Feb 21, 2011 drive extender was without question the best reason for owning a windows home server. Microsoft announces removal of drive extender from windows. Windows home server is dead, but we shouldnt mourn it ars. Microsoft has officially removed its controversial drive extender technology from the upcoming release of windows home server 2011 there are multiple reports that the release candidates rc test builds of vail, i. Apr 14, 2011 windows home server 2011 works best when each attached hard drive is accessed as an individual hard drive. Windows home server vail omits drive extender digital. Windows home server 2011 adding 3tb drives with the. Windows home server had a few other benefits as a storage solution over a standard windows installation but for many people, drive extender was the only reason to use the product.
Drive extender was also set to be a feature of the forthcoming small business server 2011 essentials codename aurora and windows storage server. Before you install windows home server 2011, rtfm seriously. I saw many complainants whining over the fact that ms dropped the drive extender feature of whs v. Windows home server 2011 has recently come out but it removes the drive extender feature, requires a 40% faster cpu 1.
Windows server essentials includes the next generation version of the centralized pc backup and restore functionality from windows home server 2011 as well as centralized file history storage for all your pcs. And more good news drive bender is available for any windows version from xp to windows 7 and including the server versions such as. Windows home server 2011 has now arrived, and with it a bevy of new featuresand one key feature of the older version removed. Windows server backup in windows server 2008 also limits the maximum source volume size to be 2088958 mb. Upgrade your windows home server with amahi howto geek. Upgrading my hp whs mediasmart ex495 to windows home. The original drive extender was actually a crude hack that never really. Windows home server 2011 drive extender functions tpc weblog. Sadly, today microsoft announced that they would be ceasing development of the drive extender feature that was to be part of sbs 2011 essentials and the new windows home server version. Windows home server 2011 third party drive extender. Vail is now windows home server 2011, drive extenders. Nov 24, 2010 microsoft has confirmed that the next release of windows home server, vail due in the first half of 2011, will not feature drive extender, indicating youll need to simply buy bigger drives and. Windows home server 2011 michael lanes technology blog.
Whs 2011should i upgrade and how to plan the migration. Youre free of windows home servers drive extender technology. Windows home server is intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected pcs to offer protected file storage, file sharing, automated pc backup, remote access, and remote control of. As a result, thirdparty products entered the market to fill the void left by drive extender, including drive bender division m and drivepool stablebit. This video also shows you how to mirror drives in whs 2011. You can create folder shares on this storage pool, and each folder on the pool can either be duplicated or not duplicated.
Windows home server vail drops drive extender support. The author is terry walsh, title is windows home server versus windows home server 2011 is it worth upgrading posted on april 7th, 2011. This article was written in 2008 in response to an email. Oct 01, 2014 when you turn on the server, go into the bios and make sure its set to boot from a usb drive. Windows home server 2011 drive extender functions tpc. In my previous post i installed windows home server whs 2011 rc in a vmware virtual machine on esxi 4. Alternatives to windows home server drive extender. Here is a simple tool from microsoft that will allow you to write an iso image to a usb stick and allow you to boot from it and install. Raid10 which would be the equivalent of a duplicated pool or you will need one of the drive extender plug ins being developed for whs2011, theres about 3 but i dont think any have made it out of beta yet. This announcement has led to astonishment and outrage from testers and users. Feb 04, 2011 microsoft announced months ago that the artist formerly known as vail now officially known as windows home server 2011 was dropping drive extender functionality.
Windows home server 2011 and small business server 2011 rc. Microsoft dumps drive extender from windows home server, effectively neuters product. It was released on 6 april 2011 following the release of power pack 3 for its aging predecessor, windows home. The current state of affairs is that one is left to use a raid solution to pool drives. Rip windows home server drive extender smallnetbuilder. That decision has generated reams of complaints from heavy whs version 1 users. Vail is now windows home server 2011, drive extenders officially. We compare drive extender alternatives drive bender, stablebit drive pool, and storage spaces for use on your home server. Windows home server 2011 developer michael leworthy expressed concern that the implementation of drive extender might lead to data error issues. Stablebit the home of stablebit clouddrive, stablebit.
Drive extender replacements for windows home server youtube. First drive extender alternatives are announced ghacks. Nov 24, 2010 microsoft dumps drive extender from windows home server, effectively neuters product. Now that microsoft has killed it off, lets look at some alternatives. Combine hard drives into a storage pool with the exception of the system os drive. After much testing within the windows home server enthusiast community divisionm has released their answer to microsofts drive extender technology, drive bender. All you need to know about windows home server 2011 vail. The reasons being that the hard drives i have now will allow me to have the same duplication as i did in. Microsoft might disagree, but 3rd party addons are quickly appearing to take the baton. No microsoft are not cancelling sbs 2001 essentials or windows home server, but they are removing what i consider to be a key feature to those products. Windows home server 2011 and aurora, small business server 2011 essentials do not contain the drive extender feature. While i dont plan to use windows home server 2011 for anything but backups, this guide should assist others who are thinking about how to upgrade whs to whs 2011, particularly migrating all your data out of the drive pool. Microsoft has released windows server solutions phone connector addin for integration of windows phone 7 into windows home server 2011 windows home server 2011 online evaluation available.
