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Serve yourself
Dec. 17th, 2010 01:15 pmTaking a step away from my usual building of computer systems, I decided on buying an HP Mediasmart Server EX495. This is probably the high end of a class of tidy little machines running Windows Home Server. It cost less than 600 bux. About the size of a toaster, it can hold up to 4 drives and sit quietly in the LAN, performing regular backups of PCs and Macs, collecting and converting videos and becoming a repository of various digital media that can be shared not only among computers, consoles and other media players on a network, but over the internet as well. It's silly easy to set up, and quite robust. Windows Home Server is kinda like a well-kept secret, it's well respected among the geekerati, extensible and flexible, yet runs perfectly on very minimal hardware. I picked up the dual-core version (many use Atom processors) with an installed 1.5TB drive. I threw in three more 2TB drives as the thing was running, which immediately became a part of the storage pool after selecting their function. The backups ran perfectly, though cramming over 3TB from this PC alone took about a day and a half, still not bad considering the backup throttles back when the PC is in use to avoid slowdowns. My LAN handled it without a problem. The upgrades from a couple years back to Gigabit, the 24 port managed switch and whatnot should future-proof things here at Mayhem Amalgamated for many years to come, with luck.
It's a shame that this tiny server will take up residence down in the Lab of Doom and not be seen. It's a gorgeous little gloss black box, and built like a tank. The sad thing here is that these things might be on the way out. Microsoft has been working on the successor to WHS, and have removed some of the key features, most notably Drive Extender, that make the OS so simple to use and expand. Now there is talk of abandoning the product entirely. How often do companies have a great thing, then ruin it?
Now there are two dedicated and one multipurpose servers humming away here. 27.5TB total. And you know that big number will become quaint in no time.
It's a shame that this tiny server will take up residence down in the Lab of Doom and not be seen. It's a gorgeous little gloss black box, and built like a tank. The sad thing here is that these things might be on the way out. Microsoft has been working on the successor to WHS, and have removed some of the key features, most notably Drive Extender, that make the OS so simple to use and expand. Now there is talk of abandoning the product entirely. How often do companies have a great thing, then ruin it?
Now there are two dedicated and one multipurpose servers humming away here. 27.5TB total. And you know that big number will become quaint in no time.
