Drive Extender Technology will be gone for newer Microsoft Server OS

And you read right... And we all thought that was what brought WHS to its heights. And *poof* its gone. That includes the upcoming "Vail" aka WHS : The Next Generation.

Read about this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20101125/tc_zd/257392?

Western Digital Advance Format Drives

Recently I had the wall with a new technology from Western Digital known as "Advance Format". Well, hit the wall as in I do not think my HDD is performing as it is suppose to be and in fact doing pretty badly at it. The HDD keep chunking and I had been checking for signs for malware or background process. I did not have this issue when I was on my previous Seagate 7200.11. In any case, you will notice what I have here is basically just a string of bad luck.

Firstly, what is Advance Format. It may sound deep, but basically all it means is that it is using 4K cluster instead of the legacy 512bytes which has been like 10 years or so... Thats all to it. Well, if you want the details, AnandTech did a good write up to explain how this will open the door for further larger capacity drives as well as how this can save some space because of using 1 ECC for a 4K block instead of like 8 ECC for 8 x 512Bytes block.

AnandTech on WD Advance Format:
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3691

OK, strangely, this is already supported in Windows Vista, 7, 2008 but not the older legacy OS based on the Windows 5.x core like Windows 2003, XP etc. Please do not even ask me about Windows 2000... So that means somehow you get very bad performance (due to misaligned sector all the time) or it simply doesn't work at all. WD had came up with a utility (together with Acronis) which in my opinion is nothing more than a tool that checks for 512bytes clusters and basically convert the whole partition to 4K cluster. There is also a version that works in Windows (with Paragon), but it can be 3X slower as indicated by WD. In addition, you can test out your scenario to see if you need to run this at all using the wizard on the right here:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/

So far from what I see so far, the only affected range of HDD which has the Advance Format functionality is those ending with EARS. I have another drive with EADS, but according to sources it should not be affected. Maybe I should send WD an email to confirm this. Another pressing problem is that Windows 2003 is not affected or supported.

Update : OK here is what I think and understand so far. I had send queries to WD, hope they will give a solid answer.

• Jumper 7-8 : Only if you are using the HDD as 1 partition. >1 partition, you can forget about this.
• Windows 2003 : Supported using the Acronis Boot CD. But to what effects, I am not sure. I suppose it will behave like Windows XP
• EADS drives : Not supported by AF. In short, does not apply to you.
• WHS : See Windows 2003 above. Also note that because of the dynamic disk, high chance of screwing this up...

What's new in WHS PP3

Here is the list of What's New in PP3 for Windows Home Server.

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.

Complete details are available in the Power Pack 3 Release Documentation.

What happened in WHS PP3

As mentioned, PP3 was rolled out on 24 Nov 2009. I had it upgraded ASAP and reboot my Windows Home Server. Although, I did not witness the reboot myself, everything seems normal. Well, that is until I try to connect to it.

Remote Desktop - Does Not Work.
WHS Connector - Does Not Work.
Ping - OK.
Website - OK.

Strange. I have to plug in to my TV and keyboard to troubleshoot. I saw a strange message about WHS Log being full. I did a quick check on my space and I notice there is plenty. I suppose it is the log limit that was set. In any case, I did another reboot.

After the reboot, the log message is still there, but everything else works. Looks like I needed to reboot it twice. I did the recommened steps to go in, backup the logs and clear it and hopefully, the log message will not appear soon again.

After PP3, I notice the backup with my Windows 7 machine is more stable. I had less failure anyway.

Edit : Oh yeah, one more thing I forget to mention. You will need to upgrade all your WHS connector software on your desktops, laptops etc. If you are using a firewall, that has to be updated to the new binaries as well if your firewall is a application binary specific one such as OneCare.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Goes Live on 24 Mov 2009

Paul Thurrott reports that Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be released November 24


"We are announcing that the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24 2009. Power Pack 3 will be a free update to existing Windows Home Server users via Windows Update.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing features like backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Microsoft released the Beta of the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 in July 2009 and received positive community support and feedback from Beta testers throughout the testing cycle. We let you know back in September that we were going to continue testing the Beta and would not ship the final release of Power Pack 3 until the community has validated our work. We are pleased to now announce the November 24, 2009 availability."