Mar 08, 2011 in my previous post i installed windows home server whs 2011 rc in a vmware virtual machine on esxi 4. If you are running the newest home server from microsoft and are missing the old whs tray icon that gave you simple status updates you are in luck. If possible, it is best if one is able to remove the drive from the storage pool, however if there is a massive hardware failure or the drive dropped from the whs pool, one may need to remove the drive without going through the formal process. May 19, 2011 windows home server 2011 drive extender functions its been a long time in the making, but windows home server 2011 and now windows storage server 2008 r2 essentials are upon us. The addin stablebit drivepool will let you add multiple hard drives into one combined storage pool on the windows home server 2011. Then start your server and go through the windows home server 2011 installation. Additionally, the newest version, windows home server 2011, lacks one useful feature drive extender, and now the server only runs on pcs with a 64bit processor. Datacore software, division m, and stablebit are three companies working on creating such addins for windows home server 2011 that will emulate the drive. Mar, 20 we compare drive extender alternatives drive bender, stablebit drive pool, and storage spaces for use on your home server. The other option would have been to implement raid redundant array of independent drives. Lets start by looking at why whs 2011 is a good fit for your home. Microsoft has a blog post up today announcing the removal of the drive extender feature from windows home server vail and the small business server editions known as aurora and breckenridge. The original drive extender was actually a crude hack that never really worked properly.
Windows home server 2011 how does it manage without drive. Drive extender was also the most problematic component of whs v1 however. It worked by copying files automatically between ntfs volumes. The one huge feature that microsoft dropped from whs 2011 is drive extender. Windows home server v1 drive extender daves computer tips.
The removal of drive extender, the magical service in windows home server v1, was a real shock to many in the home server world. Windows home server 2011 rc installing stablebit drivepool. Drive extender for windows server to return via addin. Windows home server v1 has a fairly sophisticated jbod pooling feature that would copy files from one drive to other drives. The first step, of course, is to physically remove the offending disk from the windows home server. In windows server 2008 r2, if you are not backing up a full volume and, instead, creating a backup of selected filesfolders, your source volume size can be more than 2088958 mb, provided your actual data size is less than equal to 2088958 mb.
With this latest version of whs, i now have sharepoint foundation free limited version of sharepoint running for the family to share pictures, files, calendar events and collaboration. X can also run on the windows home server 2011 and newer. In that ms has dropped the drive extender for me the best solution is the netgear readynas rndp600u200nas. The drive extender kind of justified the toaster servers by allowing for easy hard drive pooling. Drive extender alternatives for windows home server 2011. Some computers and mainboards can be configured so that the hard drives are managed as. I actually think this makes a lot of sense, as i always felt that once the new drive extender technology was removed from windows home server 2011 the product line was essentially doomed. Migrate away from windows home server drive extender. Recently microsoft announced that windows home server will not see another version and is effectively discontinued. When microsoft killed its drive extender terchnology in windows home server, loyal users howled. Things took a turn for the worse with windows home server 2011. Then we will create mirrored arrays raid1 in disk management. The one bad thing about the netgear unit is that it is limited to 6 drives.
Microsoft lost some friends when it announced that windows home media server was losing a key feature. Microsoft confirmed windows home server 2011 to be last release in the windows home server product line. How to add additional storage to a windows home server. Now i find that there are two whs 2011 addins which supply drive extension. Windows home server drive extender is a filebased replication system that provides three key capabilities. Windows home server 2011 aka vail, is a home server operating system designed for families and small businesses optionally to securely organize and share photos, music, video, documents, etc. Microsoft announced months ago that the artist formerly known as vail now officially known as windows home server 2011 was dropping drive extender. Windows home server fans had called on microsoft to reexamine the decision, arguing that drive extender was one of the features that made windows home server distinct from other solutions like. Multidisk redundancy so that if any given disk fails, data is not lost arbitrary storage expansion by supporting any type of hard disk drive serial ata, usb, firewire etc. Windows home server vail drops drive extender support, ms. Oct 04, 2012 with a reliable drive extender plugin, ill avoid raiding those disks or buying a hardware controller, and hopefully the size of the volume will be more manageable for the server s own backup. Windows home server 2011 end of mainstream support.
