Episode 76 of the BYOB podcast is up and this week its how to manage iTunes from your central library using iHomeserver for iTunes add-in.

This plus more is in this weeks edition of the build your own box podcast, which you can find here.

The BYOB Podcast Episode 76 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

The add-in for WHS v1, WHS 2011 and SBS 2011 users automates data backup directly to Amazon S3 and Windows Azure.

Version 2.6.2 comes with few minor but important enhancements:

1. Force schedule full backup. This might be necessary for the following reasons:
a. The total size of differential backups outgrow the size of the full backup.
b. To make for a more efficient restore so that you don’t have to restore one year old full backup and then roll over a large number of differential backups
c. To make more efficient retention where you can purge older unnecessary differential backups after the new full backup is completed.

More info http://blog.cloudberrylab.com/2012/02/cloudberry-backup-block-level-backup.html

2. Bandwidth settings improvements. There are two improvements. First, we have split local and cloud bandwidth settings, second, you can now change the bandwidth settings and apply it to the running backup plan. No need to restart it any more.

More info http://blog.cloudberrylab.com/2012/02/cloudberry-backup-online-bandwidth.html

CloudBerry Backup for WHS is available as a 30 day trial after which it will cost you $29.99. More information is available from here.

Add-In: CloudBerry Backup for WHS v2.6.2 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This is a great deal as the HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive is valued at $130.

HP ProLiant N40L Ultra Micro Tower Server System AMD Turion II Neo N40L 1.5GHz 2C 2GB (1 x 2GB) 658553-001

HP ProLiant MicroServer with Free 2TB Hard Drive is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Build 5635 of StableBit DrivePool has been released.

This latest build of the Drive Extender type add-in for WHS 2011 users has the following changes:

• [D] Better support for empty pool. Treat as a disk that has 0 bytes free.
• Fixed Dashboard crash on missing disk.
• Added BitLocker support for pool parts (disabled by default – see .config).
• Fixed null reference when removing drives from an unmounted pool.
• Fixed pool condition UI bar getting stuck at 0.
• Fixed deadlock when 2 background services were attempting to start at the exact same time. Did not stall I/O.
• When removing a drive, show it as such, instead of missing disk.
• When removing a drive, report duplication warnings.
• Do not automatically duplicate when encountering an incomplete file if there are duplication warnings that need resolutions.
  Give the user a chance to view the warnings and resolve the issue.
  This does not affect nightly duplication runs (when there are unduplicated files present).
  This does not affect instant duplication runs when moving a file from a duplicated folder to a non-duplicated folder and vice versa.
  This does not affect duplication runs when adding a non-empty pooled disk, et al.
• Do not list system reserved volume in Pool tab.
• Volume name is now respected by DrivePool tabs.
• [D] Pool drive can now have a volume name.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required on update)

More details on StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 5635 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Its another week so that means its time for another episode of The Home Server Show podcast.

“Awesome show for you this week.  Patrick Kennedy from servethehome.com joins us to talk about networking gear, hard drives, motherboards, his site, and his gear.  It’s a hardware show for sure.  Patrick has a lot of knowledge in the area and we hit him with a ton of questions. There is also a ton of news for Windows Home Server this week.  Enjoy…”

You can catch episode 171 here.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 171 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

A beta refresh for Service Pack 2 of the add-in Lights-Out has been made available for WHS v1 and WHS 2011 users.