2FA on the Windows Home Server

With the banks and everyone else tightening up the authentication, it is also no surprise that people like me is also looking at a 2FA solution that log in to my WHS. I had chosen one of the out-of-band solution using the mobile phone. As I see it, this should be the way moving ahead.

I won't say too much about how it is done yet as I am still looking at the implementation, but it is likely I will roll this out this coming weekend and as such all login to the WHS will be disrupted and no longer valid until you have register you handphone with me. :)

I will share out the experience after I complete this exercise.

Windows Home Server PP3 Beta Supports Windows 7

Windows 7 is already well on the way, 7.7600.386 is rumored as the voted RTM. And we are looking at Oct 22 as the first day release. WHS is not taking this any slower as PP3 gears up and prepare for the support for Windows 7.

Here is the current breakdown of the beta which already support Windwos 7 RC:

•Windows 7 Compatibility Enhancements
◦Windows 7 Libraries integration: When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a Windows 7 computer, you can access the Windows Home Server shares from Windows 7 libraries.
◦Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression: After you install the Windows Home Server Connector and enable the home server backup on your Windows 7 computer, you will not receive the warning from the Action Center which reminds that Windows Backup has not been set up.
◦Windows 7 power settings: You can configure your Windows 7 client computer to wake up at scheduled backup time and be put back to sleep after backup finishes.
◦Windows Search: Windows Search 4 has been included to improve query search times, indexing times and reliability. Extended remote discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with Encrypting File System (EFS) are now supported.
•Home Computer Backup & Restore Enhancements
◦File and computer restoration: Helps prevent the issue experienced when restoring files and folders from a Home Computer Backup that stops at 81 or 97 percent complete.
◦Reliability: Improved handling of temporary files helps to ensure necessary system files are backed up more reliably. Improvements to the backup repair process.
•Home Server Console Enhancements
◦Support for low resolution displays: This update enables the Windows Home Server Console to support low-resolution displays. The lowest resolution that is supported after you apply this update is 1024 x 600.
◦This update enables Windows 7 to be properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.
•Windows Media Center Enhancements
◦TV Archive: Enables automatic archiving of recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.
◦Console View: Allows you to see information about your home server’s storage space, drives, backup status, etc. from Windows Media Center.

Full articles with pictures:
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2009/07/17/windows-home-server-power-pack-3-beta-includes-enhancements-for-windows-7-based-computers.aspx

Download:
https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

Microsoft Windows Home Server 2010 Codename Vail

The next generation of the Windows Home Server (codename Vail) will be available in 2010. There will be an update (possibly like WHS R2) in 2009.

Some details on Vail:

• Only available in 64 bits
• Based on Windows 7
• Bigger support for larger HDD (hardware, does not afface home builder)
• Lower powered chips (Atom? Again, doesn't affect home builder)

More details:

http://www.techradar.com/news/digital-home/next-gen-home-server-based-around-windows-7-501108

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 RTM

Its finally here... The greatest improvement (other than fixing the corruption bug) is the Remote Access which now you can see your pictures in thumbnail view. For IE6 and IE7 (officially), you will be able to drag and drop to upload and download now. Its also a (few) click to download multiple files via ZIP now!

The other improvements includes backup enhancements including the ability to backup to USB connect drive, backup your WHS share folders. Of course, the power consumption has been fixed to give it a more green environment friendly feel.

Download WHS PP1 from :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1A6AEF46-DB57-401F-814F-6EFA26E7A1E8&displaylang=en

Put that onto your WHS onto the software directory. Remote desktop into it and launch the installer. After that you will need to go onto each of your client machine and follow the instruction to upgrade the client connector software. Its goes something like http://(WHSServer):55000 to download the upgrade for each machine.

My advice is to immediately launch the connector software and perform a backup. Why? If you do so, you will released your security suite will detect the connector software has changed and it will prompt you for allow/deny the backup engine. Imagine if you have not done so and leave it overnight hoping it would somehow worked, well it won't. You will have to allow it and save the config this once. Well, if you have no such issue, I suggest STRONGLY that you get a client side security software. I am using Microsoft OneCare which has report it doesn't play nice with WHS. It worked for me anyway now that I am on OneCare 2.5 anyway.

