What OS for headless server?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Setup WHS as the file server and then try Sage on it later, I think you'll like it.

The only problem with that is that my FreeNAS server has token hardware in it to keep power demand down (Celeron 430 1.8Ghz CPU). Not enough to do transcoding or comskip in a timely manner.

My only problem with going to WHS is the requirement for a minimum of an 80GB hard drive for the OS. Currently my FreeNAS OS resides on a 2GB CF card. I can step that up to a 4GB card for XP and have a little bit of room to spare.

[S_M_E]

Requirements are requirements.

If you replaced your current XP+Sage server with WHS+Sage then you could eliminate the FreeNAS box alltogether and then the HW requirements wouldn't be an issue. You could then use the FreeNAS drives (hopefully SATAII) in WHS for more storage.

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am either going to build a new server or do some serious house cleaning (ie fresh install of windows) on my current server.

One of the decisions is whether to stay with xp pro or move to whs. I can see a lot of benefits to whs but I do have some concerns.

Everyone seems to report that xp drivers are working fine with whs, so that is one down.

My next concern is my 3ware 9500S-12 raid card. There are both xp and WS2003 drivers for this card, so drivers should be no problem. What I am wondering is can I keep the drives attached to the raid card out of the whs pool? I have four raid 1 arrays attached to this card for sage recordings and I don't want whs to optimize, copy or in any way monkey with these drives.

How about comskip? I am currently using comskip monitor and would like to continue doing so with whs.

Last, but not least, I am using the JRiver Media Center library server to make my entire music library available to JRMC clients around my house. Anyone know how or if this will work with whs. I know that JRMC is not available in a whs specific version.

TIA

Jesse

[Taddeusz]

My server is fairly stable save for the all too often unplugging of my rev C2 HD-PVR. Thinking about trying to get it RMA'd but not sure about that yet. It used to run for weeks without trouble but that was when I was doing PCM audio through the SPDIF input. Not sure I want to downgrade just to gain the stability, but it does sound appealing as I currently have my surround sound system in storage.

But, aside from the HD-PVR it's running quite well. I'd rather not tinker with it if at all possible. Doesn't the WHS version of SageTV require a different license key from the regular Windows version in order to use it?

Also, the case that houses my SageTV server does not have enough drive bays to handle all the drives I'd like to put in my NAS.

Besides, I'd really like to keep the two functions separate.

I realize WHS isn't RAID but I like the ability to mix and match drives and have it all look like a single drive. I plan on eventually having 2-3TB of storage. My feeling, though, is that a RAID 5 array would be better simply because the amount of space dedicated to redundancy is lower. With WHS if all the drives are the same and the pool is full, half the storage is dedicated to redundancy. Whereas with RAID 5, regardless of the number of drives in the array, only a single drive's amount of storage is used for redundancy. The ease of use with adding and removing storage to the pool has the drawback of requiring more overhead for redundancy.

And, yes, all my drives are SATA 300.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Doesn't the WHS version of SageTV require a different license key from the regular Windows version in order to use it?

Nope.

Whereas with RAID 5, regardless of the number of drives in the array, only a single drive's amount of storage is used for redundancy. The ease of use with adding and removing storage to the pool has the drawback of requiring more overhead for redundancy.

Every professional worth his salt in the IT field will tell you that RAID is not redundancy, but uptime. True backups are for hardware failures, which is the duplication you're talking about. So, in essence, WHS doesn't require more overhead for redundancy. You just don't have redundancy at the moment, so it seems that way. Believe me, I used to think that way and it took years for me to see the reality of the situation. In fact, it was when I got into the IT field that the difference became perfectly clear.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Jesse

My next concern is my 3ware 9500S-12 raid card. There are both xp and WS2003 drivers for this card, so drivers should be no problem. What I am wondering is can I keep the drives attached to the raid card out of the whs pool? I have four raid 1 arrays attached to this card for sage recordings and I don't want whs to optimize, copy or in any way monkey with these drives.

WHS doesn't support RAID but if it has win2k3 drivers it might work. Personally, I'd want WHS to manage my drives, that's one of it's good features.

How about comskip? I am currently using comskip monitor and would like to continue doing so with whs.

Other people are using comskip with WHS so that shouldn't be an issue at all.

Last, but not least, I am using the JRiver Media Center library server to make my entire music library available to JRMC clients around my house. Anyone know how or if this will work with whs. I know that JRMC is not available in a whs specific version.

