Like I said before, without Drive Extender this product is useless.

I won't be upgrading to it.

I watched the demo video and I must say I am little dumbfounded by the shared folder approach.

In WHS v1 I currently have one Movies shared folder which automatically spans many hard drives.

On the new WHS Vail I would assume I would need to create multiple Movie shared folders, possibly one for each drive, all with slightly differing names.

Have I understood correct, as this seems like a pile of pants?

Can't we have virtual shared folders which are made up of n number of physical shared folders underneath, even if you have to configure that bit yourself?

Surely Vail could then work out where best to store the data, and where to acquire it from when requested, it doesn't sound that hard to do, just a simple index with some disk sizing logic would do the trick.

Not interested in upgrading based on Vails backwards storage approach. It's the storage management and backup facility that are the key selling components for WHS everything else like remote logins, streaming functionality are nice to haves.

Thankfully still very happy with WHS v1.

Cant see me upgrading either, the only thing wrong with my WHS box is the poor network performance, and even if they improved that 100x under Vail the removal of drive extender makes the whole thing a bit useless..

The only problem I have is that sometimes when streaming video files they would pause and skip for no apparant reason.

It seems that WHS should have been enabled to know that when someone is doing or watching something that they shouldnt starting transferring files over all the HDD's.

It seems rather than fix the bugs they just took the easy way out and binned it. I'm not going to part my money for a lazy company. Linux can do anything this Vail can. The whole point of WHS was the drive extender as it made everything easy for noobs like me.

For anyone that knows what theya re doing then they would already have linux and wont be swayed by Vail whatsoever.

Still don't agree, DE was unique. No matter how happy you are with RAID and the like, it just doesn't represent a like-for-like solution.

Certainly for me - and a I daresay a good many others - WHS without DE is like Blackadder's proverbial broken pencil; pointless.

+1 to the above views. IT doesn't matter what MS call it. As it stands, I have no interest in the new version at all, and sadly, it's pretty clear MS do not plan on changing tack. Oh well.

I saw a demo of vail and also (what is now) SBS 2011 sometime last year. The drive extender technology looked very slick and mature. No idea why they'd remove such a useful feature.

What you guys moan about? DE is out and nice fancy and colourful wizard to copy your data around gets introduced.

Microsoft will keep you sweet no matter what!

Question: I have 500gig left on my 6tb server.

If I upgrade to Vail, will it delete everything on my server as it removes the extended drive, or will it cleverly just reassign the content to new folders?

Seems a bit daft if it just scrubs everything.

Anyone know?

Can you even do an upgrade?

I presume WHS is still aimed at OEMs selling appliances rather than end users, so upgrades are out of the question.

Funkstar
Can you even do an upgrade?

I presume WHS is still aimed at OEMs selling appliances rather than end users, so upgrades are out of the question.

Can you upgrade by installing over the top? Don't know, and don't care. I wouldn't do that anyway. Can you take the new version and install it on existing hardware, after copying data off and formatting? Yup. Which is what I would have done.

It's not a retail OS (as far as I know) but is available to buy OEM, not just installed on a WHS appliance like the HP or Tranquil boxes.

spoon_
What you guys moan about? DE is out and nice fancy and colourful wizard to copy your data around gets introduced.

Microsoft will keep you sweet no matter what!

That is so clearly wrong, because so many existing WHS users clearly don't intend to upgrade (or not to Vail anyway) because of the removal of DE.

If I wanted a box and a copy wizard, I can do that with Ubuntu and avoid paying MS any money. Which, as and when the box needs an upgrade, is now precisely what I'll do. With DE, for me at least (and I'm certainly not alone), WHS isn't worth having.

MS has not kept me, or any other DE fan, sweet, in any sense of the word. ‘Alienated’ would be closer.

Shooty*;2042092
Question: I have 500gig left on my 6tb server.

If I upgrade to Vail, will it delete everything on my server as it removes the extended drive, or will it cleverly just reassign the content to new folders?

Seems a bit daft if it just scrubs everything.

Anyone know?

Nope, but I'll give it a test if you like a little later?

Hokay - seems that WHS is x86, whereas Vail is 64 bit only (being based on Server 2008 R2), so there is no straight upgrade path. Hope that helps those of you who have been considering the upgrade anyways :)

I knew that, but never thought about the upgrade implications :)

What does it bring to the table in the way of filling up a drive with videos and then needing to create another video share on another drive, does it have library type shares where the server knows more than one location for a type of share and then adds them all or are we looking at multiple share folders all with similar names?

Splash
Hokay - seems that WHS is x86, whereas Vail is 64 bit only (being based on Server 2008 R2), so there is no straight upgrade path. Hope that helps those of you who have been considering the upgrade anyways :)

There is if the existing hardware is 64-bit, and if the “upgrade” is the type I was talking about. Consider it as an upgrade path rather than a physical upgrade of installed software.

