By on September 26th, 2012

10 Features Needed In Small Server Hardware

HP ProLiant MicroServer

ServeTheHome gives us 10 features which we need in small business servers, which could equally apply to home servers too.

  1. Mini ITX or Micro ATX motherboard support.
  2. 8 Hot-swap drive bays.
  3. 8x 3.5 hot swap bays plus 2x 2.5″ bays minimum.
  4. Support for ECC memory.
  5. IPMI 2.0 or equivalent remote management built-in (vPro would be an example.)
  6. The small business server, especially if it is not a rack mount design, should be very quiet.
  7. No-vendor lock-in for drives.
  8. Reliable 80+ Gold or better power supplies.
  9. Choice of CPUs
  10. We need someone to build either the chassis or small systems for these small business servers!

More detailed information on these points raised can be found in the following post.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on September 25th, 2012

Why you may or may not want to Skip Domain sign-in on WS2012e

We mentioned earlier this month a way to connect WS2012e to client machines without joining a domain by using a registry key.

As a follow up Paul Thurrott has written an article explaining more behind why you may or may not want to skip domain sign-in.

essentials-connector-nodoma

You can read Paul’s pot here.

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By on September 25th, 2012

One or More Services are not Running or Cannot be Started Health Alert

If you are running SBS 2011 Essentials, WHS 2011 or WSS 2008 R2 Essentials and receive the “One or more services are not running” health alert, then we have a solution for you.

Firstly if there is a duplicated volume name, for example “local drive”, the Backup service will not handle this properly and you will have to rename each volume on your server so each one is unique:

  1. Clear the backup event logs to recover from current backup service failure.     
         a.Go to event viewer, browse to Applications and Services Logs-Microsoft-Windows-Backup-Operational.evtx
         b.[Optional]You may want to save the event log file for future reference.
         c.Clear the event logs
  2. Open the dashboard, locate the health alert that “One or more services are not running” and click “Try to repair the issue”.
  3. Open Computer Management, go to Disk Management
         a.Make sure all the volumes you need to backup have a unique volume name
         b.Make sure no volume has label like driver letter such as "C:".
  4. In the dashboard, click "Computer and Backup" tab, click the server and choose "Customize Backup for the server" in server’s tasks.
  5. Go through the Wizard to configure the server backup policy again.

Note, after removing the event logs, you will see the “No backups available”  message on server backup properties page Keep in mind that  your existing  backups are not lost and you can still select them during restore.. If you want to view the existing backup list, you can launch the application Windows Server Backup from the server and select “View details” for All Backups.

A similar error is “One or More Service Cannot be Started” which is caused by an exception showing an alert that one or more service cannot be started, which may include backup service, monitoring service, etc. The solution in this case is to make sure that the Update 4.0.3 for Microsoft .NET Framework 4 is installed on both the Server and the Client computers in the network, which will then correct this problem

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By on September 24th, 2012

Replacement Tools for WHS

Replace Windows Home Server With These Great Free Tools. That’s the title of an article at MakeUseOf who give us some other options for those of you who will not be upgrading to the 450 dollar Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

For backup they suggest CrashPlan and Windows 7 native system imaging, for media streaming its Plex and XBox Media Center (XBMC). Or if you prefer the complete replacement theirs OpenMediaVault or Amahi.

Crashplan a Replacement for WHS

You can read their article here.

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By on September 23rd, 2012

The History of Digital Storage Infographic

Mashable have made a great Infographic on the history of digital storage.

From punch cards to cloud storage with lots of great information in between.

For example a 8MB thumb drive would cost you $50 in 2000 whilst a 2GB one will now cost you just $7.

Also a 4.4MB hard drive would cost you $3,200 a month in 1956 whilst a 3TB hard drive will now cost you a one off $119.

history-digital-storage-mashable-infographics-972

From Mashable.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on September 22nd, 2012

Windows 8 – A Cheap, Effective Home Server

Woody LeonhardInstead of using Windows Home Server, tech writer Woody Leonhard suggests using Windows 8 as a cheap, effective home server.