WHS - Files that are compressed by NTFS compression may not be backed up correctly by WHS

This issue may also affect CAB, ZIP, JPG, PNG, RAR and all sort of compressed files. Microsoft has details the problem at :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950190/en-us

Good news is that there is a fix available at :
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117355

Although MS has stated it should be updated via Windows Update, this did not appear on my list. However, a point to know is that most people thought you had to install this on the Server. Well, no. You will end up with some errors because you do not have the WHS Connector software on your server. (You do? Why would you install it on the server? :P)

Anyway, this is for all PC who send backup to the server using the WHS Connector.

Antivirus on WHS

Before I got down to solving the defrag issue, I started to embark on another issue on WHS. Antivirus. Do you need it?

Let me point out one side of the story first. WHS is a file server. You DO NOT execute software on it (except updates, patches etc). You do not open your files on it. Therefore save yourself some money. As long as you have client antivirus, everything you transfer in and out of WHS was checked at one point or another. Thats one arguement. I do not want to say this is right or wrong.

Let's takea look at the other side of the story. WHS is essentially Windows Server 2003 R2 (SBS Edition). Lets consider the following :

1. WHS is connected to the internet. Otherwise whats the point of "accessing it anywhere".
2. WHS is subjectable to server vulnerabilities similar to WS2003.
3. WHS requires patching. Some patches can be delivered automatically, others have to be manually put in. Therefore you need to execute some form of software once in a while.
4. WHS has software running in the background which arefrom 3rd party and can be subjected to infection. Especially if you have chosen to download it from untrusted sources.
5. You network firewall (if you have one) or router will not protect you from malware in general. If you do, you are pretty rich, I guess :P
6. Non of the default malware (if any) such as Window defender etc works on WHS. In short, you are short of arsenal against malware.
7. WHS can be attacked and WILL be attacked. If you do not believe me, look at your log in verbose mode.
8. Are you pretty sure your WHS is 100% free of trojans, spyware etc? Remember the point where you needed to have some software on your WHS and you actually launched IE to download them. Ok, maybe not cos in the default lockdown mode, you will get annoyed within 30 seconds. Mayeb you installed firefox? Now, thats a evil way to use Firefox. :) Back to the point, you probably downloaded something with it. Scan it with Spybot or Spyware Terminator and you will know the answer.
9. Do you want to risk corrupting (please dun even bring up the MS bug...) due to malware? Do you want to have unrestorable backup or unopenable files after investing so much on WHS? If you do, you should go ahead and get linux. Its cheap and probably not worth the effort protection. :)
10. Do you want someone else not on your list to access all your naked photo (of your pets) and other previous moments (with your family) all over yourtube and photosharing portal? Or your latest resume with your boss and payslip all over IRS?
11. Do you want to use the restore disk soon? Lost all your data?

In short, I sided with the 2nd camp. I believe whatever reasons it may be some form of antivirus is required. While it's not as critical as a real commercial server, you probably still want to put in some form of antivirus (of a suitable value) to protect it.

I would want to put a deeper discussion on another post, but lets run through some choice here first. ClamWin (free) is one which requires $0 but its a on demand scanner with no active component. Avast WHS edition is the only WHS "certified" antivirus of date. avast has already processed my request for an extended trial for this purpose. There are many others.

While I do not want to criticize a certain brand, I feel its fair to mentioned that its all due to my faut for trying to "hack" it to work. I tried Eset Business Suite. Its an excellent antivirus for server, but not for WHS. The firewall totally screwed up my WHS. To get it to work, I almost had to tear it down to minimum (which is probably not worth the money you pay for now).

OK, I will come back to this again when I have more concrete testing results.

PerfectDisk 2008 for WHS Build 48

I had been trying out both Perfectdisk and Diskeeper some time back on my WHS. So far, Perfectdisk has an edge because it was able to install. Somehow for me, the trial of Diskeeper ends up with :

“Product: Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer — This edition of Diskeeper is not supported on this version of Windows. See the Table of Editions in the Diskeeper Readme.txt file for a list of supported operating systems. Setup will now exit.”

So, I guess I can only try out Perfectdisk for now. Although someone from Diskeeper did leave a comment, I probably check it out later on. Maybe they might be able to help me resolve this issue.

Perfectdisk on the other hand has made an improvement which I only knew 5 minutes ago from their email. The have finally integrated the GUI into Home Server Console. I guess thats a good point to go.

Ok, this is what it looks like when you use your Home Server Console to connect to it. Notice something? Yes, there is a C:\ and a C:\fs\4... Emm, thats must be whats so different for this version of WHS. Well, for me it works so far so good.