Personally, as I said earlier, I wouldn't do a major OS upgrade over an existing installation anyway. Service pack, yes, major upgrade, no.

I don't upgrade without a very good reason, but if I do it, I do it properly, not via the quick and easy route.

'[GSV
Trig;2042378']What does it bring to the table in the way of filling up a drive with videos and then needing to create another video share on another drive, does it have library type shares where the server knows more than one location for a type of share and then adds them all or are we looking at multiple share folders all with similar names?

Simply put, DE treats all attached (and “added”) disks as a single pool of space containing named folders. If that “pool” needs space, you add another disk …. which could be internal (IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc), or external via USB, Firewire, e-SATA.

You can then set permissions for folders, most notably, duplicated or not. If you set a folder as duplicated (on a system with multiple drives), the contents of that folder will be duplicated on a separate physical disk within the pool, but you don't worry about where, or doing it manually.

It's conceptually kind-of like treating the disks as if they were a JBOD, combined with with files and folders benefiting from the duplication of RAID mirroring, without the hassle of setting up or maintaining RAID.

For me, and for non-critical usage, WHS is simply a very simple and easy way to kill several birds with one stone. Each PC connects to the WHS via a simple utility, so you can use that to keep a practical background on-the-fly backup of any connected PCs data too. That doesn't need DE, but it certainly works well with it. And there are other features too, but the whole thing combines into a very slick solution for several home problems.

Saracen
There is if the existing hardware is 64-bit, and if the “upgrade” is the type I was talking about. Consider it as an upgrade path rather than a physical upgrade of installed software.

Personally, as I said earlier, I wouldn't do a major OS upgrade over an existing installation anyway. Service pack, yes, major upgrade, no.

I don't upgrade without a very good reason, but if I do it, I do it properly, not via the quick and easy route.

Aye, but what you're referring to isn't the situation Shooty asked about. You cannot run the installer as an upgrade from within the OS, though I've yet to try the “clean install” upgrade you mention. I suspect if you run that method all disks will be formatted and new storage pools would be created.

Just tried to upgrade outside of the OS and (as I suspected) it's not possible - clean install only, so you'd need to backup your data, install and then restore to the non-DE disks.

Splash
Aye, but what you're referring to isn't the situation Shooty asked about…..

Indeed, but the reply I quoted referred to “those of you” rather than just to Shooty, and I'd already referred to “upgrading”, so I felt it needed to be clear what I was talking about, which was not the “over the top” type of upgrade, or for that matter the “upgrade as opposed to full retail licence” as could be the case from Win XP to Windows 7, but the clean install version of upgrading an OS.

In other words, we use the term “upgrade” to mean several different things in different circumstances.

Fairy snuff.


Anyhoo, you can't do it without backing up and restoring your data. And on that note I'm done with my testing of WHS2011.

heh I've been looking at this because at the moment my shadow copy is not an ideal solution, so I'd like something a bit better.

However without drive extender it is really a bit crap.

I tried Amahi as a substitute. It's pretty good but Greyhole (a DE alternative/disk pooler) I found fiddly and I'm not sure I'd trust it with critical data.

It got removed because my Samsung tv wouldn't play with its DLNA though a new version is on the way and that's already been addressed, apparently. It could well be one to watch, some of the documentation isn't as clear as it might be though.

I tried FreeNAS after that with similarly frustrating Samsung issues.

I'm retiring the WHS server/box altogether though, I've got two NAS devices and I found that I used them far more and that they're easier to schedule on/offs etc. rather than having a dedicated PC running 24/7. I've got an A.C. Ryan Play On! Mini and an LG streaming Blu-ray on the way for the main TV so I'm leaving that side of things to the NAS solutions.

what do you use for remote desktop and for pc backup?

I always like the sheer simplicity of the WHS backup system espesually restoring a system or opening files.

I don't really use Remote Desktop tbh - back ups are via the NAS devices and an external e-sata for the main rig.

Like you've noted, nothing else I've used really matches WHS for overall simplicity though.

Its the fact its both an imaging style simple restore process, and an I can view my files solution.

That too me is it, a NAS has always been a cheaper often faster for serving files solution, but it hasn't had the wonderfully low effort maintance thing going on.

There is no official upgrade path from v1 to v2 becuase of 32/64 bit and because of DE.
However, there are already a couple of utilities written which will transfer data from an ‘old’ box to a ‘new box and also do validity/integrety checks.
M/S have said that there won’t be anywhere near as many OEM products available as this version is geared towards system builders and hardware partners. Some of which are working on their own versions of duplication and even hardware or software Raid.