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    There is little reason to update from v1, now that they have dumped drive extender.
     
  5. ADJB

    ADJB What's a Dremel?

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    Just before Christmas HP were doing a cracking offer on there mediasmart servers (£50 off, 8% Quidco and then another £75 cashback) so i dived in and got one then knowing full well Vail was on the way. Last chance to get a good media server / backup box with drive extender. Losing drive extender was a deal breaker for me so I bought it 6 months before I needed it to avoid Vail.

    Highly recommended box BTW - dead easy to set up and use, quiet and unobtrusive.
     
  6. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    I've tried for years to find a good Home Server to no a'Vail
     
    Guest-16 likes this.
  7. saspro

    saspro IT monkey

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    But there was too much loss of space for us users with big libraries.

    As this is essentially SBS 2011 Essentials it'll support RAID so you won't need drive extender
     
  8. GravitySmacked

    GravitySmacked Mostly Harmless

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    The original WHS was an interesting product, this version not so much from what I've read. Win XP works just fine for my server needs though.
     
  9. artcab

    artcab What's a Dremel?

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    Which is precisely why MSFT dropped drive extender - WHS was cannibalizing sales of SBS since it's so dead simple to add storage - WHS was the poor man's SBS. RAID is fine but means that "Mom and Pop Inc." will need to spend some IT consulting bucks having a geek come in to set it up.
     
  10. Redbeaver

    Redbeaver The Other Red Meat

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    ever since i learned about the name.... itve always annoyed me...

    Vail.

    really, Microsoft?

    Windows VAIL?

    YOU VAIL, MS!

    VAIL...............

    /sigh
     
  11. leexgx

    leexgx CPC hang out zone (i Fix pcs i do )

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    It lacks de, raid not expandable like Whs
     
  12. Gundam God

    Gundam God What's a Dremel?

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    All they had to do was swap the server 03 parts for server 08 parts and people would be lapping this up.

    Instead they remove the only worthwhile feature for getting whs making the new version a complete non starter.
     
  13. ADJB

    ADJB What's a Dremel?

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    I think you miss the point of drive extender. The ability to just add another drive and have it added to your storage pool is very handy, the "Raid" aspect is still there with duplicated files so effectively you still have redundancy without having all the rebuild hassle.
     
  14. ThunderBob

    ThunderBob What's a Dremel?

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    Used WHS (which was fine after Powerpack 1).
    Currently using WHS2 on a trial server. Wont be buying it now as i liked the Drive Extender feature.

    Moving my server to Amahi (Fedora Linux based) which has most of hte abilities of WHS including DE (has a feature called Grey Hole).
    Was wondering how long it would take MS to ruin this product and wasnt surprised when they dropped the DE removal bomb.
     
  15. jadawgis732

    jadawgis732 What's a Dremel?

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    holy ish I am so glad you guys said something, I have 4 1.5/2 Tb drives in my WHS box and I was downloading the RC as I write this for install.
     
  16. Saivert

    Saivert Minimodder

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    they dropped the Drive extender because people had problems with it.

    quoting from anandtech article. "Ultimately Microsoft is citing the feedback based on the potential drawbacks of DE v2 such as the inability for other OSes to read DE v2 disks, and what Microsoft believes is a diminished need for DE with the availability of 2TB+ hard drives. "
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4030/windows-home-server-v2-vail-drive-extender-v2-dismissed

    I personally never understood or liked the Drive Extender system. I didn't even know how it was implemented. It seemed too fragile. And why did it create separate drive letters for "Music", "Documents", etc?

    I'm more confident with a simple RAID setup instead. And regardless of what you choose you still have to make off site backups in any case if you actually care about your data. Neither Drive extender nor RAID is any backup solution if it is only stored in one place.
     
  17. neonplanet40

    neonplanet40 Minimodder

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    To be honest if I wanted RAID I wouldnt have got WHS> The whole reason I got it was because ease of use. Microsoft was jsut too lazy to fix the problems and they somehow think that this product will sell? Its rediculous.

    The whole point of a universal home server is ease of use. once RAID comes into play its no longer "plug and play" like WHS with DE was.

    If I want RAID ill have linux thanks, not a £100 piece of software that is inferior to their last product. yet another fail from Microsoft.

    No doubt Apple will bring out an iBox and lap these people up .
     
  18. bigkingfun

    bigkingfun Tinkering addict

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    Remember to put Vail in the pipeline guys. :)
     
  19. DarkLord7854

    DarkLord7854 What's a Dremel?

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    Reason I bought WHS was DE. Pop in drive, click configure, done.

    No DE, no buy. I just wanted a simple solution that required little to no effort to operate, maintain, and extend. I'll be staying with WHS Powerpack 3
     
  20. ThunderBob

    ThunderBob What's a Dremel?

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    I now have a server running Amahi (Fedora12 release) and it was simple to install (FULL instructions on the Amahi website with Screenshots) and it has the features of WHS before losing DE.

    Just stuck 2x2TB drives in it for testing and i have a 4TB pool (or close).

    They are in the process of releasing a Fedora 14 version this month so now is a good time to look at this server.

    Stable, LOTS of apps (addons) and easy.

    Install this and dont look back :)
     
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