Hardware and Software Specifications,
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1st Published,
Jan. 2008
Over 12,500,000
Hits Site Wide in 2009
Few Things that
Windows Home Server can do for you.
Windows Home Server can do a lot more than a simple NAS.
You can use any computer from P-III 1GHz with 1GB RAM and above to run Windows Home Server.
Windows Home Server (WHS) is a subset of Windows 2003 without Active Directory
and Domain Manager that are useless in small home network environment.
WHS natively can do Auto back up, and Restore of all the computers on the
Network. To secure the backup data it can do Auto Mirroring too.
It is ready for HTTP and FTP servers, with certificate based SSL connection (the
certificate is provided only with the paid version).
Provides Dynamic DNS, your_name.homeserver.com that is registered when you set
up the server. It is free service from Microsoft and it enable you to connect to
the Server (with secure connection) from any place in the world with Internet
connection.
Many add-ins are available for Windows Home server (most are free) some of them
can turn the server into an excellent Media Server solution.
RAID? Basically there is
No need for RAID, the Server has a Redundancy feature. When two drives are used
the Server saves the original file on one drive and keep a copy of the file on
the second drive (it is a self mirroring in the system).
Files are save in regular format so even in case of Server "disaster" it is easy
to copy them back elsewhere
In addition when more storage is needed another drive can be added, its joins
the current storage without any changes in the current system.
No matter how many drives are attached to the system there is No need for
multiple mapping. To the Network the whole core of the storage is projected as
one drive called \\WHS\.
Some computer Enthusiasts feel that life without RAID are Not "worth living".
Windows Home Server does Not support RAID from the inside thus you cannot
configure the Motherboard IDE/SATA port to work as RAID.
However, if One has a real RAID system based on Hardware RAID card, WHS would
use it like it uses any Storage drive.
Windows Home Server trial can be obtained from Microsoft.