Here’s what’s new:

New option for client action after backup
Service Pack 2 Beta refresh introduces a new client option called “Force end action”. This option is enabled by default to ensure the previous behavior. If you disable this option, the action after backup is only executed if a start-up or wake-up for a scheduled backup has been detected AND if there has been no user activity in the last 10 minutes or during backup.
This new features prevents a standby or shutdown (after backup) if a user is already working on the machine. It also prevents a standby or shutdown

• Fixed end of DST problem with WHS v1 connector
• Fixed wrong date formatting in calendar for some regions like Japanese
• Fixed wrong backup date when client backup is disabled
• Fixed problem with deleted tasklist (delete was not handled, tasks were not removed)
• Fixed bug in edit properties dialog
• Changed action after backup: runs only if started for backup with no user activity

Downloads:

• WHS 2011 http://www.homeserversoftware.com/lo/whs2011/beta/LightsOutVail1.5.1.1656.wssx
• WHS v1 http://www.homeserversoftware.com/lo/whsv1/beta/LightsOutInstaller1.5.1.1656.msi

Installation:

• Important: Always uninstall any existing version first!
• Close WHS Console/Dashboard and download the beta version
• Install beta and open WHS Console/Dashboard again

Add-In: Lights-Out Service Pack 2 Beta Refresh is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

In a bit of a departure from the normal Windows Home Server based hardware review, today I find myself presented with an Acer AC100S server loaded with Microsoft Small Business Server 2001 Essentials (SBS).

Back when WHS v1 first shipped, many small businesses immediately saw the benefits that a home server could bring with its low cost, centralised storage, client backup and simple management, so it came as no surprise to see a version targeted at small businesses when Microsoft released the revamped Home Server family in 2011.

Acer describe this server as:

The Acer AC100S delivers essential server-class features and expandability along with unique Acer ITSmart utilities and Microsoft® Small Business Server 2011 Essentials together to ensure the success of startup and small-size businesses. The ultra-micro tower server is ENERGY STAR® certified and features an 80 PLUS® efficient power supply that saves space and energy while keeping your employees and office highly productive.

So that is a big claim from a small box, lets see if the AC100S can live up to the expectation.

Hardware

The AC100S wears a very similar case to the last Acer server I reviewed, the Revo Center RC-111. Measuring 200 (8in)w x 205 (8.1in)d  x 200 (8in)h there are some minor cosmetic differences, but it is essentially seems to be the same case, which is no bad thing as it is very sturdy and solidly built. In operation the AC100S is almost silent with the big 120mm fan keeping things cool without adding any unwanted noise. Power consumption hovered around 38-48 watts with the two supplied WD Caviar Blue disks, which is a very impressive figure given the potential power that lies within this little cube.

The AC100S supplied for review has an Intel Xeon E3-1260L 2.40Ghz (4 core, 8 thread) processor, 4GB DDR3 memory and 2 x 500GB disks (Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue). Power comes from a 200w 80+ (bronze) power supply and internally there is a single (half height) PCIe x8 slot should you wish to add a graphics card or TV tuner (or whatever) to your server.

The usual trip around the buttons and sockets reveals two x USB 2.0 ports at the front, along with a the main power button and a family of status lights. There are also LED lights for each of the hard disks, which will normally be green, but can flash red if the RAID set has got out of sync or is rebuilding.

Around the back are all the normal connections, Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, four x USB 2.0 and the very welcome addition of a VGA port. Having a screen attached to your server greatly simplifies the installation of an operating system and frees the manufacturer from the need to produce a custom headless installation process. Putting Windows 7 or Linux onto this hardware will be no issue, should that be your choice.

The four hard disk caddies are the same screw-less design used on the RC-111 and it is both quick and simple to change hard disks without any tools. Unlike the RC-111, the AC100S can have its front door locked to prevent accidental removal of the disks or to protect the power button from unauthorised shutdown.

Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

This is the first time I have seen SBS 2011 Essentials, so lets quickly see what the major differences are with WHS 2011:

Windows Server 2008 R2 provides the common core to both server platforms, but whereas WHS is licensed for 10 users, SBS can have up to 25. WHS has media serving and conversion capabilities to serve music, movies and pictures to a local network which SBS completely lacks. SBS can be an Active Domain controller but WHS can’t.

Once installed and running, the AC100S and SBS 2011 Essentials have a very similar look an feel to WHS 2011, but unlike most WHS 2011 OEM servers, the Acer AC100S has a VGA port which allows it to be managed directly rather than having to connect using an RDC connection.