Woody takes us through the pieces required to build a Win8 server and how to install and run Win8 Pro as a server. He also includes details on how to setup SkyDrive and Fetch which lets you access files on the Win8 server from any Web browser anywhere in the world.

You can find Woody’s guide here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on September 22nd, 2012

Back to Basics Guide for WHS 2011

APCMag.com have an article which takes a look at auto backups on your WHS 2011 box.

The article first takes a look at setting up your server and setting up your client machines. Restoring files, recovering from a client disaster and triggering a manual backup are also taken a look at. And finally a look at the Launchpad.

The Launchpad in WHS 2011

You can find the article here.

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By on September 22nd, 2012

Sooner or Later, your Hard Drive will Fail

The verge have an article on the options available to backup your PC or Mac.

backup_solutions

The article takes a look at both hardware and software solutions as well as The cloud, RAID, and NAS with some interesting facts thrown in for good measure:

Google did an extensive, five-year study on the failure rate of consumer hard drives and found that age has the most direct correlation with hard drive death — drives either fail right away, or start to degrade after the second year mark.

While it is included free of charge, even Microsoft admits that only five percent of Windows customers make use of Windows Backup — a clear indication that the process is more convoluted than it should be.

Its a comprehensive read, which you can find here.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on September 21st, 2012

Add-In: Drive Bender v1.3.7.5 BETA

Drive Bender have a new beta release with a bunch of "under the hood" stuff plus some new S.M.A.R.T. monitoring features.

Drive Bender Logo

Here’s the change log for version 1.3.7.5 BETA:

  • Update: Much improved duplication speed and lower CPU overhead (most notable on large folders).
  • Update: Duplication folder scanning speed have been much improved.
  • Bug fix: When using duplication tools, stopping a search can cause the client interface to hang.
  • Update: Improved speed of mount points loading in the dashboard.
  • Bug fix: WHS dashboard crashes when drive removal/swap is complete.
  • Update: Hard drive S.M.A.R.T. monitoring has been introduced.
  • Update: Hard drive model and serial number is now displayed for pooled drives (under the drives dashboard).
  • Update: A number on interface enhancements.
  • Bug fix: A number of minor interface and server issues resolved.

You can find this beta release here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on September 21st, 2012

WD Sentinel DX4000 Now Shipping with 16 TB Capacity

WD are now offering their Sentinel DX4000 with 16 TB Capacity for £1,749.

WD Sentinel DX4000 Front

Here’s their press release:

WD® now offers its WD SentinelTM DX4000 small office storage server with a capacity of 16TB, in addition to existing shipping capacities of 4TB, 6TB, 8TB and 12 TB.

WD Sentinel is a storage server designed specifically to meet the storage needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs). The WD Sentinel 16TB unit includes four 4TB hard drives, which offers small business owners the capacity, performance and capabilities they need to support their business. The WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server acts as the "on-premise cloud storage" solution for the SMB.

WD Sentinel offers SMB clients an easy to set up and easy to administer solution for managing their growing data storage requirements. It comes preconfigured from WD and can be easily setup into an existing SMB environment within 30 minutes. The WD Sentinel includes backup & recovery licenses for up to 25 client computers and features redundant network, power and USB 3.0 connectivity, a complete DLNA media server and secure remote web access to all authorised users.

The DX4000 servers ship with KeepVault, an optional cloud backup storage provider, which provides an integrated offsite backup solution for SMBs’ most important information, providing a secure offsite disaster protection plan at an SMB price point.

WD also offers WD Sentinel customers premium service offerings, WD Guardian Services, provided by WD customer support. WD Guardian services include an offering of next-day parts replacement services (Guardian Express), an annual support agreement (Guardian Pro), and an extended warranty (Guardian Extended Care) offering extending the standard 3-year product warranty to 5 years.

Price & Availability:

WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server is available at select retailers and online at the www.wdstore.co.uk . MSRP is £1,749.00 for the 16 TB.

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