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1st UK Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server Usergroup Event

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 23, 2009

Earlier this week saw the 1st UK Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server Usergroup event being held in Birmingham.

It was a really good night, with sessions on Media Center, Windows 7 and of course Windows Home Server presented by yours truly. Fellow WHS MVPs Phil Churchill and Terry Walsh were on hand to heckle me as well.

Each of the presentations that were given can be downloaded from here. If you are just looking for my slides on Windows Home Server, then click here.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to Ian Dixon for inviting me to speak, and also to Paul Foster of Microsoft for sponsoring the event and getting the pizzas in, even if they did turn up late and half way through my presentation! Seriously, no one is interested in anything when pizza arrives 🙂

Add-in Review : Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer Edition and Giveaway

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 23, 2009

4

The Diskeeper Corporation have been around now since 1981, so you have probably heard of them before. They have produced many different versions of their disk defragmentation software, including previous versions for Windows Home Server.

This review concentrates on the latest version of Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer edition, which was released earlier this year. The review will cover why you need it, some of it’s key features, how to install it and the conclusions.

WHY DO I NEED IT?

You might ask yourself why you would want to buy disk defragmentation software. Well the answer is that you may not want to. What do I mean by that? Well, put simply it is a matter of personal preference. Disk defragmentation software is one of those topics that often gets one of two similar responses – either “I must have it” or “I don’t want or need it”.

Personally I must have it. If you don’t know why you might want it, put simply, as files are stored, moved, deleted, updated and so on, over time they can be potentially stored on different areas of the disk rather than in a single block. This is called disk fragmentation. There could be thousands of parts of files scattered all over the disks on your home server. What this means is that it takes longer to read and write those files than it would do if they were all in the same place. That annoying delay waiting for that Word document to open? Could be disk fragmentation.

This is where disk defragmentation software comes into play. The software examines the disk and all of your files, figures out where the parts of the files physically on your drives are and attempts to move them together to make things run faster and smoother. This is a good thing – just imagine having hundreds of gigabytes of files scattered all over the disk.

So, are you convinced that you might benefit from defragmentation software? If so, one thing that is very important to understand is that no matter what software you use, it MUST be Windows Home Server aware because of the way that Drive Extender works in WHS.

KEY FEATURES

So, what are some of the key features of Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer I hear you ask? Well, even if you didn’t ask I am going to tell you, or at least, I’m going to repeat what Diskeeper say:

InvisiTaskingtechnology —InvisiTasking is the foundation for Diskeeper to eliminate fragmentation in real time without affecting system resources. The InvisiTasking Technology monitors resource use, and makes sure only idle, untapped resources are used when Diskeeper HomeServer 2009 is running. Diskeeper with InvisiTasking never interrupts system productivity and keeps your server running at optimal speeds.

Terabyte Volume Engine 2.0 — Powerful defragmentation for high capacity and high traffic servers with disk volumes containing hundreds of thousands to millions of files.

Real-time defragmentation — automatically handle fragmentation as it occurs, providing maximum speed and performance at all times.

Complete file and free space defragmentation —in the most extreme of conditions—even if your systems have only a one or two percent of free space left available, or a files has millions of fragments, Diskeeper 2009 can restore lost performance and save the applications reliant on those files from major reliability failures.

Frag Shield 2.0 — boosts reliability and availability by automatically preventing crash-inducing fragmentation of critical system files.

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Compatibility mode —only Diskeeper 2009’s new VSS-compatible mode affords you the ability to leverage the data protection of VSS and the performance and reliability of automatic defragmentation.

TRY IT FOR FREE:

If you would like to try it for free for 30 days, you can do so by clicking here.

INSTALLATION & CONFIGURATION

To install Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer edition, once you have obtained the program files, perform the following steps on the computer you downloaded them to (this assumes that you have the WHS Connector software installed as well) :

Right-click the WHS tray icon and click on Shared Folders.

Double click the Software folder and copy the Diskeeper HomeServer Edition folder to to it.

The next part of the process may be new to you – you need to actually install the software on your Windows Home Server – and to do that you need to be on the actual WHS desktop itself. To do this you can either use the Remote Desktop Connection software that comes installed with Windows if your WHS is headless (for example an HP MediaSmart server) or you can just log into your WHS if you have a mouse, keyboard and monitor attached (for example if you built one yourself).

Start the Remote Desktop Connection software on your computer – it can be found at Start, Programs, Accessories, Remote Desktop Connection (if you are running Vista) or Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, Remote Desktop Connection (if you are running XP).

Type in the name of your Windows Home Server and when prompted type in the Administrator password. This will launch the Remote Desktop Connection and you should then see your WHS desktop once you have closed Internet Explorer – remember to be very careful here!

Double click on the Shared Folders on Server icon and then double click on the Software folder.

You should see the folder you copied earlier – double click it to open it.

Double click Diskeeper2009_HomeServer.exe to start the installation.

Click Next to continue.

Confirm that you accept the licence terms – you did read this, right? 🙂 Then click Next.

Set any preferences that you want – by default they are all selected for you, then yes, click Next!

You can choose to change the installation directory, but you may as well leave it as it is, and click Next.

Click Install to perform the installation.

The installation itself should only take a few moments, in fact, it probably took longer to read these few lines that it will actually take to install.

You are then presented with the various registration options, such as Registering Online. Select the one you want and click Next to continue.

And that is it, so just click on Finish.

All you need to do now is close down the Remote Desktop Connection – and you can do this simply by clicking the X in the top right corner of the screen.

Ok, so when said it was installed, it was sort of true. You still need to do something in the Windows Home Server Console to get it up and running.

You will also notice on any machine that has the Windows Home Server Connector software installed a message bubble appearing advising you that the Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer Console is ready to install.

So, launch the Windows Home Server Console as you would do normally.

Click on the Settings button, then on the Add-ins button.

You must then click on the Available tab in order to install the Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer Console. Just click the Install button to continue.

The installation only takes a few seconds and then you you will be told the Console will now close. Click OK to continue.

You will lose the connection to your Windows Home Server – don’t worry, this is perfectly normal and is supposed to happen. Just log back into the Console as normal.

You will notice that there is now a new tab called Diskeeper.

The first thing you see is a box asking you if you want to check for any product updates – Click OK to check if any exist.

You will see that there is quite a lot of information crammed into the Console view.

Don’t worry if there is too much there for you, you can change what views are displayed.

As you can see, the screen layout is made up of 3 distinct areas.

The Quick Launch Area

The is the area on the left hand side and contains additional groups of options – Getting Started (which provides guides and help information),

Volume Properties (which enables you to choose specific volume options),

Analyse and Defrag Now (which is as it sounds, the facilities to analyse your hard drives and perform defragmentation),

and finally Configure Diskeeper (which includes configuration options, updates and information on Diskeeper).

You can close this area if you wish as the main options are available as icons to choose above the three areas.

The Computer Area

This area contains the breakdown of your disks – including their size, free space, and the type of defragmentation that is currently configured.

From here you can select a drive, analyse it and perform a defragmentation pass, and even look at the properties of a drive.

As you can see from the analysis of one of my drives, whilst there is very little fragmentation, performance could certainly be improved.

however on another of my drives the story is quite different.

If you decide to perform a manual defragmentation, depending on the size of the selected volume, the amount of free disk space (as long as you have at least 1% free Diskeeper will do its magic) and the amount of file fragmentation, this process can take a while.

You can watch the process in real-time, which will quickly lose it’s appear after about a minute. If you are defragging a large drive, such as the one I am doing in this example, the usual volume map is replaced by a simple list in order to reduce CPU load, which I think is a great idea.

You can continue to use your home server while this is happening, but the more you use the files on that volume, the longer it will take to perform the pass.

After it has completed you can view a report and make sure that you are happy with the results.

The Volume Area

This contains the logs, history and dashboard, which enables you to view and edit the automatic defragmentation schedule.

CONCLUSION

So, in conclusion, Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer edition is a very easy to use product that once you have installed and configured to your personal preferences (if you choose) can be left to run in the background and forgotten about. Personally I think the installation is a little complicated for the average user, although not overly so, and if people follow the installation instructions, or the walk-through in this review, they will be fine. It would be nice in the future if Diskeeper could do something to remove the need to remote desktop to the Windows Home Server itself though. I also liked that there was a lot of configuration that could be performed, if I wanted, or I could just leave it with the default settings and it would work perfectly fine.