Log in and you will find the familiar Dashboard with all the normal functions and management tools, but you will see three main differences:

1. The Dashboard is blue not green
2. You wont find any media streaming controls
3. Acer ITSmart is the initial screen when the Dashboard loads.

The first two are self explanatory, so let’s have a closer look at the third, Acer’s ITSmart software.

Acer ITSMart

Initially ITSmart draws you a simple diagram of your network and some of the primary capabilities of the server. To the right you are able to control and configure Printer and Fax sharing, Server Health Monitoring and Client configuration.

Server Health allows you to see all of the servers hardware details, so lets look at what is on offer.

Starting with CPU, all of the Xeon E3-1260L cores can monitored (the < > are used to scroll between CPU 1-4 and CPU 5-8).

Next is hard disk activity.

And then the network.

Memory is next, with the default SBS 2011 not really troubling the 4GB of RAM.

Now we have temperature.

And fan speed.

And finally voltage. Again the < > will allow you to scroll through the available values.

Moving to the Client section, we have the Power Saving controls. These allow the server to manage the standby/sleep of its clients. For this to work, there is an add-in that needs to be installed on each client.

The add-in can be deployed to all the clients remotely without needing to visit each one individually.

I haven’t encountered an add-in that uses this technique on WHS before, so I don’t know if it is something that WHS supports or not, but it is very neat and simple here on SBS 2011. Each of the clients dutifully loaded the add-in on their next reboot, with some new sections being added to the local Launchpad application.

Everything else on the dashboard performed as you would normally find on WHS, with the only thing really different being user accounts. Because SBS 2011 is an Active Directory domain controller, any clients capable of joining a domain (XP Pro, Vista Business, Enterprise & Ultimate, 7 Pro and above) can join the servers domain. This allows a user to log into any client PC joined to the domain in the same way you would expect to find in an large enterprise. Neat for a small business, but of limited use to a home user.

Intel tools

Outside of the Dashboard, Acer have installed some additional Intel tools to control the deeper elements of the server.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology controls the on board RAID built into the motherboard. Out of the box, the two Western Digital Blue 500GB hard disks are configured into a RAID 1 array, which makes sense for a business to ensure maximum up time for the server in the event of a single disk failure. There looks to be plenty of flexibility with the configuration, and I tested putting the array out of sync by booting up with only a single drive. Upon the re-connection of the missing drive the array rebuilt seamlessly in the background, with the only visible sign something had gone wrong being the blinking red lights on the front of the server. Once the array had fully synchronised, the lights returned to green.

Also provided is the Intel Management and Security Status tool. This controls the Intel Active Management Technology which is all about remote control and healing of the server, and Intel Anti-Theft technology which can help protect against theft.

In Use

This server is very quick, the Xeon processor makes very short work of file serving, and because there is no media conversions or other streaming duties to bog it down, it remains fast at all times.

In the testing environment, I was not able to simulate the 25 simultaneous users that its license allows, but the Intel on-board RAID coupled with the WD Caviar Blue disks should make very short work of all the file serving required to keep a small business running.

Although there is some additional overhead for an SBS server over a WHS server (Active Directory domain, DHCP & DNS and so on), this doesn’t seem to impact the AC100S performance one bit. In fact, this server should make an excellent platform to deliver other small business services such as email or databases should they be required in addition to the standard file serving and client backup.

By way of a very quick comparison, Windows 7 was installed to give you an idea of the relative performance of this hardware. We can overlook the low graphics scores as they aren’t important to a server, and as this hardware can take a half-height PCIe X8 card you could always opt to install a graphics card if you need one.

Verdict

The AC100S looks to be a very capable Small Business server, powerful, unobtrusive and expandable. Microsoft SBS 2011 Essentials presents the right level of enterprise functionality to allow a central logon policy, centralised file storage and client backups.

It would be nice to see Acer offer this hardware with WHS 2011 in addition to SBS 2011, as I am sure the extra power of the Xeon processor would be greatly appreciated by some home server enthusiasts who would find an Atom powered server a little to limited.

