Why WHS?

[btrcp2000]

Having tweaked and played with sage for about 18 months now, I am nearing the point where it is pretty much set the way I want, and feeling like I should consider a ground-up reinstall to clear out old junk and get a fresh start in anticipation of a lot less ongoing tweaking. I am currently running it headlessly on XP home, but open to other ideas since I'm looking at a full rebuild anyway?

Can someone give me some quick bullet points on why WHS is so popular for a sage server?

[gplasky]

1) Stability. I have had very little in the way of major issues. And probably wouldn't have those if I didn't keep throwing the betas on there before they are ready.
2) Home network. I have a few PCs as clients and my development workstation. I've had WHS backing those up and have been able to restore files and entire PC's realitively easily.
3) Storage-I've redone my drives so they are all in the pool. If I want more storage I just add a drive (any type and any size) and the pool gets increased. Is it RAID? Not really. But it's similar and easier. I don't want to spend the time tuning and tweaking it. I can do that on my developmet rig. I just want it to work-and so does the wife.
4) Access from the outside-I can get to it very easily from the Internet which is part of the WHS config. But to be honest I use neilm's Sage Webserver more than the WHS capability of access. But it's good to know it is there.

I've added a HD100 and a HD200 to replace a couple of MVPs. One MVP is still on the basement TV. WHS seems to work well with XP drivers even though it's technically Windows 2003 server. I have the HDHR, the HD-PVR and a couple of nVidia DualTV analog tuners. Might eventually get rid of those and try something like a HVR 2250.

Gerry

[Skirge01]

I think it's because of what you get: not simply a Sage server, but a full-fledged home server.

The drive extender tech is great. Add more drives and they're added to your drive pool without needing to worry about drive letters.

That alone, IMHO, is worth the cost of admission. Just don't forget to check out S_M_E's info for 64k blocks for your recording drives.

Then, you get all the rest of the features of WHS, such as PC backups, folder duplication, user permissions, and remote access.

The fact that you have a stripped down OS running an important thing, such as the Sage service, gains you peace of mind. You aren't (or shouldn't be) tweaking the server constantly. You set it up once and pretty much let it do it's thing.

[S_M_E]

All very well said, I really have little to add other than WHS can do more than just Sage and the default WHS features. In addidition to SageTV there are many other WHS add-ins and tweaks (supported by MS or not) that allows WHS to be very flexible.

Personally, I'd build my own and not buy the prebuilt units and, as I've said in other threads, I can't imagine using another OS for a Sage server now.

[DOS64K]

I'll second and third the above.
Using extenders with WHS really simplifies things. If you need to use a client PC, that's OK too.
I've been running mine for awhile now and love the consolidation, power savings (no client PCs, see my sig), and expandability, and reliability

[ghostlobster]

Amen, amen and amen!
I made the switch to WHS a few weeks back and have not had any issues since.
However, there is the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy...

[crarbo1]

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I have had one concern that is keeping me from putting my SageTV on my WHS. It is the back up feature of WHS. Currently, I have a separate SageTV Server and my WHS system backs it up every night. How would I back up my SageTV information if I had it on my WHS only? What if I had to swap out the main System drive? Wouldn't I loose all of my settings since SageTV would be installed on the C drive? I may be missing something, and I hope that I am. I would like to move my server over to my WHS but I'm still on the fence.

Thanks,
Chuck

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I have had one concern that is keeping me from putting my SageTV on my WHS. It is the back up feature of WHS. Currently, I have a separate SageTV Server and my WHS system backs it up every night. How would I back up my SageTV information if I had it on my WHS only? What if I had to swap out the main System drive? Wouldn't I loose all of my settings since SageTV would be installed on the C drive? I may be missing something, and I hope that I am. I would like to move my server over to my WHS but I'm still on the fence.

Thanks,
Chuck

You can manually back up those files or use something like MS SyncToy to schedule more regular backups to a WHS share or external disk. If you really wanted you could backup the whole Sage folder the same way.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

You can manually back up those files or use something like MS SyncToy to schedule more regular backups to a WHS share or external disk. If you really wanted you could backup the whole Sage folder the same way.

If I was to back up the files manually or via another application that would automate it, which files would need to be added? I mean, I know I would need to reinstall the program, but I would want all of my settings to be backed up so I could just replace whatever files I needed to restore all of my settings and I would be done. I have had to restore a client PC from my WHS before, and I must say, it was very painless. I wish there was some way to do that with the WHS softare for the C drive of the WHS. If that was the case, then it would be a no brainer.

Thanks,
Chuck

[S_M_E]

I think you only need the sage.properties file and the wiz.bin, assuming that you use the stock UI with no plugins. The whole Sage folder is not very big and would make reinstalling a bit easier. Mine is only ~250M.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

I think you only need the sage.properties file and the wiz.bin, assuming that you use the stock UI with no plugins. The whole Sage folder is not very big and would make reinstalling a bit easier. Mine is only ~250M.

Thanks for the info. I do have a question. If you copy the entire folder, would you still have to reinstall the program? If so, would copying the entire back up of the folder over the top of the fresh install cause problems?

Sorry for all of the questions. I just want to get my SageTV server on my WHS and want to make sure if a reinstall is necessary it is painless.

Thanks,
Chuck

[edbmdave]

Check this for some thoughts.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

Thanks for the info. I do have a question. If you copy the entire folder, would you still have to reinstall the program? If so, would copying the entire back up of the folder over the top of the fresh install cause problems?

Sorry for all of the questions. I just want to get my SageTV server on my WHS and want to make sure if a reinstall is necessary it is painless.

Thanks,
Chuck

Yes, I'd imagine you would need to run the installer over the restored directory to get the registry entries right. It should keep your old settings though. copying the old folder over a new install might work too but I'd go the other way, personally. That's how I've moved my server from XP to vista and vista to WHS and it always worked so that's how I'd restore if the WHS system drive failed.

[heffe2001]

I'm toying with the idea of switching my Sage server from Vista x32 to WHS, just haven't decided to make the switch yet. The ability to add and remove drives from the recording pool is very attractive, just need to look at the configuration issues of Sage on WHS (64k blocks, etc). I also already have one home-brew WHS system up and running (it's currently backing up my Sage & Network encoder machines as well as my workstations), but don't use it for much else (picture backups, and also use it as my uTorrent machine, not much else). All my media (DVD's, Bluray rips, xvids, mp3's, etc) are on ANOTHER machine (unRaid, currently at 4tb and growing). I'd LOVE to be able to use all my tuners in one machine, and do away with the network encoder machine, but haven't found a AM2 board that I like with 5 PCI, 2 PCIE, at least 6 SATA, and onboard video...

Just checked on the 'egg, and found a Supermicro board with 5 PCI, 1 PCIE x16, 1 PCIE x4, and onboard video, has me seriously thinking of switching my Sage system over to a socket 775 intel board....

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Just checked on the 'egg, and found a Supermicro board with 5 PCI, 1 PCIE x16, 1 PCIE x4, and onboard video, has me seriously thinking of switching my Sage system over to a socket 775 intel board....

Does it have win2k3 drivers available? If so, a 775 dual or quad core would make a great WHS/Sage server.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by edbmdave

Check this for some thoughts.

Thanks for the link. I'm seriously considering the move to WHS.

Thanks,
Chuck

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Yes, I'd imagine you would need to run the installer over the restored directory to get the registry entries right. It should keep your old settings though. copying the old folder over a new install might work too but I'd go the other way, personally. That's how I've moved my server from XP to vista and vista to WHS and it always worked so that's how I'd restore if the WHS system drive failed.

Thanks for the info.

I sent you a PM. I don't want my questions to litter this post since they are now kind of getting off topic.

Chuck

[btrcp2000]

Not littering or hijacking at all, I appreciate all the info as it is raising questions that I didn't even think of in my original post. Thanks for all the responses!

Backing up other entire pcs is definitely one of the more attractive features to me, as I currently do it manually with Acronis True Image. Is there local software that needs to be running on each client pc? Otherwise, how can WHS get to the root drive of a client?

Also, a few have mentioned RAID, which I know renough about to be dangerous. How does that compare/contrast with the WHS approach?

[wado1971]

You guys almost have me sold. One question: Will WHS run DirMon2/Comskip ok?

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Not littering or hijacking at all, I appreciate all the info as it is raising questions that I didn't even think of in my original post. Thanks for all the responses!

I'm glad you feel that way because I suggested that he ask his question in the forums in case others had the same questions he does. He might start a new thread or ask here.

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Backing up other entire pcs is definitely one of the more attractive features to me, as I currently do it manually with Acronis True Image. Is there local software that needs to be running on each client pc? Otherwise, how can WHS get to the root drive of a client?

You'll install the WHS Connector software (\\ABIT\Software\Home Server Connector Software) on each supported PC and WHS will back them up.

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Also, a few have mentioned RAID, which I know renough about to be dangerous. How does that compare/contrast with the WHS approach?

The WHS approach is similar to RAID1 (or mirroring) but it's much more flexible than true raid because you can use drives in any combination of sizes, disable duplication certain shares and add them dynamically. For most home users it's perfectly acceptable and WHS doesn't technically support RAID, although there have been good reports regarding flexraid but that's SW RAID not true HW RAID.