Again, if you think back to the start of the article, I mentioned that there are two camps when it comes to defragmentation software. I am still convinced that defrag is a necessity on any computer. I didn’t notice any performance hit from running Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer edition, even when I performed the initial analysis and defragmentation.

Given the fact you can try it for free for 30 days, why not give it a go and see what it can do for you? And if you want to buy it, the cost is $69.95.

For more information on Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer edition, and the other Diskeeper editions, click here.

WOULD YOU LIKE A FREE COPY?

So, would you like a free, fully licensed copy of Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer Edition? Continuing our tradition of giving away cool stuff, our friends at Diskeeper have given us 5 full licences of Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer to give away to you lucky readers.

To win a copy, all you need to do is send an email to giveaways @ usingwhs.com (remembering to remove the spaces) with the title Diskeeper 2009 Giveaway, and tell us your name and where you are located, and a suggestion to improve UsingWindowsHomeServer.com or an article you would like to see by Friday 1st May 2009. Winners will be picked at random and announced on the site on Saturday 2nd May. Good luck!

HP MediaSmart 2.5 Update Now Available

Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 22, 2009

8

Yesterday, HP released the iStream application for the iPhone and also for the iPod Touch.

Today, in fact, in the last few minutes, HP have released the HP MediaSmart Server 2.5 Update to the web.

In order to get it click on the Check for updates link on the HP Updates tab in the Settings area on your Windows Home Server Console.

It should then check for the update, and if it is found, you will see the MediaSmart Server Update 2.5 selected. As you can see, it’s just under 218MB in size.

A full review will follow shortly, but for now go and start the download 🙂

And remember, this update is only available for the EX485 and EX487 owners!

Review of Samsung’s F2 Series EcoGreen Hard Drive – HD502HI

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 19, 2009

5

It could be said that the most important component in any Windows Home Server, or desktop computer for that matter, is the hard drive. The hard drive is what WHS uses to store all of your data and the more hard drives you have, the more storage you have available.

Samsung have released a new set of hard drives called the F2 Series EcoGreen hard drives. They come in either 500GB, 1TB or 1.5TB variants – and all of them are SATA drives. For this review I am looking at a 500GB model.

Samsung’s new eco-friendly hard drive utilises its low noise operation technology SilentSeek and NoiseGuard to achieve a quiet operation system. A reinforced flying on demand (FOD) technology controls the distance between the disk and the head, a safety measure to protect the head and raise the stability of data stored on the disk.

So, what does that actually all mean?

SilentSeek and NoiseGuard is the name of the technology that Samsung use to to minimize the mechanical excitation generated by any resonance, virtually eliminating the source of seek acoustic noise. So basically, in simple terms, it means that the drive is quiet during operations such as read and write. Very quiet!

The “Green” drive lowers the amount of power required to run it, hence the “green” status. So if you are trying to reduce your spending on electricity, or you just want to do you bit to protect the environment, then going green won’t compromise your needs. Samsung claim that the drive consumes 43% less power in read/write and 57% less in idle than competitor’s 7200rpm drives. Which is quite a statement to make.

Adding the drive to my Windows Home Server was as simple as you would expect. The only disappointment was that out of the 500GB on the drive, Windows Home Server would only “see” 466GB, but I think we are also used to not quite getting the amount of hard disk space advertised with ANY hard drive, so it’s not really a failing just on this drive, or on Windows Home Server.

Overall I am very impressed with this drive. It is very quiet and the temperature was a good 15 degrees lower than the Seagate drive I also had in my test Windows Home Server. And even though the drive is only 5400 rpm, it still appears to be very fast. Samsung state that it actually performs at current 7200 rpm drive speeds, and to be honest, I can believe it. I can’t wait to get my hands on the 1.5 TB variant.

The 500GB variant I tested can be purchased for less than £50 in the UK, and even cheaper if you look hard enough.

This is a very good, low cost addition to any system, and I will be using it when I build my next Windows Home Server in order to keep the costs down.

Well done Samsung, you have a new fan!

FEATURES

• Formatted capacity : 500GB
• Environment friendly product with RoHS compliance
• Serial ATA 3.0 Gbps Interface Support
• Improved performance with dual-ARM based firmware
• Improved recording stability over temperature with PMR
• ATA S.M.A.R.T. Compliant
• Advanced dynamic FOD control for best data integrity
• ATA Automatic Acoustic Management Feature
• Intelligent compensation of external disturbance
• ATA 48-bit Address Feature
• SATA Native Command Queuing Feature
• ATA Device Configuration Overlay Feature
• Device Initiated SATA Power Management
• NoiseGuard
• Rotational vibration sensor
• SilentSeek

Technical Details:

Product Description	Samsung SpinPoint F2EG Desktop Class HD502HI – hard drive – 500 GB – SATA-300
Type	Hard drive – internal
Form Factor	3.5″ x 1/3H
Dimensions (w x d x h)	10.2 cm x 14.6 cm x 2.5 cm
Weight	450 g
Capacity	500 GB
Interface Type	Serial ATA-300
Data Transfer Rate	300 MBps
Average Seek Time	8.9 ms
Spindle Speed	5400 rpm
Buffer Size	16 MB

How to install or remove an Add-in for Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 19, 2009

40

Add-ins are additional features or functionality that can be easily added to Windows Home Server. The additional features or functionality can even make changes to the look and feel of the Windows Home Server Console, which may include adding new tabs for you to control the application. Add-ins effectively extend the capability of your Windows Home Server, and the possibilities for new add-ins are endless.

However, it is not always simple to install an add-in if you don’t know to do it – it’s not just a case of running an .EXE file, so in this walk-through I will explain how to add and also to remove an add-in from your Windows Home Server.

VIEWING ADD-INS

Click the Settings button on the Windows Home Server Console and then click Add-ins to open the Installed Add-ins screen.

As you can see, there are two available tabs, Installed and Available. The Installed tab lists all of the add-ins that are currently installed and operational on your Windows Home Server.

The Available tab lists any add-ins that are available to install. In this example, the TwonkyMedia Server for HP MediaSmart and also the HP MediaSmart Server Online Backup add-ins are currently installed.

INSTALLING AN ADD-IN

In order to use an add-in, you must first install it. For this example, I am installing the Windows Home Server Disk Management add-in by my friend Sam Wood. This particular add-in is designed for users who need more detail about their server’s storage status than what the standard WHS Server Storage interface provides. For more information on WHS Disk Management, including the download link, visit http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/WHSDiskManagement/

Installing an add-in is fairly straightforward, although the specific steps required for each add-in might be slightly different, so make sure you check the documentation that comes with the add-in, just to make sure you don’t miss an important step.

1. Download a copy of the add-in for Windows Home Server that you want to install and use, and save it wherever you usually save your downloaded items, or insert a CD or DVD with the add-in on any computer on your network that has the Windows Home Server Connector software installed.

2. Right-click the Windows Home Server task tray icon and click Shared Folders

or double-click the Shared Folders on Server icon on the Desktop. Either method connects you to the Shared Folders area on your Windows Home Server.

3. When the Shared Folders window opens, as shown in Figure 13-4, double-click the Software folder.

4. In the Software folder, double-click the Add-Ins folder.

The Add-Ins folder contains any add-ins you currently have installed on your Windows Home Server.

As you can see I have a copy of files already there along with a ReadMe.txt file.If you are curious about what the ReadMe.txt file contains, this is it: Copy Windows Home Server Add-in files (.msi) to this folder. For more information about Add-ins, open the Windows Home Server Console Help and search for “Add-ins.”

5. Copy the add-in (it is likely to be called something.msi) to the Add-Ins folder. Before you continue, make sure that you can see the add-in or add-ins in the Add-Ins folder.

6. Close the Add-Ins folder when you have confirmed that the add-in appears in the folder.

You may also receive a message about an add-in being ready to install, similar to this.