Pricing wise the Acer AC100S is available for $999 in the US and for  £840.00 ex VAT in the UK.

A AC100S data sheet in PDF format can be downloaded directly from here.

Acer AC100S Review is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

AWIECO have released a Windows Phone 7 app for WakeOnLan pro users.

Start up computers attached to your network with AWIECO WakeOnLAN Pro, pin computers to Live Tiles

More details are available at the WP7 Marketplace.

AWIECO WakeOnLAN Pro for WP7 v1.0.0.0 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

The AWIECO WakeOnLan add-in has had an update.

“AWIECO WakeOnLan has the ability to remotely turn on a computer. It enables the Server to start up every computer attached to your network. You can also power off a computer out of the Launchpad.”

Version 1.2 has the following new addition:

• Added: WP7 support

More details can be found here.

Add-In: AWIECO WakeOnLan v1.2 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

With this AddIn you gain access to all administrative areas of your server like Control Panel, Administrative Tools, My Computer, Network Places and many more. You can add shortcuts to your own programs installed on your server or to web-frontends of services and devices available in your network (like routers, printers, etc.). All of this can be used when being connected to your server from the local network as well as from a remote location.

Advanced Admin Console 2011 is available as a 30 day trial after which  functionality will be reduced. Otherwise the add-in will cost you $19.95.

UPDATE: Purchase a license for Advanced Admin Console 2011 before February 15th 2012 and save $5 by using coupon code AACTWTR1

Add-In: Advanced Admin Console 2011 v1.0 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

With the announcement of both the 5big Office and 5big Office+ from Lacie, the guys have released a video on their Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials plus offering:

More details on the Lacie 5big Office+ can be found here.

Lacie 5big Office+ Video is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

In a press release Lacie say that both units run a 1.6GHz Intel 64-bit Atom processor and come complete with 2GB of RAM. The Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials offering in the form of the LaCie 5big Office+ is available in 2 configurations.  The one single 2TB hard drive model (9000201) will cost $749 whilst a massive 10TB model comprising 5 hard drives (9000203) will cost $1,499. The more exciting (for us) WHS 2011 driven LaCie 5big Office unit is available in a single 2TB hard drive configuration (9000200) costing $599.

Here’s the full release:

LaCie Announces 5big Office Series –
Essential Backup Solutions for Small Offices

Today LaCie announced the 5big Office Series, its latest five-bay network attached storage solutions. With easy setup, collaboration and total data protection, the 5big Office Series is a solid long-term investment for any small businesses. They feature the industry-trusted Windows® Server operating systems and a powerful Intel® Atom™ processor.

POWERED BY WINDOWS
The 5big Office Series, powered by Windows Home Server 2011, is perfect for backing up as many as 10 PCs. The 5big Office+, powered by Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, backs up as many as 25. Get up and running in a flash on either system with a straightforward setup process and a familiar Windows environment. The 5big Office Series helps business groups collaborate like no comparable NAS.

NO-COMPROMISE HARDWARE
With the 5big Office Series, LaCie made no compromise on hardware. The 1.6GHz Intel® 64-bit Atom™ processor and 2GB of RAM enables maximum simultaneous data access and backups for all employees. Additionally, the 5big Office Series’ efficient cooling system protects internal components, ensuring long-term reliability.

OPTIMIZED DATA USAGE
The single-drive version allows users to add additional drives, as needed, for up to 10TB of total capacity. It reduces the initial investment and assures a long-term solution. What’s more, its PC backup data deduplication only backs up a single instance of redundant data. This optimizes storage space as well as increases backup speed.

5BIG OFFICE+: INTEGRATE MULTIPLE OFFICES
The 5big Office+ offers all the features of the 5big Office, but brings powerful tools – including DFS-R/N – for integration with offsite servers. IT managers can centralize and consolidate data, even when it’s spread across multiple geographic locations. The 5big Office+ also features Windows domain/Active Directory support, a faster dual-core processor, dual Ethernet links, and can back up more PCs.

