I have been a WHS user for many years (EX470). My orginial intent was to provide backup protection, webshare for photos and remote access. I also use Keepvault for offsite backup of select folders.

My dilemma is this...I am struggling to justify the continued use of my WHS. I could move to Carbonite for backups. I can easily use RDP for remote access. And myself (and my family) haven't used the webshare in years.

So what am I overlooking? Maybe re-purpose it? I don't need any file streaming capabilities.

Thanks in advance!

I've looked into cloud backup, and I concur there are some good services out there--or so it seems. And some seem to have pretty decent pricing, Carbonite being one of these. But when I look into these services, it just adds another recurring cost on top of cell phones, TV, utilities, etc. Just like many other folks, and companies, are doing in a continued weak economy is trim costs, not add new ones. Obviously if someone is in a position where cost is a non-issue, I say power to them.

Even so, I do maintain a Dropbox account that I've fattened up to 6 GB through their referrals. Some of my most important items are stored there.

However, even with cloud backup available to me, I would still keep the EX470 for backup purposes. You can always rebuild it with WHS 2011 and perform backups that way. If you require Drive Extender capabilities on file shares, you can load StableBit DrivePool or Drive Bender, but these are required only for shares, not backups.

The reasoning behind this is multiple layers of redundancy. For me, when HDD prices come back down, I will rebuild my EX490 and EX487 with fresh 2011 builds, and one will become a dedicated backup server, backing up the clients and the second server. The other will function as a media streamer, and also provide file shares (protected by DrivePool). This arrangement will provide multiple layers of redundancy for all files.

Of course, one could make the argument that this arrangement does not provide against fire, lightning, tornado or flood. That is true. However, the most revered files are archived to DVD and kept at our parents' homes or in the gun safe (rated to over 1000 degrees for half an hour). So my most important files are protected against everything except nuclear war, and if that happened, I would likely be standing at the Pearly Gates and recovery of my files would be a moot point.

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups