Warning: KB Article on Home Server File Corruption.

Warning Will Robinson!!!

Microsoft just posted a KB article outlining a very bad error in Windows Home Server with certain apps when you save the files directly to a Home Server file share. At least that's how I read it. The way I use it now is just a repository and backup device. Hopefully the error doesn't occur when you just backup the files from your local disk to the shared disk.

ComputerWorld broke the store earlier today.

Zune on Home Server???

I just got a few Zune's for my kids and have signed up for their service. If you don't know about it, you can download all the songs you want on a WinXP or Vista machine (up to 3 of them) onto up to 3 Zune devices. The cost is $15/month. All the songs are available (3 Million) and videos.. as long as you keep paying $15/month. To me, $5/month for each device/child is a pretty sweet deal for them to pull the songs that they like. Since I have 3 kids who each have their own laptop, the numbers work very well. They have iPods now but don't have the songs that they like.. they have the songs that their 40+ father likes...

Anyway, I'd love to be able to download directly to the home server and then sync to their laptops and my machine. I could then monitor the songs they're pulling down. If anyone knows a way to do this, please comment.

Unboxing and Software Load Pictures.

I created a new page to walk through my unboxing and software loading.

Click here for unboxing pictures


Click here for software loading pictures


Now onto hacking around. I discovered that remote desktop works fine going against the server. Strange that they loaded PostgreSQL 8.2 on there and allows the administrator to play around with the tables. I do like the fact that I can load other software and add-ins on the system, as well as view the Event Viewer.

Up and running

Pictures tomorrow.. I had no problem adding the drives into the system, while it was running! I have 1.5TB of storage. All pictures, movies, tv shows, and music now reside on it. One laptop is setup for automatic backup, we'll see tomorrow how it works out.

My initial impression... wow!! It's about 1/4 the size of my old Dell Precision tower. It seems much faster and is much quieter, but not as silent as I had hoped.

Now for the highlights... the iTunes integration is very cool. It comes up as a Shared Server. The songs stream very quickly. The surprising thing to me is that it did this on my macbook and mac mini. Another highlight, the speed of transfer and amount of bandwidth it supports. I had over 10 concurrent copy sessions of pictures, music, movies, etc and it handled it fine. This could be due to having it hooked up to my airport extreme router (only one I have with Gigabit LAN).

I have no buyers remorse at all. I feel it was a great purchase that will serve the home well for years to come.

Waiting for FedEx.. usually get's here about 3pm

Apparently out on the truck right now. I searched the web to see if anyone else was migrating from beta on old hardware to a new MediaSmart server. Some tips were to backup all the data from the server onto another drive, reformat you're old drives before adding them to the new server, and wait to add the drives until after you get the new server up and running.

I plan on taking pictures of the unboxing. The old Dell 530 has been repurposed to my wife for some of here graphic design and craft work. I should be more powerful than here Toshiba laptop.

I'm also still deciding on a name for my site. I have several url's that are all related. mediasmarthomeserver.com is a bit long.
I also have the following:

• smarthomeserver


• ezhomeserver


• emediasmart

they'll all redirect to this site, so it shouldn't matter. I realized that HP may not like me using their product name in full, so I hedged my bets on the other urls.

First Post - A little history...

I've been working with the beta of the Microsoft Home Server software for several months. It's great! Automatic backups at night, ability to centralize all my photos, music, and videos, centralize logging on my home network... I initially was using a Dell Precision 530 that I purchased in 2002. It's a dual 2GH Xeon, 1GB memory and dual 80GB drives and an additional 120GB drive.
I also have an external 250GB drive attached to USB 2.0.

After several weeks, I was thoroughly pleased with the Home Server software. It was quietly backing up 5 machines during the night, served as a central store for the house, just like in work. I decided that the 5 year old 80GB drives were limiting and have a high possibility of failing at any point. I order 2 500GB SATA 2 drives and a SATA 2 controller card. Count it up.. It's 1.25 TERRABYTES!!! for about $500 and a 2002 system that I wasn't doing much with.

I had the very large Dell workstation sitting in my basement hooked up to one of the 100GB switches I have. It was noisy and used precious power that we have down there right now. Occasionally we'd blow a fuse if the kids want to play air hockey! I was doing some consulting work out in Redmond and had the opportunity to visit their company store. They had a retail copy of Home Server that I picked up. Now I have some free time, between consulting gigs, to update the server. I gave it some serious consideration and decided to go whole hog with the home server and get a new one!!!!

I browsed around the web and found that the only place to get one right away is directly from HP. It's Cyber Monday and I have to do my duty to the ecomony and order the EX470 (the 500GB version) for $559 after an instant $40 rebate. Free shipping so it should be here sometime next week.