ADDITIONAL 5BIG OFFICE SERIES FEATURES:
• Complete Data Protection: Automated backups of office computers make complete data protection easy.
• Disaster Recovery: Restore a file or even a complete workstation operating system using a simple wizard. The 5big Office Series also supports secure RAID 1 and RAID 5 modes for automatic, hardware-level protection.
• Offsite Protection: For an additional level of data protection, the user can also back up data to an offsite location with NAS-to-DAS backup, NAS-to-NAS backup or Wuala, LaCie’s Secure Cloud Storage service.
• Employee Collaboration: The system can serve files to any operating system – PC, Mac, or Linux – on the network.
• Wuala Secure Cloud Storage: The product comes with a 100GB of trial Wuala Secure Cloud Storage that lets users store and back up files online and access them from anywhere.
• Centralized Monitoring: Control RAID, users, or monitor backup status in the blink of an eye.

HELP WHEN YOU NEED IT
The LaCie 5big Office Series is protected by a three-year limited warranty that includes comprehensive, complimentary web-based resources, expert in-house technical support, and worldwide repair/replacement coverage. Advance Care Option can also be purchased. For details, see www.lacie.com/warranty.

AVAILABILITY
The LaCie 5big Office is available in single-disk 2TB capacity and the 5big Office+ is available in single-disk 2TB or five-disk 10TB capacities through the LaCie Online Store and LaCie Storage Partners starting at $749.00. For more information, visit www.lacie.com.

ABOUT LACIE
With operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, LaCie is the leading manufacturer of storage devices for PC, Apple® and Linux. LaCie has differentiated itself through sleek design and remarkable technical performance. Find out more about our products at www.lacie.com.

This is excellent news for Windows Home Server 2011 users as it now has a major OEM delivering hardware for the platform.

Lacie Announce a WHS 2011 Offering is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Restoring a Time Machine backup that’s stored on a Windows Home Server isn’t the easiest job top perform as it entails the following:

1. Install a brand spanking new copy of OS X
2. Mount your Time Machine backup
3. Run Migration Assistant.
4. Restore the backup

Thankfully to help you through this process is a blog post where a user suffered the same problem and explains the full process of getting his Mac working again.

A great post for Time Machine users, which you can find here.

Restoring a Time Machine backup that’s Stored on WHS is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Episode 75 of the BYOB Podcast is up.

“Corsair Accelerator Series, Jawbone JamBox, How to be security conscious and why all on this weeks BYOB podcast.”

Lots of good stuff for the "Build Your Own Box" enthusiast, which you can find here.

The BYOB Podcast Episode 75 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

iHomeServer 2 is a native WHS (WHSv1 and WHS 2011) add-in that runs and manages iTunes on your Home Server.

New features in this version include:

• Watch Folder management
• iTunes track management
• iTunes playlist management
• Metadata editing
• Cover art editing
• Native 64-bit support

All from within the familiar Windows Home Server dashboard.

iHomeServer v2 (for iTunes) is available as a 30 day trial, after which it will cost you $30

Further information on iHomeServer 2 is available here.

Add-In: iHomeServer v2 (for iTunes) v2.0.29.0 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

In his post Koitsu states that the external 6.3A at 19V power brick is not good enough:

“The unit comes with 5400rpm drives — if you were to shove four 7200rpm drives in there, you almost certainly would be taxing that little brick of an AC adapter. Your drives would start falling off the bus and experiencing strange anomalies during high I/O.”

Koitsu then works out the percentage of power use a single WD2002FAEX drive would require and gives us his findings, which you can find here.

A Bad WD Sentinel DX4000 Power Design is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Alexander Kent the developer behind Grid Junction, an Add-in for managing a UPS via the Windows Home Server Console has announced that the version for WHS 2011 has been cancelled.

