Today Microsoft has announced that Windows Home Server Codename “Vail” is available for download to the general public. Me and Alex have been testing out Vail for a while now, and have prepared a few Reviews and Guides to show you some of the new features and also how to get it installed on MediaSmart Servers and also using Virtual Machines.

Check out or blogs!

Windows Home Server “Vail” Overview and Review
How to Install Windows Home Server Vail from a USB Flash Drive
Windows Home Server Vail Installation Guide
Installing Vail onto a Virtual Machine Part 1 – VMWare Workstation
Installing Vail onto a Virtual Machine Part 2 – VMWare Server
How to Install Windows Home Server Vail on the HP MediaSmart Server

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Awesome job by Nigel and Alex. Thanks very much guys.

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

I sure hope that 10 drive limit is a beta issue, it would make upgrading impossible for those of us with larger systems.

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Current DIY server DL380 G6 2xquad core 2.8ghz 32GB rdimm ram 512mb 2xHP 410 raid with 2x sas expanders (2 X norco RPC-4220) 48 slots stacked with room to grow.
30TB (Movie/File/Music)Win 2012 essentials 64bit Storage spaces
Ex490 E6400 4gb ram

Note from Microsoft:

Internally, the “Vail” software has been tested with up to 16 hard drives and with up to 16 TB of total storage capacity. We’re aware of a number of bugs that occur beyond these limits, so please keep your beta installations under 16 drives and 16 TB total drive space.

Up and running. Looks a little plain, no pie charts for drive data, no Add-ins (Yet), but seems to be stable. The AHCI controllers installed without a floppy, which was nice. Tried the serevr backup, with an external drive, and it wanted to format it. I wasnt ready for that, but I think I remember reading that that would happen. Installed YAMJ and it works. DE is Fat32, but no 4G file size restriction.

Well, started installing on SuperWHSII but was stopped very quickly. Looks like the installer has the same problems Vista had, doesn't seem to want to install on anything greater than 4 gigs of memory. I have 8 gigs of memory and got a memory error at the beginning of install after I loaded the drivers and it recognized the drives. I was going to install it on 4 of the 18 drives but seemed to me to have too many limitations to pull memory at this time. Think I'll wait for a beta or the real release.

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HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

they better get it working past that. I currently have twenty six drives with my MSS for 42TB of total storage capacity.

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3TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory
57TB unRAID1a--49TB unRAID2--76TB unRAID3

Back up the Vail server last night. Only selected the OS and pictures folders, just to see how it would word. No different than the other backup. And, yes, my Win 7 machine could not read the HD after the backup. It looked like it started to, I saw the USB drive come up, it is listed with my other drive, shows an NTFS category, but when selected, ACCESS is Denied message.

I think on the server part, it expected the external HD to remain connected. When I selected remove from backup, it when through the steps to remove the drive, however, on the HD tab, it shows the server as (Not set up) for backup. I guess the idea is to leave the external drive connected, and have the server, run normal backup schedule for the server itself to the external back up drive. It will backup to an internal drive that is not a part of the storage.

Anyone having problems with folder permissions. I am logged in as a user and have full access to all folders, however, it will not let me add music or album art to the music folder. Says I need permission from Administrator/Rhino which is me!! What am I doing wrong. I have no issue with the video folder.

Added 2 drives to the server today. The first was a 500G. Hot Swap is turned on but not even sure how it works. I just put it in and the server did not see it. So restarted the server but shutting down, worked fine. Add to the pool no problem. Installed the second HD (1.5, the original OS drive from WHS). It was not seen also. However, this time, since I was in the Dashboard, and not the desktop, I remembered the RED Power button in the "General Settings", so I decided to use that to restart the server to see the 1.5 TB. I selected RESTART, and waited for the server to power down. It never did, but then I see pop up window that the server sees a new HD. I loooked and it was listed inthe HD section waiting to be added. 3 Things: 1: Does the restart button in GENERAL SETTINGS just restart the server software and not restart the computer (Power down and restart)? 2: On Hot Swap, do you have to do something to make it see the new drive??? 3: Am I just not waiting long enough for it to be recognized?

Can someone explain "Exclude this drive from system storage" on the systems drive?? Why would you do this? Can I do it now after using it Vail for a few days?

I think I am the only onw one the Vail Forum this weekend. Decided to just go ahead and select Exclude the System drive from the storage pool. It is now moving the 100G worth of stuff that was on the portion of the drive that wasnt for the OS. I had a 250 G 2.5 as the OS drive, it took 60 for the OS and the rest was storage. I guess this is a good idea if the drive fails the only thing you lose is the OS. Not sure what else the rest of the 250 G could be used for. Nothing I guess. OK well it is done, moved the 60 G System out of the poll and it is now just listed as a HD and not as part of the pool. Status is "Removed from Server Storage". I remember reading when you could go and now increase the OS partion, but not sure what the point of that would be.

Removing the system drive from the storage drive makes the system operate faster. It writes data directly to the storage drives instead of using the system drive as a launching platform for new files. The system drive is also more free to crunch file data and not be burdened with data handling for backups. It basically handles the OS and the Tombstones for the files the server has stored.

I thought that VAIL did not have Tombstone files??

First issue with Vail. All my computers are on and I can see them ONLINE. The server shows all OFFLINE. I reset my laptop, and I can still see all computers online and from the server DESKTOP, I see all computers, but server Dashboard says OFFLINE???