I have no idea about JRMC; WHS and Sage both have their own media center features but I only use Sage+client for that. I've never even turned on the WHS built in media sharing feature and I have no idea what the JRMC requirements are.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

My server is fairly stable

Mine is completely stable.

Doesn't the WHS version of SageTV require a different license key from the regular Windows version in order to use it?

Nope, the windows license works on all versions of windows. You just can't use the windows license on a MAC, for example.

Also, the case that houses my SageTV server does not have enough drive bays to handle all the drives I'd like to put in my NAS.

Does your NAS case handle all of the drives you'd like to put in your Sage server or would you be needing a case either way?

Besides, I'd really like to keep the two functions separate.

That's certainly up to you and everyone is different there. Personal preferences are personal.

I realize WHS isn't RAID but I like the ability to mix and match drives and have it all look like a single drive.

That's the beauty of WHS, imo; there is no drive to see, just a pool with shares.

I plan on eventually having 2-3TB of storage.

I'm already there with my WHS.

My feeling, though, is that a RAID 5 array would be better simply because the amount of space dedicated to redundancy is lower. With WHS if all the drives are the same and the pool is full, half the storage is dedicated to redundancy. Whereas with RAID 5, regardless of the number of drives in the array, only a single drive's amount of storage is used for redundancy. The ease of use with adding and removing storage to the pool has the drawback of requiring more overhead for redundancy.

The WHS pool is less efficient than RAID5 but the advantages make it worth it to me. I like that I can use any drive, of any size, and add, remove or replace them without breaking and rebuilding an array. I've lost data on RAID5 arrays that wouldn't rebuild in the past but I've never lost data on WHS and again, WHS is meant to be a simple home server not an enterprise class storage solution. You can take a drive out of a WHS box and read it on any NTFS capable computer but if a HW RAID5 controller dies you can't do that. There are upsides and downsides to everything, WHS using a little more space for duplication is worth it, imo.

And, yes, all my drives are SATA 300.

Then performance wouldn't be an issue at least.

It's certainly up to you and your own preferences but I'm very happy with WHS+Sage. If it's not for you, then it's not for you. *shrug*

[exdirtfarmer]

Headless WHS, SageTV, Comskip, Argosoft Email Server. Rock Solid.

With 5 workstations, those backups have saved my bacon many times. Tonight I updated my Homeseer install, didn't go so well. Restored the folder from lastnights backup, and good to go. I've done a couple of bare metal restores to workstations, flawless.

No it's not a full SBS2K3 but once I got past my "lame rational" and accepted it's deficiencies, I have been very satisfied.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by vexhold

So since it doesnt use Domains or AD, am I correct in assuming that you cannot setup group policies,home directories and all the other useful stuff available in 2k3?

Correct

[mikehaney]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Every professional worth his salt in the IT field will tell you that RAID is not redundancy, but uptime. True backups are for hardware failures, which is the duplication you're talking about. So, in essence, WHS doesn't require more overhead for redundancy. You just don't have redundancy at the moment, so it seems that way. Believe me, I used to think that way and it took years for me to see the reality of the situation. In fact, it was when I got into the IT field that the difference became perfectly clear.

Along these same lines - another reason I love WHS is that I have a plugin that automatically backs up my most precious data (photos, documents, paid-for software, etc.) to Amazon S3 every night. It only costs a few dollars a month to have an offsite backup of the stuff we consider absolutely irreplaceable.

This had as much to do with the WAF factor for me as anything. I've gone through a couple of rebuilds of my server (because I can't leave well enough alone ) and the first thing my wife always asks is "are the pictures being backed up yet".

[planetc]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Nope, the windows license works on all versions of windows.

Ah....(insert swear word of your choice here)....I didn't realise that. I just rebuilt my server before xmas and would have almost certainly gone whs had I known I could switch without replacing my server license too. I was very tempted anyway and this would have tipped the balance. In fact I will now begin to look at it more seriously, is the sage setup still pretty much portable so I could switch with minimal configuration?

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

Correct

Incorrect.

Originally Posted by planetc

In fact I will now begin to look at it more seriously, is the sage setup still pretty much portable so I could switch with minimal configuration?

Yep, I've switched my server from XP to Vista and then to WHS, all worked flawlessly. I just copy my entire C:\Program Files\SageTV dir over from one OS to the other and install the app over the old dir, it thinks it's an upgrade.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Incorrect.