In a statement released today Alexander said that the project did not gain enough traction to warrant further development:

“After careful consideration we have made the decision to suspend development of Grid Junction 2.0 for the foreseeable future. We have decided not to release the source code or any unfinished versions of Grid Junction 2.0. If you currently have Grid Junction 2.0 beta installed, please uninstall it at your earliest convenience.”

From HomeServerLand.

Grid Junction for WHS 2011 Cancelled is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

The add-in will automatically scan your server storage and display duplicate files in an easy-to-view layout directly within the server’s user Console.

New Features:

• Added search criteria to the Batch Resolve dialog for easier management of large duplicate file sets (i.e. view all duplicate files, view duplicate files located within a select folder, view duplicate files by file name)
• Added a "Reset all duplicate history" feature (More Settings | Reset all duplicate history) to allow for better management of duplicate history
• Added a vertical split-container within the Batch Resolve dialog to allow easier viewing of larger duplicate file sets
• Added an easy to view "Duplicate file" count to the lower-left area of the main page of the add-in. This allows you to quickly see the total number of duplicate files which currently exist on your server

Existing Snoop-de-dupe users can upgrade for free directly within the add-in.  Open the WHS Dashboard  and select the Snoop-de-dupe tab then select More Settings | Check For Software Update and follow the link to download the software update

Snoop-du-dupe is available as a 15 day free trial, after which it will cost you $14.99. More details information is available at  http://www.snoopdedupe.com/

Add-In: Snoop-du-dupe v1.60 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

“Home Server Status, is a program that shows the status of your Windows Home Server 2011. It allows at a quick glance to see if your server is connected to the network, if a backup is running, was successful, or unsuccessful on any client machine. It will even send status alerts to email or push notifications to your mobile device.”

Version 3.0 changelog:

• New: Improved settings page with tabbed pages for additional functionality
• New: Ability to enable iOS alerts via Prowl for iPhone, iPad, and iPod
• New: Ability to enable SMTP and UDP network backup alerts
• New: Network Backup Log for all those running HSS on your network
• New: Ability to detect Windows shut down, restart, and logoff during a backup
• New: Automatic checking, download, and installion of updates
• Updated: Less resource intensive

Home Server Status is available as a a 14 day trial, after which it will cost you $6.95 which will gain you a license for all computers, up to 10, connected to your Windows Home Server 2011.

More information can be found here.

Home Server Status v3.0 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

His list comprises links to router setup wikis, server deployment, remote web access, media and workgroup KBs plus a lot more from Microsoft’s Windows HSBS team.

You can check out Sean’s listing here.

WHS and SBS KBs and Wiki Links is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This weeks edition of The Home Server Show podcast is out:

…plenty of talk about Synology and Windows 8 Storage Spaces and talk about a typical “Home” server and it’s role in the household.

All this is on episode 170 of The Home Home Server Show.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 170 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Its an old post from August last year (2011), but it goes through the installation and the various settings available including folder redirection, security templates, Windows firewall with advanced security, Windows Defender and Windows Update.

Its a mammoth post and is an essential read for anyone thinking of installing the Windows 7 Professional Pack Add-in.

Windows 7 Professional Pack Add-in for SBS 2011 Essentials Walkthrough is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

The BYOB Podcast guys go through the basic Steps for creating an FTP site on Windows Home Server 2011.

Create an FTP Site on WHS 2011 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This is a great price, saving £36.25 off of the original price of £73.22!

You can find this offer here.

Windows Home Server 2011 Software for £37 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

StableBit DrivePool build 5536 is now available for download.

This latest build of the Drive Extender type add-in for WHS 2011 users, includes the following changes:

• [D] Changed driver load order to address disappearing shares on reboot.
• [D] Fixed timestamp issue in disk driver. Was preventing installation from going through on some systems.
• Added new Drives sub-tab under the DrivePool tab. Shows disk space usage on all pooled drives.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required on update

As always, more information on StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 5536 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

In the forum post at WeGotServed TwinTraveller goes through his experience of installing and using this new security package from G Data for WHS 2011 users.