7. Launch the Windows Home Server Console.

8. Click the Settings button on the Windows Home Server Console to open the Settings screen.

9. Click Add-ins in the left pane.

10. Click the Available tab. You should now see the new add-in listed.

Before continuing, check to make sure that the add-in or add-ins listed are the ones you expect to be there. For example, I am installing the WHS Disk Management Add-in, and that is what is listed, along with a couple of other add-ins, so I am happy to continue the installation process. If the add-in or add-ins that you copied to the Add-Ins folder are not listed on the Available tab, try restarting the Windows Home Server Console, because that refreshes the list on the Available tab.

11. Click the Install button on your chosen add-in to install it. Depending on the add-in you are installing, the installation process may take a moment or two.

12. You are then presented with the Installation Succeeded dialog box and you just click OK to close the Windows Home Server Console.

13. After the Windows Home Server Console closes, you see a message advising you that your computer has lost its connection to the Windows Home Server.

Don’t worry, this is supposed to happen; just click OK to clear the message.

14. Reconnect as usual to the Windows Home Server via the Console.

15. Click the Settings button and choose Add-ins; you should see the new add-in appearing on the Installed tab.

If the add-in does not appear on the Installed tab, click the Available tab and see if it is still appears there. If it does, then just repeat the installation process and try again.

16. Click OK to close the Settings window.

If the new add-in includes a new Windows Home Server Console tab, it should now be visible and selectable.

For example, the WHS Disk Management add-in has added a new Disk Management icon.

Now that the add-in has been installed, you can start using it. You may need to perform additional configuration steps on the add-in before you can use it, so make sure you read the instructions that came with the add-in.

UNINSTALLING AN ADD-IN

To uninstall an add-in, following these steps:

1. Launch the Windows Home Server Console.

2. Click the Settings button on the Windows Home Server Console to open the Settings screen.

3. Click Add-ins in the left pane.

4. On the Installed tab, click Uninstall for the add-in you want to remove.

Depending on the add-in you are uninstalling, the uninstallation process may take a moment or two.

5. In the Uninstallation Succeeded dialog box click OK to close the Windows Home Server Console.

6. After the Windows Home Server Console closes, you see a message advising you that your computer has lost its connection to the Windows Home Server. Don’t worry, this is supposed to happen; just click OK to clear the message.

7. Reconnect as usual to the Windows Home Server via the console.

8. If you now click the Settings button and choose Add-ins, you should see that the add-in you chose has disappeared from the Installed tab. If you click the Available tab, it now reappears there, giving you the option to reinstall it at a later date.

9. Click OK to close the Settings window.

You should now see that any additional tabs that may have been included as part of the add-in have also been removed.

If you do not intend to reinstall the add-in in the future, you should delete the MSI file from the Add-Ins folder in the Software shared folder on your Windows Home Server. Not only will this keep the list of available add-ins to only those you may want to reinstall, but it will also save disk space on the Windows Home Server itself.

Add-In Review : Task Viewer

Phil Bevan

-

Apr 19, 2009

0

Introduction

Have you ever heard the cooling fans on your Home Server kick into noisy mode and not known why or is the performance of your Home Server not as snappy as you expect it should be? Well here is an Add in that might be able to help you resolve those issues without having to Remote Desktop in or connect a keyboard/mouse/display to your Home Server.

WHS Tasks Viewer presents the running processes in a simple two pane view within the Home Server Console along with some spiffy little graphs showing various metrics over time.

Installation

Installation is as simple as simple can be, at least in computing, copy the Tasks Viewer MSI into the Software\Add-ins folder on your Windows Home Server then, using the Home Server Console install it as you normally would an add in.

Installation takes a couple of seconds and then the Home Server Console will restart and voila a new Tasks Viewer tab to play with.

Impressions

Tasks Viewer isn’t the most beautiful of applications but it is functional. The left 70% of the Tasks Viewer tab displays a list of running “Tasks” on your Windows Home Server with six columns of data showing the ID, Process Name, Session ID, Private Memory Usage, Virtual Memory usage and a nice little graphical view of how much of the CPU time each “Task” is using.

