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 File and Media Server, Cont
Besides SMB, WHS also offers additional ways for smart devices that aren't full-fledged computers to connect. Windows Media Connect is supported, so devices and software implementing that can use the server as a source of media, the prime example being the Xbox 360 and numerous home audio receivers. However users with very new devices will be disappointed to find that it only supports the older version 2.0 of this standard, which means some devices won't work.
New to this specific version of Windows is support for the Digital Living Network Alliance's self-named DLNA standard, a competitor for Windows Media Connect. Smart home audio receivers that don't implement WMC support usually implement this standard instead, and by offering DLNA support in WHS they will be similarly able to read media off of a WHS server. In an amusing note, by far the most widespread DLNA receiver right now is the Playstation 3, which got support for DLNA in the 1.80 firmware. So not only can the Xbox read media off of a WHS server, but so can the PS3.
So with all of this praise for the file serving features of WHS so far, why did we call this feature hit and miss overall? The answer is integration with Microsoft's existing home entertainment package, Windows Media Center Edition (MCE).
Simply put, there is no integration between the two. By default WHS and MCE are completely oblivious to each other, and furthermore if WHS is used to backup an MCE box it will purposely avoid backing up recorded shows (which makes sense, but only highlights the disconnect). Even accessing media on a WHS server from Vista MCE is more trouble than it needs to be; Vista Windows Media Player can use WMC to find media, but Vista MCE can't, it must log into a server's shared folders and be told specifically where to look for media. This is a one-time setup issue, but it still shouldn't be occurring.
All of these issues are just greater symptoms of the bigger issue though, and that is all of the space that both MCE and WHS both cover. An MCE box needs to be on 24/7 to record shows; a WHS box needs to be on 24/7 to backup and offer data. The obvious question quickly arises: why isn't the WHS box also doing the TV recording since it needs to be on anyhow, and we let the MCE box sleep? Microsoft has for some time now offered the Media Center Extender feature for other devices on a network to integrate with and control a Media Center Edition computer, but ultimately we run into the problem of a Media Center Edition computer being unable to act as an Extender itself; it's really a server. Even the Xbox has troubles in this regard, as it functions a heck of a lot better as an Extender than a WMC device.
The fact that Microsoft doesn't have a clear solution to deciding which device is really supposed to be the server is the representation of the disconnect that existed between the Vista and WHS teams. WHS really, really, really should have been an MCE-server box along with being a file server, so that it could hold several TV tuners and serve up TV to Extenders in a house.
In Microsoft's defense, Windows Server 2003 is a poor choice as a TV tuner; it's a file server and doesn't even offer the kind of driver compatibility required to work with the slew of tuners on the market. Microsoft has been aware of this oversight for quite some time and there's a lot of talk about making sure WHS 2.0 includes this kind of functionality, but that will be at least 2 years away. In the meantime anyone owning a WHS box and an MCE box will be on their own in finding a way to best split media serving abilities.
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leexgx - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
i think you mean {with out duplication) as if you got 2x 200gb with it turnd on you only get 200gb any way
i agree if raid fails it can be an problem some times getting the data off it
With WHS just plug the disk into an other pc and goto disk manager and Give the disk an Letter or mount it as an drive folder and you see all the data on it
tynopik - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
> i think you mean {with out duplication) as if you got 2x 200gb with it turnd on you only get 200gb any wayno, if you were duplicating EVERYTHING (which most people won't want to do) you will have 400gb*. 1st copy on the 400gb and half 2nd copy on one 200gb and other half 2nd copy on other 200gb
leexgx - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
darn miss read both posts i just read it like 200gb and 200gb a 400gb so assume last one was the 2 200gb put together to make 400gb----other post
i got you now on the 3 one if all 3 happend you lose data
tynopik - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
the other thing i forgot to mention is selective duplicationwhat if you have 500gb of files but only have 5gb that need duplication?
WHS is much, much more efficient in such a scenario. Only duplicating what needs to be duplicated and merging the remaining space
i can't wait for MS to include this feature in regular windows, it's freaking fantastic
ATWindsor - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
What if I want to have added protection on all my stuff? With raid 5 I loose 25% of the space, with WHS-duplication I loose 50% (and the performance is worse). Even people who wants an easy setup has diffrent needs.tynopik - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
> What if I want to have added protection on all my stuff? With raid 5 I loose 25% of the space, with WHS-duplication I loose 50% (and the performance is worse).that is only true if
1. you have 4 drives
2. they are all equal size
consider a scenario that i mentioned elsewhere where you have (2) 200GB drives and a 400GB drive
with raid5 you would only be able to use 200GB of the 400GB drive wasting half it's space right off the bat. So you are left with essentially 3 200GB drives. Then parity data takes up another drive leaving you with 400gb of space. Which is the exact same amount that WHS gives you.
but i will tell you this, RAID sucks, especially RAID5
you mess up one thing and you lose the entire volume
even with raid 1 i had more problems than it was worth
raid is just going to cause more difficulties and support calls, the exact opposite of what you want for a 'black-box' like this
and i'm not the only one who feels this way
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29">http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29
[quote]
However, at the agreement of our support staff, I estimate that anywhere from 25% to 30% of our customers with RAID will call us at some point in the first year to report a degraded RAID array or problem directly resulting from their RAID configuration.[/quote]
that sort of problem rate is simply unacceptable
and what if suddenly you decide that there is a bunch of stuff you DON'T need to duplicate? there is no graceful way to handle that with raid
WHS if simple, flexible, powerful and reliable (in the sense it's not likely to cause problems like raid systems do)
ATWindsor - Saturday, September 8, 2007 - link
There is many ways to mess up a whole lot of dta, raid or non-raid, I'm pretty sure i can make the datapool disappear pretty easy in whs also. (it can be recovered of course, but so can i raid5-volume).If people use problem-prone onboard raid-options on mobos, I'm sure quite a few run in to trouble, that doesn't make raid5 a bad idea for everyone. Same with your example with diffrent-sized disks, i happen to have 4 diks of the same size. Thats the problem with lack of options, people with needs diffrent than the exactly the ones that happen to be included gets a worse product.
AtW
ATWindsor - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
What if I want to have added protection on all my stuff? With raid 5 I loose 25% of the space, with WHS-duplication I loose 50% (and the performance is worse). Even people who wants an easy setup has diffrent needs.Gholam - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
Performance of consumer-grade RAID5 controllers is EXTREMELY low. Sub-10mb/s typically, with a high CPU load, as they don't have a dedicated XOR engine. Server-grade RAID5 controllers will give you good performance, but they cost in the $600-1000+ range, and when you're using consumer-grade 7200rpm SATA drives, you can buy half a dozen extra drives for the cost of the controller.ATWindsor - Sunday, September 9, 2007 - link
Software-raid has good read-performance if properly implmented, much better than a single drive. If you are going to have many drives, you must buy additional controllers anyway, so the price-difference isn't that big.