You can find the post here.

G Data for HomeServer – A Users Review is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Home Server SMART (HSS) 2012 is the second-generation add-in for SMART disk monitoring for Windows Home Server…HSS consists of two main components, a user interface and a service. The user interface is where you can see the health of your disks, view detailed analysis and configure settings. The service, on the other hand, runs continuously, monitoring your disks at pre-determined intervals (default 10 minutes; you can change this). The service can raise WHS alerts and send email notifications when problems are detected. You do no need to be logged into the server for the service to run.

Features New to HSS 2012

• Works with disk pooling software Drive Bender and StableBit DrivePool.
  • Default setting not only ignores virtual disks, but hides them from the UI (since they have no SMART data anyway).
• BitLocker Drive Encryption integration – encrypt, decrypt and manage all of your volumes, whether or not those volumes have a drive letter – you can even enable the BitLocker server role from within the add-in!
  • Allows you to encrypt drives that participate in drive pools.
  • Allows you to hide disks that cannot be encrypted, decluttering the UI.
  • Allows you to make use of an HSS helper service to unlock BitLocker-encrypted USB volumes at boot time when those disks participate in disk pools. This can help ensure the disks are ready for use when the pool is started.
• You could ignore individual problems on disks in HSS for WHS v1, but now you can un-ignore (resume) them, either on an individual basis or for all problems on all disks.
• You can now ignore entire disks (and resume them as well) – useful for hiding flash drives and media card readers, as well as disks that you know are showing incorrect information (rare, but it’s been reported).
• Improved the ability to stop, start and restart the HSS service.
• Shut down or reboot your server from within the add-in.
• Send alerts via email.
• Bug Report Helper – runs a small self-test to detect installation problems and provide details to help in troubleshooting.
• Don’t use, and don’t plan to use BitLocker? You can hide the BitLocker tab completely.

Features in HSS for WHS v1 and HSS 2012

• Continuous disk health monitoring by an always-on service.
  • Monitors health of attributes and will generate alerts when a failure condition (threshold is met or exceeded) is detected.
  • Monitors disk temperature and airflow temperature, and generates alerts when unacceptable temperatures are detected (airflow temperature is flagged in HSS 2012 only).
• Customizeable temperature thresholds for Warm, Hot, Overheated and Critical.
• Temperature display can be shown in Celsius (default), Fahrenheit and Kelvin.
• Proactive alerting when changes occur on certain "super critical" attributes such as bad sectors, spin retries and end-to-end errors, even if they have not actually "failed."
• List of physical disks shows status icons for an "at-a-glance" view of disk health.
• Each attribute shows a colored icon in addition to a status message relative to its health.
• Double-click any SMART attribute to learn more about that attribute on the selected disk.
• Supports most IDE/PATA and SATA controllers that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls or WMI.
• Supports most USB and FireWire enclosures that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls.
• Allows you to clean up data from "stale" disks — disks you’ve removed from the server.
• Allows you to perform a manual polling of the disks for the latest data, rather than waiting for the service to poll them again.

Available as a pre-release, HSS beta 1 (version 2.2.1.21) can be downloaded from here, whilst heir wiki page can also be found here.

Thanks to the HomeServerShow forums for the update.

Add-In: Home Server SMART 2012 Beta 1 v2.2.1.21 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Episode 74 of the BYOB Podcast is up and this week its what CES 2012 had to offer.

Western Digital My Book Thunder bolt, Highpoint hybrid RAID, Fractal and Lian-Li cases and lots more.

You can find episode 74 here.

The BYOB Podcast Episode 74 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This latest build includes the following changes:

• Tweaked folder details presenter.
• [D] Changed pool part initialization / refresh to be synchronous.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required on update)

More details on StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 5472 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Included is a look at the innards of the Sentinel particularly at the different chips involved.

It’s performance including RAID 5 file copy read and write performance are also listed, which you can read about here.