But whether does this seriously addresses the 4k cluster issue and VSS, that I need time to confirm. I should note that on a thread I recently read, VSS is not suppose to work on WHS in terms of storing previous versions. However, I am dead sure I had to VSS is enabled on the WHS. Well, maybe I am just confused for now. I will follow on this.

Configure Backup Disabled on Windows Home Server

OK, maybe its just me, but here is another trick for anyone else who has this problem. OK, you added another machine. The tray icon turns red because you have not configure Backup for this. You open the Home Connector software and under Computer and Backup, you see your server. Right Click to configure it and WTF, the options are all greyed out!

Why? I did not waste time to figure it out. I just tried to solve it. With many way from the client side: restarting the Home Connector Software, restarting the client OS, disconnect and reconnect it from the Network etc. I almost wanted to reset my months running router. Then I found the solution. Here is what you do.

Use Remote Desktop into your SERVER. Launch the Home Connector Software on the Server. And yes, yes! The options are not greyed out. Its enabled. Just do it!

Thats solve this issue. There is also a similar issue when I experience the backup was skipped and I did a manual backup. However, the status still says it hasn't been backup in the last 6 days. I did the same thing on the server and instantly it was updated with the status that all backup was done.

What happened? Maybe Microsoft will have an answer, but I do not think many people has this same problem here. Maybe its just me, or just Microsoft OneCare... :)

Windows Home Server Connector Installlation Problem

I had seen lots of post detailing how to solve the problem of installing this software. Especially the part where it cannot find the WHS. I have a totally unorthodox way to do it, yeet it works for me.

First do make sure you can ping you WHS, otherwise, it definitely a network problem and not related to the software for you.

When you get to the part it say unknown error occurs, cannot find WHS etc, call up your Task Manager. Look for a few msiexec.exe file under Processes. Make sure you are not installing anything else at this same time. Kill them. If you are lucky, kill one and the rest falls.

Now, under the Applications tab, kill the Windows Home Server Connector software. It may ask you to Exit or something, do that will do as well.

What actually happens? IF you did not kill msiexec.exe, it will remove the software (rollback) when you exit the connector installation. But since its dead, the software stay. If you are lucky, it already running with a green icon on tray now when you exit. Totally working. If not just start it from Start Menu.

My conclusion is that somehow the detection during the installation is kinda screwed up. It works for many PC I tried. It justed work, even though the installation say it can't find the server. Hopes this helps.

Windows Home Server Super Pack 1

Ok, this is just a fancy name I give to the WHS for those additional hardware I put in. Here is the list :

Enlight AIO Card Reader $16
Exhaust Fan $5
HDD Cooler Dual Fan 2x$10=$20 (One for each HDD)
3.5" Floppy Drive Black $12
Sony/Liteon DVD Writer 16x $40
Acebel 470W High Efficiency Power $72
SIS 1GB DDR2-800 RAM $34 (I added it to 2GB for performance)

That bring a total of $199. Well over my original $800 Budget :P. Consider the throw in of WHS Software which is about $250, that will being the whole box cost slightly over $1.1k. Well, is this worth it? Sure. It has much better hardware and more flexibility than the OEM. Imagine the OEM box you will buy has only 1x500GB HDD at $1.2k+ and without some of the stuff above. What do you think?

However, this is because I am greedy. If you stick to the basic pack, there is no reason you will exceed $800 in hardware. In fact I paid a little more on some of the stuff above because it makes me feel good. :)

Well, Enter UNICRON!

Windows Home Server - The Inside

Ok, lets take a look inside of the WHS.

Pretty messy no matter how I tried to tidy it.

Cooler Masters Back fan.

The bird's eye view. Notice the 2 HDD fan (gold) and the exhaust fan?

A close up of the 2 HDD fans. Its a must no matter how much you use the HDD. Without it, the life span will shorten and failure rate will increase.

The Pentium D Processor and Fan.

2 Sticks of the SIS DDR-800 1GB RAM.

This is the exhaust fan sucking all the hot air out.

I will put up another articles for the additional parts I added in later on.

Windows Home Server - The Outside

Ok, lets see version of the the finishing product. I had added some other components in addition to the previous specs and this is how it looks like. Kinda remind me of K.I.T.T from Knight Rider though. Although this casing is call VIOS 9002, it has NOTHING to do with cars though. :)

This is the front, the DVD Writer is concealed in a bay door just like the F117.

