Alright I need some help here... I've done a fair bit of reading on this WHS hub bub... but I still have NO IDEA what the major, relevant difference is between a WHS... and a networked HD with remote access like the Western Digital My Book World Edition II?
Victor, here's more than you might have wanted to know but here goes:
With WHS, you can do the following -
- Backs up all your home PC's (up to 10 of them) nightly, weekly, whenever you choose (even has a "back this PC up now" feature)
- Want to get a bigger HDD in your PC and don't want to reinstall? "back up now" then install the new HD, partition it and run a restore, you are back up in ~20 minutes
- Offers protected and unprotected backups. Protected will mirror this data on seperate physical drives in case of hardware failure, unprotected just makes a copy on the server to backup what is on your PC
- Single Instance Store (new MS tech) is used, where only one copy of any unique 4byte chunk of data is stored to the server. Any other chunks exactly the same are earmarked where they need to be restored to, but not saved to the server over and over again. This makes backing up more data and different clients more efficient the more data you add to the server. A typical 10TB backup will occupy around ~300G on the server
- Access your Home Server and the files on it from ANYWHERE you have a computer with internet access - WHS autoconfigs any uPnP router (or you can manually config the router if it's not supported) to allow incoming connections to the server. You connect securely through having a free personal subdomain on Microsoft's www.homeserver.com domain as a perk for owning this O/S. Using this you can copy files to or from the server anywhere in the world, using a Windows Live login/password for security
- Access any of your PC's at home from anywhere in the world via the homeserver.com free access to the home server - it provides a bridge that you can use to jump to any PC in your home network to remote desktop into sercurely.
- Buy it pre-installed on hardware from HP, Fujistu-Siemens, Iomega, Gateway, Medion, and Lacie, or buy the System Builder version and throw together your own hardware.
- Expandable on the fly add or remove hard drives to expand or shrink storage. No RAID so you don't have to know how this works, just use the wizard to add or remove disks, disks don't have to be the same size or anything.
- Back up PC's, *nix or Macs, wired or wireless. Server is headless (no keyboard/monitor/mouse is used after intial setup, you just use the remote console to control it)
- Allows darg and drop access to all folders and files backed up, even different versions of the files in case you need a copy that you backed up 3 weeks ago before some changes were made
- Setup accounts and permissions for who can access which files on the server from both inside our outside your network (great to allow a guest account you can let others get to shares you open for files/pics - no more photobucket or looking for places to host your files online)
- Min specs are P3 - 933Mhz, 128Meg RAM, USB2.0 meaning a great use for old hardware if you have a new PC and junk laying around, just buy the System Builder. I've seen setups with 20+ hard drives none over 100G in size and it runs great with full redundancy.
The basic things it can do that an attached remote HDD can't are: - Scheduling the backup at a specific time by waking all remote clients - Providing secure remote access to your storage anywhere on the internet - Allow a gateway for using Remote Desktop into any PC you have in your home network from the internet - Allow you to create accounts to manage who can access what, even remote accounts that friends and family can use to access data (no more looking for hosting sites) - Headless use; once installed it just sits in a closet or corner, full access is through a web or MMC interface.
it's a server. not just attached storage. It can me used and easily set up as a personal web site as well. You can do remote access and install 3rd party apps yes but the biggest deal is automated back up of all machines on your network and it has software raid so all your data is imaged. What makes it different then a regular raid device it that you can change your protected space(mirrored) on the fly, you and easily add any combination of hardrives and if one fails you can just stick in a new one that is completely different than the one that failed and the data will be copied to it. This is like the drobo but with the quality of a windows business server. It will have other things like online back up too. I played with the HP one at CES in January and it is very cool. When you see one in action you will understand.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Victor @ Aug 31st 2007 9:05AM
Alright I need some help here... I've done a fair bit of reading on this WHS hub bub... but I still have NO IDEA what the major, relevant difference is between a WHS... and a networked HD with remote access like the Western Digital My Book World Edition II?
