For the past week or so I have been testing Microsoft Home Server and thought I would share my experiences with you.
Back in July I got an email from Microsoft advertising several things, one of which was a Home Server 120-day trial. I’d read about it some months ago when I was thinking of building a NAS at home, but wasn’t sure what it could do.
So I thought this would be a good chance to find out. I downloaded the ISO, burnt a DVD and began testing.
To install Windows Home Server 120 Day Evaluation Kit, you need:
- Computer with 1 GHz Pentium III (or equivalent) or faster processor
- 512 MB RAM or more
- 70 GB or larger ATA, SATA, or SCSI hard drive as the primary hard drive and any number of additional hard drives of any size
- DVD drive, your home server must be capable of booting from this drive
- VGA or higher-resolution monitor for software installation
- Keyboard and mouse (needed only during initial home server installation)
- 100 Mbps or faster Ethernet network interface card
Installation
Install #1 – D610 : No luck
The hardware requirements say you need 1GB of RAM and at least a 65GB HDD. Well I thought maybe you don’t actually need to have a HDD that big. So I tried installing it on a Dell Latitude D610 with a 50GB HDD in it.
It wouldn’t let me install. The installer comes up with a message saying something about the HDD is not big enough.
Oh well.
Install #2 – D620 : Success
Next I borrowed a Dell Latitude D620, with 2GB of RAM and a 80GB HDD. This time it installed OK. I was using a Linksys WPC54G wireless card in it, which I had a few problems with. But I later changed and used the built-in wired card.
By the way, the wireless card did work, I just wanted the extra speed.
Like most Microsoft operating systems, it was pretty easy to install. It took a while, but I don’t recall any major issues. I may have had to assign a fixed IP address. I don’t remember if that was the DHCP problems I have with my wireless router or a requirement of Home Server. When you install Home Server, you need to have a monitor and keyboard plugged into the machine. But once you are done, you can unplug them. Everything else is done from a “console” that you install on your other machines on the network.
Administration using the console is fairly easy. You have to add accounts for each user. Each account requires a 5 character password or a 7 character complex password for remote access.
Testing
Test #1 – Install USB-HDD : Good
I read somewhere, maybe in the setup guide I skimmed, that you could use USB-HDDs in the storage pool. I had a 80GB USB-HDD I didn’t use much so I thought I would try it out. Just for a laugh I tried a 2GB and 4GB USB ‘drive’ first. It didn’t recognize them. The 80GB one though, no worries.
WARNING : When you add the HDD to the pool, it wipes the disk. It is nice enough to warn you before adding the disk when using the wizard. But you might want to remove any data you want first.
You do this from the console installed on the other computer. You plug the HDD into the server, then go to the other computer to add it too the pool.
Test #2 – Remove USB-HDD (leave Home Server off) : Good
Next I wanted to know what happens if my Home Server dies after I’ve put all the data on the USB-HDD? Can I plug the drive into another computer and retrieve that data?
The answer is yes you can. You have to reset some permissions, but after that you appear to be access the data OK.
NOTE : You can’t control where home server puts your data. So in my case, some might go on the internal drive, some on the USB-HDD.
Test #3 – Remove USB-HDD (turn Home Server back on) : Not good.
After doing test number 2 I wanted to double check that I could copy files off the drive and put them back on and see what Home Server does if you power it back on without the drive connected. I could access the files OK, copy them off and add stuff.
Home Server started up OK without the drive connected, but gave me lots of errors about missing files, folders, drives and database problems. Its suggested fix, plug the missing drive back in. So I did. 
Test #4 – Backup / Restore : Fantastic
After having a clean up on my Media Center PC I was able to remove the 500GB USB drive I had on there and move it to the Home Server. This allowed me to put lots more data on the home server to fully test what it could do and space to try out the backup feature.
When you install the Home Server Console onto a computer, it then allows Home Server to backup that computer.
I tried it out on my main VISTA computer and it seems tsimple enough to use. You can select which drives to backup or not backup and which folders to exclude. That is about all though. You can also set how many copies of monthly, weekly and daily backs to keep.
Then it just so happened that I changed and saved it, then realized that I didn’t really want to do it that way and need to old version back.
This was just about the day after doing the home server backup so I thought I would see how easy it was to get it back from there.
It was fantastic. I didn’t have to restore the whole thing or do anything tricky. I just used the console to “open then backup” and navigate down the folders to where the file i wanted was and then do a copy and paste (or was it save?). Easy, great.
Test #5 – Rebuild / Reinstall of Home Server : ???
I found out some information about reinstalling and upgrading Windows Home Server from the Windows Home Server Technical Library
Reinstalling
To reset Windows Home Server using the Server Reinstallation procedure
- Place the Windows Home Server DVD in the drive of your home server.
- Restart the computer and boot from the DVD. Windows Home Server Setup starts.
- Follow Setup as described in your Windows Home Server Getting Started guide.
- On the Select an Installation Type page, select Server Reinstallation.
- On the Windows Home Server password page, type a password, a password confirmation, and a password hint. The password you type is your new Windows Home Server password. Make sure the password hint helps you remember the new password.
Upgrading
You can upgrade from the Evaluation version of Windows® Home Server to the fully licensed version. Boot your home server from the fully licensed Windows Home Server DVD, and then select Server Reinstallation. When prompted during Setup, use the product key from the fully licensed Windows Home Server DVD.
noteNote
All of your Windows Home Server shared folders and computer backups are preserved during an upgrade. However, you need to recreate your user accounts, reinstall any installed applications, and reset your Windows Home Server Settings.
Important
As an added precaution, make sure you copy all of your important files located in your shared folders before you begin the upgrade.
Information
Remote Access
Another interesting feature of Home Server is that you can setup Remote Access so that you can access you server over the internet. It is easy to setup, assuming you know how to setup port forwarding on your router or have the right type that will allow Home Server to do it for you.
Remote Access to your home-computer desktops and Home Server Console is supported on Internet Explorer only. If you use another Web browser, you cannot access your home-computer desktops.
You may also need to setup your router to forward server ports to your home server. See the Windows Home Server Technical Brief – Remote Access documents for more information.
Shared Folders
Home server comes with a setup of predefined shared folders. Videos, Photos, Music and the like. But you can add others.
You can map drives to this, but I found that my VISTA PC reported and incorrect drive space free doing that.
Mixed Drive Sizes
One of the best features I like about Home Server is that all the drives don’t have to be the same size. I can add a 500GB now, a 1TB later and maybe even a 2TB after that. I then simply add them to the storage pool and the space is available to any or all of the shared folder.
Considering how often drive sizes change these days, I think that is a good feature.
Folder Duplication
I found out a little about folder duplication the other day. Its a feature you can turn on or off for each shared folder. When you turn it on, it basically copies the contents of that shared folder to all the drives in your storage pool. So that if a HDD dies, you won’t lose that information because it is on multiple drives.
Of course this means that any folders you turn it on for will take up twice the space in your storage pool. But as they say, “disk is cheap”.