The black reflective surface gives it a good look. It has none of the stealth fighter's radar wave adsorption capabilities though.

The back is not concealed for ventilation. It has an additional exhaust fan in PCI slot if you can see it and sleeve fan mounted at the back plate. The 4 USB ports can be seen from here of the Asus Mobo.

This is another close up of the front.

And this is the reason why its cool. Its blue, just like my Habu and Reclusa.

WHS and the Anti Something

Hai, to make the WHS perfect, I am sure everyone wants a Anti virus, Anti Spyware or something on it. So did I. First off, I tried ESet Business Suite with everyone including the Personal FW. Bad mistake, its pretty hard to configure it to make it work properly and most of the WHS function were crippled by it. Ok, maybe just the Anti Virus. Works well for a few days.

Until I tried to delete something over the network. I think its because WHS tries to sync it (double copy?) and Eset tries to delete it etc.. totally crashed the server. Rebooted. Tried some other things like make a copy then immediately delete. Happens again.

The mistake made was it says its works with WS2003. But this is the main difference here. WHS is NOT Ws2003 even though the underlining core is about the same. Today, I had only heard of Avast having a WHS antivirus solution. I really hate it because I tried the Vista one before and I had to reinstall Vista again after that. Unless someone can give me a FREE permanent license for this, I am not considering installing it to try and remove after expire.

Just to update, I had remove Eset for now and the server was up like a few days since then. No hiccups, no reboot. Backup went 100% fine. So, does this mean I should advise anyone to stay off Anti Virus until the WHS certified branding is in?

WHS Data Corruption Error KB 646676

Just to give everyone else using the WHS a heads up that there is a know issue with saving files directly to the WHS. BTW, I always thought this is a bad idea. I would save local then transfer back to WHS. But whatever reason if you are doing that using the following (which MS has confirmed) :

•	Windows Vista Photo Gallery
•	Windows Live Photo Gallery
•	Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
•	Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
•	Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
•	Microsoft Money 2007
•	SyncToy 2.0 Beta
•	Intuit QuickBooks
•	uTorrent

or these (which MS cannot confirm) :

•	Photoshop Elements
•	Zune Software
•	Apple iTunes
•	TagScanner
•	Mozilla Thunderbird
•	Adobe Lightroom
•	Intuit Quicken
•	MS Digital Image Library
•	MP3BookHelper
•	ACDSee
•	WinAmp
•	Windows Media Player 11
•	Microsoft Office Excel
•	Visual DataFlex

Then you should stop it right now until a fix can be issued.

Follow the story at : http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;946676&sd=rss&spid=12624

WHS vs Defrag with Diskeeper or PerfectDisk

My Windows Home Server was up and running for a while. Only recently due to itchy fingers, I decided that a defrag may do it some good. Of course, I remembered MS has warned not to use the build in defrag. So there is 2 obvious choices out there with the Made for WHS label. Diskeeper 2008 and PerfectDisk 2008. Ok, the mistake I made was using the Server Edition trial instead of using the WHS version. What happened?

Due to the VSS or shadow copy function, when the defrag tries to move the file, VSS thinks the files has been changed and tries to keep track of the changes. Now you see the problem? So much so that the WHS actually locks up due to a deadlock.

But searching on the MS Forum :

"As all defragmenters use Microsoft's defrag APIs, until MS makes changes in those APIs or changes how VSS works so that it can detect defrag activity on 4k cluster size drives as they do with 16k> cluster size drives, you will always run the risk on Vista, 2003, 2008 and Home Server of restore points/shadow copies being purged when you defragment. The best that defrag vendors can try to do is work around this by detecting if a VSS enabled drive has a "non-optimal" cluster size and try to do something to mitigate file movement..."


Wow! Ok, just all the mumbo jumbo. The conclusion is that until something can be done about 4k cluster, its not advisible to defrag it at all. And you can change it to 32k cluster, but all hell WILL break loose making your whole WHS crash.



Conclusion. DO NOT USE A DEFRAG software in your WHS. Not until it can fully support the VSS and 4k cluster. The so-call WHS version of these software just skips the drive which are 4k cluster, which is not really what you wanted in the first place (or paid for).