Somebody PLEASE enlighten me!
Neal @ Aug 31st 2007 10:35AM
Will and Rob, you are very incorrect, WHS has been released to manufacturers for over a month now, it's done and has been.
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2007/07/16/ship-it.aspx
Victor, here's more than you might have wanted to know but here goes:
With WHS, you can do the following -
- Backs up all your home PC's (up to 10 of them) nightly, weekly, whenever you choose (even has a "back this PC up now" feature)
- Want to get a bigger HDD in your PC and don't want to reinstall? "back up now" then install the new HD, partition it and run a restore, you are back up in ~20 minutes
- Offers protected and unprotected backups. Protected will mirror this data on seperate physical drives in case of hardware failure, unprotected just makes a copy on the server to backup what is on your PC
- Single Instance Store (new MS tech) is used, where only one copy of any unique 4byte chunk of data is stored to the server. Any other chunks exactly the same are earmarked where they need to be restored to, but not saved to the server over and over again. This makes backing up more data and different clients more efficient the more data you add to the server. A typical 10TB backup will occupy around ~300G on the server
- Access your Home Server and the files on it from ANYWHERE you have a computer with internet access - WHS autoconfigs any uPnP router (or you can manually config the router if it's not supported) to allow incoming connections to the server. You connect securely through having a free personal subdomain on Microsoft's www.homeserver.com domain as a perk for owning this O/S. Using this you can copy files to or from the server anywhere in the world, using a Windows Live login/password for security
- Access any of your PC's at home from anywhere in the world via the homeserver.com free access to the home server - it provides a bridge that you can use to jump to any PC in your home network to remote desktop into sercurely.
- Buy it pre-installed on hardware from HP, Fujistu-Siemens, Iomega, Gateway, Medion, and Lacie, or buy the System Builder version and throw together your own hardware.
- Expandable on the fly add or remove hard drives to expand or shrink storage. No RAID so you don't have to know how this works, just use the wizard to add or remove disks, disks don't have to be the same size or anything.
- Back up PC's, *nix or Macs, wired or wireless. Server is headless (no keyboard/monitor/mouse is used after intial setup, you just use the remote console to control it)
- Allows darg and drop access to all folders and files backed up, even different versions of the files in case you need a copy that you backed up 3 weeks ago before some changes were made
- Setup accounts and permissions for who can access which files on the server from both inside our outside your network (great to allow a guest account you can let others get to shares you open for files/pics - no more photobucket or looking for places to host your files online)
- Min specs are P3 - 933Mhz, 128Meg RAM, USB2.0 meaning a great use for old hardware if you have a new PC and junk laying around, just buy the System Builder. I've seen setups with 20+ hard drives none over 100G in size and it runs great with full redundancy.
The basic things it can do that an attached remote HDD can't are:
- Scheduling the backup at a specific time by waking all remote clients
- Providing secure remote access to your storage anywhere on the internet
- Allow a gateway for using Remote Desktop into any PC you have in your home network from the internet
- Allow you to create accounts to manage who can access what, even remote accounts that friends and family can use to access data (no more looking for hosting sites)
- Headless use; once installed it just sits in a closet or corner, full access is through a web or MMC interface.
chris fredette @ Aug 31st 2007 11:19AM
it's a server. not just attached storage. It can me used and easily set up as a personal web site as well.
You can do remote access and install 3rd party apps yes but the biggest deal is automated back up of all machines on your network and it has software raid so all your data is imaged. What makes it different then a regular raid device it that you can change your protected space(mirrored) on the fly, you and easily add any combination of hardrives and if one fails you can just stick in a new one that is completely different than the one that failed and the data will be copied to it.
This is like the drobo but with the quality of a windows business server. It will have other things like online back up too.
I played with the HP one at CES in January and it is very cool. When you see one in action you will understand.