I stand corrected, though it's not supported.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/M..._23739428.html

[Diginerd]

I'm going to go completely against the grain here...

I run XP Pro as my Sage server on a home brew rackmount PC with a ton of disk.

It's set to auto update and I have a script that shuts it down and reboots every night at 3am. Solid as a rock. Perceived uptime (ie, time between me needing to connect to it to fix something) is nearly a year now.

The scheduled reboots made a huge difference to the WAF due to increased reliability and reduction of the spinnging wheel of death.

Management is handled via RDP (mstsc.exe).

I do have a windows 2003 server also sat on the network for AD/DFS/Print serving etc, and a couple of ancillary servers with around 18TB of storage on them for all the yummy HD recordings that I've made.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

I stand corrected, though it's not supported.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/M..._23739428.html

I never said it supported AD, it doesn't, but it does have gpedit.msc and "other useful stuff". There is a lot of unsupported use going on with WHS (most of my WHS tutorials are unsupported but they don't break WHS), AD isn't one of them; it does breaks WHS. You can however use AD on your home network and still access WHS.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

I never said it supported AD, it doesn't, but it does have gpedit.msc and "other useful stuff". There is a lot of unsupported use going on with WHS (most of my WHS tutorials are unsupported but they don't break WHS), AD isn't one of them; it does breaks WHS. You can however use AD on your home network and still access WHS.

Gotcha, I read it as him asking about AD, which is why, I looked it up after you corrected me. I thought for a while every version of Windows, from 2000 and above, has group policy (GPEdit.msc) but it turns out the Home/Basic editions don't use it. I see it as kind of mislabled, since you are really editing local policy on the machine.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by mikehaney

Along these same lines - another reason I love WHS is that I have a plugin that automatically backs up my most precious data (photos, documents, paid-for software, etc.) to Amazon S3 every night. It only costs a few dollars a month to have an offsite backup of the stuff we consider absolutely irreplaceable.

This had as much to do with the WAF factor for me as anything. I've gone through a couple of rebuilds of my server (because I can't leave well enough alone ) and the first thing my wife always asks is "are the pictures being backed up yet".

lots of/better ways to do that autobackup without dependence on WHS.
One I use is 8GB of free storage from gmail, and the gspace freeware for firefox. Makes that 8GB like a disk.
I use Trucrypt or WinZip AES to encrypt sensitive stuff.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by stevech

lots of/better ways to do that autobackup without dependence on WHS.
One I use is 8GB of free storage from gmail, and the gspace freeware for firefox. Makes that 8GB like a disk.
I use Trucrypt or WinZip AES to encrypt sensitive stuff.

True there are 'lots of ways', but I definately wouldn't begin to say "better" than the way WHS does it. What you describe - although functional - is way more of a hassle than just letting WHS do it all for you in the background. You literally NEVER do anything until you have a system fail, then put in the boot disk and answer a couple questions and it just downloads your whole system from WHS. In an hour, just reboot and you're good as new.

The problem with gmail based storage (or any 'cloud' based backup) is that although it's great for small amounts of data storage, it's terribly slow/painful to ever do a full system restore over the internet - at least in my experience.

-PGPfan

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

True there are 'lots of ways', but I definately wouldn't begin to say "better" than the way WHS does it. What you describe - although functional - is way more of a hassle than just letting WHS do it all for you in the background. You literally NEVER do anything until you have a system fail, then put in the boot disk and answer a couple questions and it just downloads your whole system from WHS. In an hour, just reboot and you're good as new.

The problem with gmail based storage (or any 'cloud' based backup) is that although it's great for small amounts of data storage, it's terribly slow/painful to ever do a full system restore over the internet - at least in my experience.

-PGPfan

I don't think you and stevech are describing the same scenario; stevech's original post was essentially comparing the WHS autobackup to Amazon S3 to an alternative backup option to gmail without using WHS. Cloud backup vs cloud backup.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

I don't think you and stevech are describing the same scenario; stevech's original post was essentially comparing the WHS autobackup to Amazon S3 to an alternative backup option to gmail without using WHS. Cloud backup vs cloud backup.

Thanks for pointing that out. Now that I've re-read it, you are correct in the cloud vs. cloud comparison.

-PGPfan

[TallMomof2]

I've had my WHS server up for a couple of days now and it's working great!