WD DX4000 Sentinel Mini Review is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Microsoft Pinpoint will list your add-in for you and Sean takes us through the free sign up process to get your add-in added, which you can find here.

Get your Add-In Listed on Microsoft Pinpoint is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

SuperBiiz have the Windows Home Server 2011 software (CCQ-00128) for $49.99 with free shipping, but use the coupon code DRAGON and it will take 10% off, bringing the total down to just $44.99 saving you $5.

You can purchase from here but hurry as the coupon code expires 1/24.

WHS 2011 Software for $45 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This latest build of the DE type add-in contains the following changes:

• [D] Added support for undocumented directory listing file system behavior having to do with indexed requests.
         Managed to keep the same parallelized performance aspect of the algorithm, while adding deterministic ordering of results.
         Indexed queries are not as fast as non-indexed queries, but they are rarer (E.g. Triggered by: XP, OS X, boxee, MS-DOS applications, …), and are only issued for large directory listings.
• [D] Tightened up the directory listing algorithm code.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required on update)

More details on StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 5452 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

In this weeks edition:

“We dive deep into a blog post about Windows 8 and how the new Storage Spaces works.  There are some telling points to discuss about the future of Windows Home Server and how storage management is changing for Windows.  Plenty to discuss so give it a listen…”

You can find episode 169 here.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 169 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Gunnar is recommending that the base package should be 10 licenses as it is right now, but that there should also be an option to buy more licenses such as 5 more at a time on top if required.

You can read he’s post here.

Should Additional License Packs be made available for WHS? is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

If so, Sean Daniel explains to us how to get this setup on your server by using the tools AutoLogin from sysinternals and Microsoft’s own SRVANY.EXE.

This is a great read if you have some applications that you need to run as a different, non-admin user, that aren’t services.

You can find Sean’s article here.

Enable Auto-Logon on Windows Home Server is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Another users build list which you can find here.

Another WHS 2011 Build List is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Up to 6 hard drives can be installed within the SmartNAS which is powered by a Atom dual-core processor and 4GB of memory. Complete with 1Gb LAN interface, 2x USB 3.0 ports and 2x USB 2.0 ports.

Also provided at a cost of 2980 yen (approx. $39) per month is "Cloud NuTech Recovery Services’ which will automatically back up data from the SmartNAS to data centers operated by NuTech.

The SmartNAS is the size of an A4 sheet of paper and available to the Japanese market is various configurations. For example the 1TB HDD × 2 (2TB total) is available for 88,000 yen ($1144), the 2TB HDD × 4 (8TB total) for 168,000 yen ($2184) and the 3TB HDD x 6 (18TB total) for 298,000 yen ($3874):

These different hard drive configurations also come with the following RAID Levels: 2-drive models: 0/1, 4 and 6 drive models: 0/1/10/5.

Scheduled for launch mid-January Newtech are hoping to sell 2,000 units by the end of March 2012 and expects to sell a further 10,000 in the first year. We will have to see at the prices Newtech are hoping for!

Newtech SmartNAS powered by WHS 2011 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

This breakthrough will allow hard drive manufactures to produce much bigger capacity hard drives 100 to 150TB compared with 1TB

Today, hard drives use ferromagnetic materials where the spin of atoms are aligned or in the same direction but IBM used a form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism, where atoms spin in opposite directions, allowing scientists to create an experimental atomic-scale magnet memory that is at least 100 times denser than today’s hard disk drives.

More details are available at ComputerWorld.

Hard Drive Capacity to Increase 100 Fold is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!

Build 5449 has the following changes:

• Fixed installation issue, where if the previous M4 install failed in the middle, future installs would not work.
• [D] Fixed directory enumeration issue that was causing the WHS client backup engine to report damage in the backup database. Note that, when reproducing this issue, the backup database files were not actually damaged.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required on update)

More details on StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 5449 is a post from: MS Windows Home Server - Your Personal Guide to Microsoft Windows Home Server!