A New Kind of Home Computer: Windows Home Server Preview
by Ryan Smith on September 4, 2007 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
WHS As A Backup Suite, Cont
As for restoring data, WHS comes with two options. The first is the traditional per-file restore, which can only be handled by a client. When a user/client wants to restore a file, they will pick the date/backup from which they want to restore the file, at which point the connector software will mount a dynamically-generated volume that is the contents of the client as of that backup. At this point the user can copy over files from the backup volume to their hard drive.
For a more complete restore, such as in the case of a catastrophic failure or those looking to use WHS as an image backup server, WHS ships with a live-restore CD. When the restore CD is inserted into a computer, the affected machine can connect to the WHS server and select a whole backup to restore. Since the operating system is included in the backup, it is also included in the restore, returning the machine to the same state it was in as of the backup. This process does however wipe the client's hard drive in the process, so it's not something that can be used leisurely. Power users that will be using it as a way to image and restore machines will especially appreciate the ability to restore to volumes of arbitrary size, and while Microsoft isn't pushing the imaging ability hard, it's one the best features of WHS.
There are a few caveats with the backup features of WHS that bear mentioning however. First and foremost only machines running Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista x86 can be backed up. Older versions of Windows are not supported, and more surprisingly x64 versions of Windows are not supported. The WHS development team has cited the need to write drivers for the backup/restore abilities as the reason for the latter limitation, as they did not have the time to write a good set of drivers for both x86 and x64, so x64 support is not included for now. Unfortunately we don't have a good idea when such support will arrive; the development team for WHS is working on writing a version of the software for x64, but they are not saying when it might be ready.
Hardware constraints also need to be considered. Backups are transfer intensive, so anything less than a gigabit Ethernet link will cause the network to be the bottleneck. This is especially problematic for wireless links, which under 802.11g are practically capped to less than 6MB/sec (and realistically top out at under 4MB/sec), a fraction of the transfer rate of a hard drive. Microsoft highly recommends at least a 100Mb Ethernet link (forgoing a recommendation for wireless entirely), but wireless will work at the cost of being especially slow when WHS needs to do another full backup because it is ready to throw out the old one.
Last, there is the issue of doing backups at convenient times. A machine needs to be fully-on to be backed up, and WHS only has a limited ability to deal with AWOL machines and deal with machines that aren't currently on; it (or rather the connector) can wake up sleeping computers, but does not have a wake-on-LAN feature for waking up computers that are shut off entirely. An add-on exists that can handle this, but the only reliable way of backing up a machine at night is to leave it on or put it to sleep instead of turning it off. Sleeping however can be more problematic on an enthusiast computer than an OEM-built one.
With that said, it's very clear that Microsoft has put a lot of thought and their best technologies into the backup feature of WHS. Although this isn't a round up where we can adequately and fairly compare all the major backup software suites, we will say that we're very impressed with what WHS can do here. The backup features alone can sell WHS if the price is right as is the number of machines.
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archer75 - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
Actually the main purpose of WHS is not only backup but it's also as a file server. It's meant to store all of your data on it and have it protected so all in your home can access it.I am using it as a file server exclusively and I don't have it set to do any backups and it works great.
n0nsense - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
Sorry, i will explain my self.I can't imagine file server without raid.
1. Mirror if you have enough money and need best performance.
2. raid 5 will give you same performance as normal disk.
3. soft raid.
when you store your data on server with redundancy, what backup do you need ?
shabazkilla - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
Any Windows XP or Vista PC has RDP server capability. I don't have my Vista laptop powered up at the moment, but in XP right click on My Computer, click Properties. Select the Remote tab and check "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer."
As for the RDP session being HTTPS encapsulated, there is a known security bug with RDP that makes it less than secure.
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/317244">Microsoft Terminal Services vulnerable to MITM-attacks
If you need remote access to your network stick with VPN rather than opening up a Terminal Server to the internet.
tynopik - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
> Any Windows XP or Vista PC has RDP server capability.that is only XP Pro, Vista Business or Vista Ultimate
XP Home, Vista Home Basic, and Vista Home Premium do NOT have RDP
archer75 - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
I don't get the complaint with setting up WHS and Media Center. All you have to do is tell Media Center to watch the folder with your shows in it. You are going to do that anyways so it's not difficult at all. Just a normal part of Media Center's setup. I told it to watch a share which it found on it's own. Done. That's it.WHS is targeted at your average home users. As such they don't know anything about RAID or have the ability to set it up. And even for the experienced user it is simply not needed. Ditch RAID all together. Forget about it. It is not needed here in the slightest. WHS will duplicate what you set it to and you are protected against drive failure.
The only other step I would take is using an online backup service to keep your data safe off site. There are at least two that will integrate with WHS console for easy management.
I have personally built my own WHS and it currently has 6 hard drives in it with room for 6 more. It's been rock solid so far for a RC.
iwodo - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
It is nice this article prove a point. NAS ( or NAS like product.. in this case WHS ) does not necessary means slow.If we look at the graph at smallnetbuilder almost all NAS perform below 30/s MB per sec.
Verdant - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
well not a complete solution, the webguide add-in covers many of the features i would want for MCE, the main problem is still the multiple computers issue though.Whiist allows you to do a pretty good job of web hosting too,
it just seems that some of these add-ins were ignored when this article was written!
n0nsense - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
This product can't be used by grandma because it is to complicated and she even don't aware of what it can do and for what she will need it.No enthusiast will use it since there is no reason to use product pretending something that it is not. It is not Server OS (hardly can call OS anything carrying Win logo with exception for WinCE which is truly interesting modular OS with micro kernel).
From my experience, when you have 3 and more computers, you do want centralize storage for media and docs. and some to keep private. no way I'll trust MS to be responsible of such things. Not with NTFS which is far from being perfect.
I'm sure MS will find the way to push it through OEM. But this is only thing they good at.
neogodless - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
If your grandma has three computers and an XBOX360, she might want this...Assuming she does...
Option 1)
Spend THREE DAYS setting up a Linux box with her spare old computer?!
Spend extra money on hard drives because it does have SIS.
When she adds hard drives... how does she tell Linux to spread out the files?
Option 2)
Spend 30 minutes setting up a pre-built WHS system or 90 minutes installing and setting up WHS on her old spare system. Maybe buy an extra hard drive here and there and spend 5 minutes adding it to the system.
leexgx - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
grandma lolbut i agree good post (must make sub account so can rate users)