The Acer Aspire AH342 Home Server is one of the few Windows Home Servers still available for retail sale in the US. It's a WHS V1 server and Newegg has been had them at clearance prices recently. Since it's old software it's not a simple out-of-the-box experience so I had one pass through my hands recently. I updated the WHS V1 on the server and got things going. I also had a chance to do some quick benchmarking and hardware testing. Read the rest »
Cloudberry Continuous Data Protection
I enabled CDP for my "hourly" backup soon after installing the update. It didn't work exactly as I expected but the differences didn't affect the actual backups. I also did some additional stress testing to check out performance and this is what I found. Read the rest »
pfSense + 1 Public IP = Home Cloud
My goal is to be able to access several of my home servers from outside my home. A dynamic IP address from my ISP and the limitations of NAT add some complications. But pfSense will help sort things out. This is a summary of what I hope to accomplish in my Home Server Farm series and a overview of my plan to get there. Read the rest »
Downsizing Windows Home Server 2011
In keeping with my recent obsession with the HP MicroServer I just migrated my WHS 2011 Server from a case with dimensions that approach 2 feet for both length and height, to the diminutive HP MicroServer that keeps well below a foot for those dimensions. It's got lower specs, but more power isn't always desirable. Read the rest »
Windows Home Server 2011 OS Restore
Recent events had me thinking about what would happen if my RAID controller died or the OS became corrupt? I’ve yet to test a server restore. It’s a long weekend and now’s as good as anytime to test. If I need to reinstall and manually recreate users and shares I have the time. Recreating share and users would never be fun, but at least it would be a time of my choosing. So what did I learn? Read the rest »
Windows Home Server 2011: RC1 to Gold Release
I spent Saturday migrating my Windows Home Server Rc1 server to the final gold release of Windows Home Server 2011. This was not an upgrade in any sense of the word but a complete re-install of the OS. If all went well the data would survive. I could flatten the OS drive and re-install it, then point everything to the surviving data drives. Despite some careless corner cutting that added, rather than saved, time it all went as planned. You can read the details here. Read the rest »
Windows Home Server 2011 Available
Microsoft has released Windows Home Server 2011 to Microsoft Technet and MSDN subscribers. I started my Technet download and plan to install the final release on my server this weekend. I’m hoping I’ll be able to wipe out the OS drive but keep the files on the data drive and just re-share them. Tedious to recreate all those shares, but quicker than restoring terabytes from backups. Read the rest »
OS Quest Trail Log #59: Spring Is Here Edition
This month on the OS Quest has been another light one. Mainly revolving around the upcoming release of Windows Home Server 2011. Read the rest »
WHS 2011 Backup Add-Ins: Cloudberry & KeepVault
CloudberryConsoleAs part of my Windows Home Server 2011 evaluation I’ve been looking at two backup add-ins – Cloudberry Online Backup for Windows Home Server and KeepVault. I’ve been using KeepVault with my Windows Home Server v1 for just under a year. I’ve heard about Cloudberry off and on but never looked into it, probably turned off by the name. It's time to compare the two of them. Read the rest »
Windows Home Server 2011 Resurrected
Windows Home Server is back on the Quest, I gave into an impulse and replaced my Ubuntu Server with Windows Home Server 2011 RC1 and put it into production. Despite some hardware problems it's been pretty reliable. Performance hasn't reached the level of the Ubuntu Server but there are other benefits. Read the rest »
