Windows Home Server 2011 Feature : Move Folder Wizard

Now that the Windows Home Server 2011 Release Candidate is available, lets take a look at the new Move Folder Wizard feature. There’s even a video at the end showing it working.

Here is how Microsoft describe the Move Folder Wizard functionality:

[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]A new Move a Folder wizard enables you to move server folders from one hard drive to another to support scenarios in which the free space on the hard drive becomes too small for storage.[/box]

So this is there to help you move a folder from one drive, which may be getting full, to another drive, that isn’t as full. Whilst the wizard does all this for you once you select the folder to move and where to move it, it would have been a lot better to have the functionality automatically detect a drive was getting full and move a folder to a free drive without you having to do something yourself. So hopefully in the future this might change or someone might write an add-in to perform this as at the moment you need to be involved otherwise your drive might run out of space!

Using the Move Drive Wizard

So in order to use the Move Drive functionality, you need to have an additional drive in or attached to your Windows Home Server. Microsoft don’t recommend using external drives as they can easily become disconnected, but you can use them and I am certain that people will!

Anyway, make sure you have at least one additional drive attached (somewhere). In the example below I have connected an external drive that is appearing as F.

Click on the Server Folders tab, select the Folder you want to move from the list and click the Move the Folder link on the Tasks list to start the wizard. It tells you backup your server first and ensure than none of the files in the folder you want to move are in use, and also not to add anymore files to the folder whilst the move is taking place otherwise they won’t appear in the new location.

You then have to choose which drive you want to move the folder to (I am surprised to see if offer you the chance to move the folder to the C drive – this is not a good move and I really don’t recommend it). So in my case, let’s choose the F drive and then click the Move Folder button.

Now if you have chosen an external hard drive the wizard will now warn you against moving the folder there, but in some cases you may have no choice but to use an external drive, so if you are, just be aware of the warning and click Next.

The wizard will now do it’s thing – depending on the size of the folder you are moving, this could take a while, so be patient!

When the move has completed, the wizard will advise you to open the Server Backup configuration to ensure that the new location of the folder is including in the backup. You can do that or you can just click Close and check later.

And that’s it. It’s pretty simple to use, as I mentioned earlier, it is just a shame that you have to select a folder yourself, although I am sure that some people will prefer this as it means they have more control over the process.

Here is a video I put together showing the WHS 2011 Move Folder Wizard in action:

So what do you think of this new functionality?

Why not give Windows Home Server 2011 a try, it’s available now on Microsoft Connect to download.