ServeTheHome.com

One important storage principle that many people forget is that RAID is not a backup solution, it is a method of achieving performance targets, redundancy, and up-time. Users backup their PCs to their local servers, but often forget to backup server data off-site. This is especially concerning for any data using the local server as primary storage. One option employed by users is to backup server data to the cloud which provides a redundant, off-site backup solution. Cloudberry Labs’ CloudBerry Online Backup for Small Business Server 2011 Essentials (code name Aurora) is a program that automates cloud backup and also automates server backup to a network share. Read the full story

The company behind both FileBrowser and NetPortal reviewed on this site, Stratospherix, has a third app in the stable which has a few pieces of core functionality covered on this site a few times.  ServerControl is Stratospherix’s third application that combines some of the file browsing capabilities of the company’s other applications, but then adds support for remote reboot and shutdown, as well as the administration of Windows Server services through a simple GUI. Read the full story

Quick tip for those with headless systems that want to test Windows Server Codename VAIL (and that don’t have IPMI 2.0). To create a USB drive capable of a headless installation follow these two steps:

1. Make a USB installer with the win7 download tool and your WHS ISO.
2. Then make a cfg.ini file in the root of the new USB drive with the following code:

Read the full story

As I am sure most of the Windows Home Server crowd has seen at this point, there is a WHS V2 Codename Vail preview posted on Microsoft’s website. Here is the download link to feature previews https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/Downloads?wa=wsignin1.0 More information on the public beta and downloads can be found here: http://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver

If anyone has used Windows Server 2008 R2, or somehow managed to try the early build of Vail through the public link, you will quickly see how this is going to be a nice upgrade from the Windows Home Server we enjoy today based on Windows Server 2003.

I got a note asking to update my original benchmark for the Patriot PS-100 32GB with results from the new Patriot PS-100 Firmware v2.008. Performance is said to be better and it is!

Update 6 June 2010: New Patriot PS-100 32GB Firmware v3.000 benchmarks are up.

The specs of the update are:

Firmware update #2.008

• Firmware v2.006 doesn’t support Active Protection feature in Lenovo laptops. Firmware 2.008 fixed it by enabling Active Protection identify bit.
• Some platforms had issue installing Windows 7 into SSD with firmware v2.006. The root cause is partial command will be NAK in background process and bank (0) is not loaded in PRAM. Firmware v2.008 has fixed this issue.
• Firmware v2.006 has power on and loading Windows XP issue with some NVIDIA chipsets. Firmware v2.008 fixed it by changing default setting to MDMA mode 2.
• In Apple Mac Book and Mac Book Pro, sometimes SSD with Firmware v2.006 will fail in reboot. Firmware v2.008 fixed this issue.

Quick Teaser: The results got better!

Read the full story