A New Kind of Home Computer: Windows Home Server Preview
by Ryan Smith on September 4, 2007 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
The Interface of WHS
Although we'll touch on specific points of the GUI of WHS as we come to the various functions of the OS, we'll still spend a bit of time with the WHS interface since it's one of the other critical components that separates WHS from other server products and makes it work. Because WHS needs to be usable by a subset of users that are only partially computer literate, several special considerations had to go into making an interface for the OS. Furthermore the entire thing needs to be able to run headless once a WHS server is set up.
Microsoft has opted to go with a single application to control all of the functionality of WHS, the simply-titled Windows Home Server Console. As we alluded to earlier, the console actually runs on the server, and via a specialized RDP client is controlled from the clients. For clients that install the full connector suite (used for enabling backups) the specialized client is installed, which initiates the console on a remote computer and then transparently uses RDP to display it on the client as a local application. Because this is done via RDP, other clients from other OSs connect to and control the server via normal RDP; in this case they'll get the entire desktop of the server. At this point Microsoft is seriously entertaining the idea of pushing WHS onto non-Windows households, the Mac platform especially since an official RDP client is available.
The console effectively breaks up administration into 6 tasks: backups, user accounts, shared folders, server storage/drive management, network status, and WHS settings. As far as all of these interfaces go, Microsoft isn't working with any new human-computer interaction memes, rather everything is scaled down to be as simple as possible without losing effectiveness. This means that there's little we can say that's remarkable about the interface; it looks like Windows and there's a lack of buttons to push or things to break.
We're not completely sold on the effectiveness of the interface, but torn as to why. We don't think Microsoft could have made the interface any simpler without taking out features, but that doesn't preclude making it better. The interface is effectively a listing of a bunch of things to do, with help menus available that explain what each and every last thing does. It gets the job done, but a certain degree of computer literacy is required to understand what's going on. We'd say MS has done better with simplifying complex interfaces with Vista MCE, which manages to break complex issues such as storing recordings into a simple manner very well.
To that extent organizations like Geek Squad will probably get a good amount of business out of setting WHS up; it's not by any means hard, but there will be a sizable minority of potential customers that will lack the literacy required to do it themselves. However once set up WHS is by all indications plenty capable of continuing on indefinitely on its own; even its automatic update function has been revised for headless operation so that it can install any and all updates without human intervention (which is not the case today with XP or Vista). This is the reason we're torn, since most WHS servers probably won't need administration for 99.9% of their lives. The interface, especially for backups and user accounts, is good enough that once the server is set up it should be possible for more or less anyone to handle what little administrative duties remain.
On the whole Microsoft could have done a better job on making the interface accessible for everyone, but it's good enough for now.
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Gholam - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
Cheap motherboard-integrated controllers corrupt and outright lose RAID arrays all the time due to driver bugs, and performance is atrocious. I won't trust a RAID5 array to anything that costs less that $500, and for that price, you can just stick a few extra drives for duplication.n0nsense - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
I did with LSI MegaRaid 500 with 128MB cache (originaly come with 32).I found it in second hand store for 50$ :)
actually you can buy new one scsi320 for ~300$
as for sata, there is IBM ServerRAID 7t, HP, adaptec and other controllers for ~300$
starting price of 150$ for 4 port SATA II controllers.
Personally, i prefer raid 10, but the problem is were to put the disks.
i already have 5 and only 1 empty slot left. (3x5.25 reserved for future water cooling)
n0nsense - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
I did with LSI MegaRaid 500 with 128MB cache (originaly come with 32).I found it in second hand store for 50$ :)
actually you can buy new one scsi320 for ~300$
as for sata, there is IBM ServerRAID 7t, HP, adaptec and other controllers for ~300$
starting price of 150$ for 4 port SATA II controllers.
Personally, i prefer raid 10, but the problem is were to put the disks.
i already have 5 and only 1 empty slot left. (3x5.25 reserved for future water cooling)
Gholam - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
A 5 year old controller that you pick up at a second hand store is not something that I - or an OEM - can base a line of products on. A new RAID5 controller which is not built by Promise or Silicon Image will run you $500+ - the ~$300 solutions are ZCR cards that are basically addons to $500+ motherboards. ServeRAID 8s costs around $700, HP P400/256 nearly $600, well over $800 for P400/512. A bigger case to store extra drives - or a few external USB/Firewire/eSATA enclosures - will run you much less.tynopik - Friday, September 7, 2007 - link
> power outage is not on option when we talking about some kind of server.don't tell me, that UPS is something you don't use.