The remaining 30% of the Tasks Viewer tab shows up to five graphs, arranged vertically, showing CPU Usage, Free Physical Memory, Free Virtual Memory, Disk Activity and Network Activity over time. These are pretty basic views with no legend or markers on them so it can be at times a little taxing to read them.

At the top of the screen, below the Windows Home Server tabs, is a single toolbar that contains a Kill button, a list of the total number of running processes, a refresh button (if the refresh isn’t fast enough for you as is you can click this) as well as some very basic information on your Windows Home Server (Number of CPU Cores and Total Physical and Virtual Memory).

Configuring Tasks Viewer

Clicking on the Settings button followed by the Tasks Viewer button will display some configuration options that allow you to specify how often the Process List and Graphs update as well as enabling/disabling the various graphs and altering their colours and a couple of other properties.

Usage

Tasks Viewer is a very simple application to use, look at the Process List and find the process using the most CPU Time or Memory and then determine what you’re going to do about it.

For a non-technical user this is the problem with this add in, showing the information is one thing but knowing what to do with it is another. The Kill button is a very dangerous word to have here and even Microsoft use “End Process” instead in Task Manager, pressing this button will ask for confirmation that you want to end the selected process but in doing so it may damage your computer and there is no additional verification by the add in or Windows Home Server that what you’re doing is not going to be dangerous.

I did discover an issue with the Kill button, when the kill confirmation dialog appeared I selected No to killing the process and got myself into an infinite loop where I had to quit the Console in order to get out of the loop, nil points for Tasks Viewer there.

Turning off the graphs is something I did straight off the bat, they’re a little crude for me and actually don’t tell me much of anything without points of reference, a legend or even scale lines. Doing this was simple but I discovered that the 30% space that the graphs occupied remained a big white space afterwards, the add in did not reclaim the space and use it to present the Tasks list in a wider space. A disappointing User Interface design there but one I can appreciate as many times I’ve forgotten or had trouble writing the resize code for applications myself 🙂

The default Tasks Viewer columns for each process is very basic and it would be nice to remove some of columns or add other ones in their place, unfortunately there is no way to customize this that I have found or change the default behaviour of the CPU Usage column to be a number instead of the progress indicator.

One thing that has bugged me majorly is the mixed usage of Process and Tasks, personally it is not tasks but processes that run on a computer and in a few places Process is used but the name of the application is Tasks and it can be a little confusing, hopefully we’ll see this addressed in later releases where a single term will be used consistently in the add in.

You’re sounding rather biased and negative

This review does sound like I’m really not enjoying this Add in and I’m “doing a job” on it but that’s not what I’m intending. Feedback is an important thing in ANY development and this is my feedback, in all honesty I actually have found a use for this add in and when I do use it I’ve enjoyed the simplicity and presentation of it.

It has saved me on three occasions just today using Remote Desktop, checking the Tasks list I was able to see that my Anti-Virus solution was using a little too much CPU time and slowing my WHS down, a quick kill of the A/V process and all was good again.

The User Interface is simply and functional, I’ve said that and that is a good thing. I can find information quickly and without any hassle, updates from the WHS occur quickly and the add in is just “snappy” which I really like. I think the developer has built functional and in later releases they will address issues that are raised.

I can see a use for this in my WHS toolkit and I hope that the developer does take what I’ve written as feedback and continue developing it.

Conclusion

Tasks Viewer is could be a very useful tool for the WHS Administrator’s Toolkit, what it presents isn’t new but it does so in a way that would save time in having to connect via Remote Desktop or finding a Keyboard/Mouse/Display to plug into your WHS.

There are issues with the add in as I’ve stated but it is functional and works very well. If you’re an intermediate/advanced knowledge of computers then this add in could be very useful for you to have available.

You can download the Task Viewer Add-in from here.

