I used to use Windows Home Server (WHS). I was a bit late to the party with this transfer to WHS from a secondary machine I had in my network running a slew of different utilities to serve up data to the rest of the machines on the network. The best and easiest serving data on the network was with the WHS solution. I originally started using the WHS v1 based off Windows Server 2003 about 6 months after the product launched from Microsoft. I then switched to WHS v2 (called Windows Home Server 2011) and continued to enjoy the ease and great experience that was provided by the WHS software. Since those days Microsoft decided to join the WHS and SBS (Small Business Server) products together launching Windows Server Essentials. By taking this path Microsoft has added many of the features that you would find in the SBS edition and took away most of the ease of use of WHS.
With that information laid out for you I have decided to move the workload over to one machine on my home network. This is the only desktop machine that is in the house and does all of the heavy lifting on Windows 8. Including being a great multi-user desktop for my wife and I. I have created network shares for all of the content and used the built-in user based security for that content. Though this solution is not as easy to use and is not as communicative to me as the network admin I feel this is the best and most efficient solution at this time.
Here is what I used to be using last time I had a Windows Server running in the home if you are interested.
My Windows Home Server (WHS) is the best machine in the house. I enjoy reading through forums and looking at other WHS users setups so I decided I would attempt at keeping an up-to-date list of what my WHS architecture is like.
When I was upgrading from my previous Custom Home Server I decided to go with the Microsoft Windows Home Server solution. I have been running WHS for a while now and having nothing but good things to say.
WireFrame:
WHS Box: Dell OptiPlex Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 Ghz Processor, 4 GB’s RAM, WD 160GB HD
Storage Pool: MediaSonic HF2-SU2S2 Pro Box 4 Bay Enclosure via eSATA
Backup: ioSafe Solo 1.5TB (I won this on The Home Server Show 100th Episode Giveway… Thanks HSS!)
Add-ins:
- AWIECO DriveInfo
- AWIECO Remote Launcher
- Advanced Admin Console 2011 RC
- DropBox
- SkyDrive
- I just want to know what is next for WHS in Windows Server 8 (2012)
Knee Jerk Reaction 
December 6, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Yeah, haven’t done a review at all yet, it’s just lumped inside the bigger project, and I don’t know enough about competitors to do a really fair job of reviewing it. All I can say for now is that I myself have had good luck, so far…it’s the bad day (when something fails) that really tests this kind of thing out. I did try to simulate such a failure, by moving the RAID5 intact, keeping the 4 drives in the same order, as the prominent sticker warns, from one enclosure to another. So I’m a bit more ready for when something does eventually fail, just hoping that’s at least 4 years before the enclosure and/or fan dies.
Good talking to you, and thanks for posting your build details!
December 6, 2011 at 4:46 PM
I’ve also had good luck (so far) with two MediaSonic 4-drive RAID enclosures I have, and have been trying their RAID5 via eSATA and USB 3.0 recently too. Wrote something up here:
http://tinkertry.com/vzillastoragereasoning
December 6, 2011 at 5:51 PM
I will have to take a look at your review. I have been running mine 24/7 for a while now and have had no issues.