1. ups is not something most home users will use, you have to design assuming it won't be there
2. even if you do have ups, what happens when the batteries die? often the only warning you will get is one day the power flickers and the system shuts off. do you replace all batteries every 2 years whether they need it or not?
3. even if you meticulously maintain your ups, the internal power supply can still go bad
> hardware problems will do the same to your system and its really does not matter what you running inside.
NOT TRUE
ntfs by itself is fairly fault tolerant. you yank the power you might lose a file, but everything else is fine
raid5, you yank the power you might lose EVERYTHING
that is why WHS file duplication is far safer and better
> of course i can give you examples of corporate Data Centers with 0 data loss, but we are talking about home.
of course i said it works if you're using ENTERPRISE LEVEL HARDWARE everywhere. Good raid cards start at $300. A $150 motherboard with onboard raid doesn't even begin to cut it.
> let's organize it from worth to best.
> no raid
> soft raid
> raid 1
> raid 1+0 or 0+1.
there is no such thing as 'best'
there is 'best for a particular set of requirements'
maybe your requirements are such that your best looks like that
my best would like
soft raid
raid 1
no raid
raid 1+0 or 0+1
(that's right, i would rather have no raid than 1+0 or 0+1)
> This press machines working at full load non stop 24/7/365. Year @ IT department, no problems with raid.
congratulations, you are one of the 70% who didn't have problems with their raid last year. Are you confident you won't be one of the 30% next year?
> for not very advanced user i will recommend Debian box with Bacula to manage backups, syncing, share etc.
not very advanced users aren't going to have a clue about Debian
not very advanced users are going to be setup up raid properly
n0nsense - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
Any UPS have connection to computer and will shut it down properly when configured to do so.As for controllers. I was surprised to find that almost all integrated raid controllers (including my), actually software and not hardware. So need to admit you were right about it. (I spent few hours to transfer my disks to Promise ST150 TX4 and rebuild the raid).
NTFS is the best in Microsoft's world. but since we can't run Windows on ext3 or reiserfs, or Linux on NTFS, we can't actually compare them in real world benchmark. Theoretically, NTFS is inferior. Actually any modern FS of all desktop systems is good enough.
So we still at the same point.
I agree with you that WHS is good for redundancy (if you enable this option) where you don't want to use real raid controller with "small" price tag.
But I just can't see justification to use it. Compared to alternatives it does not have something spacial enough to pay extra 180 USD. Yes I know that for most of users, Linux is something horrifying. But we are not talking about them, but about the WHS and alternatives. in this case about raid.
by the way, i'm very curious. what raid 1+0 or 0+1 did to you ? :)
that remind me to answer. shut down will cause you to lose open/unsaved files in any scenario. but it can also damage you entire HD. raid 5 will give you better redundancy then SINGLE disk(single data instance). but when duplicating, raid 1 is the best.
n0nsense - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
nForce (i'm not sure, but i think there is intel's chipset based MoBos with raid 5) raid still better in terms of stability, redundancy and performance then any soft raid.think what will happen if your WHS will crush unrecoverably.
how will you restore your data ?
n0nsense - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
Hello, if you have important things that you don't want to get lost or corrupted by some virus or anything else, do your self a favor and checkhttp://www.debian.org">http://www.debian.org
http://www.ubuntu.com">http://www.ubuntu.com
or any other user friendly distro.
you will find a way better solutions for home (and not only) server.
more exactly you'll find OS capable to be everything with more then proven stability and security.
and yes, it will work inside your MS environment. as for file server (and this is main purpose of home server), you will find much better performance.
You may want to extend it to be your media server. means really distributed one. server with tv card and clients on other boxes.
tynopik - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
> as for file server (and this is main purpose of home server)no, the main purpose of WHS is backup
if your main purpose is just a simple file server then yes, WHS probably isn't for you
mindless1 - Saturday, September 8, 2007 - link
Absolutely not. A server is not backup, it would be a very foolish thing to keep your back as an online windows box.