Windows home server 2011 drive extender functions its been a long time in the making, but windows home server 2011 and now windows storage server 2008 r2 essentials are upon us. This addin will let you add multiple hard drives into one combined storage pool on the windows home server. The idea of drive extender for windows home server is you can have as many hard drives as you want and they all group together into the. Oct 21, 2011 a second drive extender alternative is stablebits drivepool, an addin for the windows home server 2011. Nov 26, 2010 drive extender was also set to be a feature of the forthcoming small business server 2011 essentials codename aurora and windows storage server 2008 r2 essentials codename breckenridge. In this case microsoft developed the drive extender service as a method to provide redundancy and value to windows home server and it works very well. In a raid setup adding, removing, and replacing drives is much more complicated. Can a windows home server user find happiness with. Migrate away from windows home server drive extender guide. As soon as the install wants to reboot for the very first time, turn off the comptuer.
Install windows home server 2011 on this drive via the temp computer. Windows home server 2011 mainstream support ended in the second quarter of 2016. On 23 november 2010, microsoft announced that drive extender would be removed from windows home server 2011. You either need to have them raided the microserver doesnt support a four drive array e. The drive extender service can add and remove drives very easy, which is important for home users. In many ways, and in larger systems this was vastly superior to the new windows home server 2011.
But for some reason, redmond decided to go forward without the function. If you have multiple pcs with increasingly large amounts of digital photography, music, video, and documents, then protecting, organizing, and connecting this digital media can be a challenging task. Sep 14, 20 in this video we will use disk management in server manager to initialize and format 3tb hdds in windows home server 2011. Microsoft lost some friends when it announced that windows home.
With this latest version of whs, i now have sharepoint foundation free limited version of sharepoint running for the family to. Currently i have 2x 1gb sata drives in a hp microserver in raid 1 and running windows home server 2011. Windows home server 2011, the next version of this operating system, was released on 6 april 2011. Alternatives to using windows home server informit. Drive extender is the technology that allows you to add most any hard drive to your home server and have it become part of your server storage, as well as. This software was formerly known as windows server code name vail. As previously noted, im working on upgrading the server in my house, which currently runs windows home server v1. Installing windows home server 2011 from usb windows. Drive extender is the technology that allows you to add most any hard drive to your home server and have it become part of your server storage, as well as provides the duplication feature that. Whs 2011 and driveextender addins anandtech forums. Windows home server codenamed quattro, q, and vail is a home server operating system from microsoft. Drive extender was without question the best reason for owning a windows home server.
So far, from the responses, stablebit is probably the way ill go on this. Drive extender if you still have a bunch of randomly sized hard drives in your system then you might just want to stay with drive extender in order to keep using them. This is the older version of stablebit drivepool that was specifically designed for the windows home server 2011. Windows server essentials supports up to 75 pc backups vs. First drive extender alternatives are announced ghacks tech. However, the windows small business server 2011 is more suited for businesses small businesses rather than the home version. Drive extender pooled multiple hard drives into a single large volume. Windows home server, codenamed quattro, is a home server operating system from microsoft. May 25, 2011 windows home server 2011 has now arrived, and with it a bevy of new featuresand one key feature of the older version removed. Microsoft seems determined to send the windows home server project straight into a coffin. Microsoft has confirmed that the next release of windows home server, vail due in the first half of 2011, will not feature drive extender, indicating youll need to simply buy bigger drives and. Jul 07, 2012 things took a turn for the worse with windows home server 2011. Plus, microsoft announced this version will be the end of the windows home server product line.
Nov 23, 2010 microsoft has a blog post up today announcing the removal of the drive extender feature from windows home server vail and the small business server editions known as aurora and breckenridge. Windows home server 2011, code named vail, is a home server operating system by microsoft designed for small office home offices and homes with multiple connected pcs to offer protected file storage, file sharing, automated pc backup, remote access, and remote control of pc desktops. Windows home server is dead, but we shouldnt mourn it. Three replacements for whs dead drive extender techcrunch. Drive extender allows users to use any size hard drive jbodjust a bunch of drives in their system and consolidate them so it looked like a single drive.
Windows home server 2011, code named vail, is a home server operating system by microsoft and a successor to the windows home server quattro operating system designed for small office home office soho. A second drive extender alternative is stablebits drivepool, an addin for the windows home server 2011. Oct 25, 2011 it briefly explains drive extender and touches on configuration dave the most important thing to do when building a windows home server is to install the largest drive you have as the primary system drive. Nov 28, 2011 as previously noted, im working on upgrading the server in my house, which currently runs windows home server v1. Create a bootable windows home server 2011 usb flash drive. Microsoft dumps drive extender from windows home server. Nov 29, 2010 windows home server had a few other benefits as a storage solution over a standard windows installation but for many people, drive extender was the only reason to use the product. Windows home server 2011 how does it manage without. Home server status addin for windows home server 2011. In this video we will use disk management in server manager to initialize and format 3tb hdds in windows home server 2011. Recover data off of a windows home server failing drive.
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