Installing the Disk Management Add-In on Windows Home Server on a Friday night

Windows Home Server

Timothy Daleo

-

Apr 19, 2009

1

Welcome back to another article in the Friday night series. This is how it works: I do “stuff” to my Windows Home Server, writing as I go and hopefully you learn a little something from my experience. Well maybe a laugh…

Background

Over the last few weeks I have been seeing a lot of super big crazy large uber-servers on some of the WHS sites. Some of these systems have dozens of drives and multiple cases. Most of these users post a very cool “Wireframe” screen shot of these mega-behemoth WHS systems that are on shelves across the world. Jealous much? Now, while I am humbled by their size and cost (24 drives x $100 average 1.5TB drive = $2,400?) I am never going to have the need, or the courage to convince my wife, for that much storage. What I do find the need for is a way to get more performance information from my drives and to make one of those cool Wireframe skyscraper looking things for my WHS.

Equipment Needed:

Windows Home Server Disk Management Add-In

2 Beers (optional as always, but recommended)

The IT Crowd – Season One playing on Netflix

Add-In Description

Windows Home Server Disk Management Add-In was created by Sam Wood at Tentacle software. If you have a few minutes you might want to read over the blog before you start. Since the only thing I have ever developed was some film a long-ass time ago at Costco (even then I messed up the envelope) I found it interesting to see how the Add-In was developed and grew. The Tentacle website is at:

http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/

According to the website it features:

Detailed information for each disk in your Windows Home Server
Real-time temperature and activity monitoring
Capacity indicators for individual disks
Customizable disk names
Customizable 3D wireframe representation of your server

This sounds cool. I want to be able to view my WHS as a multicolored monolithic tribute to the MS gods instead of the dusty cable-laden heater box humming inside the closet.

Lets set this pig on fire.

Download and Installation

The version I am installing is 1.0.9.8. This is the latest version and can be found at:

http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/whsdiskmanagement/

Before you just download the file and get started make sure you scroll down and see if your system is one of the Pre-configured Server Wireframes they have available. I have a feeling this could save us some time later during installation. Since my Dell PowerEdge is not listed I am out of luck. I am going to get the HPMSS EX47X template for my parents while I am here and then create theirs using the import.

Also, I see some references to PP1 so check your system resources to make sure your WHS is compatible. The Tentacle website has a great FAQ section on the same page if you need additional information.

Follow the standard WHS Add-In instructions by downloading the file to your Add-Ins folder on your WHS.

I have also saved the XML file for the HP MSS to a folder so I can copy it along with the Add-In to my parents via remote after I do the installation on the Dell.

Install through Settings>Add-Ins in the WHS Console.

Configuration and Setup

I installed the Add-In and the WHS Console has restarted. I now have a new Disk Management “gear” icon at the top. I also see all of my drives listed very neatly underneath. Sweet.

This layout is cool since the regular Server Storage view only shows you the total of all of your disks and does not break them out by name. I really like the temperature and activity columns. Nice touch. It would be a nice addition to this Add-In to have the total hours on each drive on a future release. Well, now that I can see all of my drives, lets make one of those cool diagrams of the server!

On the right side it says “Click here to begin wireframe setup” so lets try that.

It takes me back to Settings. Um ok.

I see the Create New Wireframe button and I see an Import / Export Wireframe option. I want to make my own anyway so I probably would not have used this option even if my PowerEdge was on the list. Time to create a new Wireframe! The wife is getting ready for bed so I had better do this fast.

Follow the steps below by working through the Create New Wireframe program:

Add, Edit or Remove a drive bay – Click on “Add new drive bay” click the arrow and NOT OK.
Drive Bay Type – Click on the bay type LOV (List of Values), make your selection and click on the right arrow
Drive Bay Position – Click on “New” and click on the right arrow
Drive Bay Contents – Click on the LOV and I see all of my drive paths here. I am going to pick the system drive first and then add the rest of the drives in order later. I like the way it adds the disk information once you select the drive path. Right arrow again.
Confirmation – I guess I can add a drive name but it says it is only available in the wizard. I wonder why. Anyway, all of my drives are Seagate. I just named the first one SG1. That is so flippin cool. Right arrow again.

Done with the first one. I have a little blue drive on the screen now. Sweet.

I will repeat the process for all of the additional drives and also include the DVD and CD drives. Do not worry about ways to rotate or move your drives. We will come back to that!

Time to get that second beer.

You can always walk away or stop and start by using the “Edit Current Wireframe” button.

As I have been adding the remaining external drives I have to keep remembering to check the “external drive bay” box. It would be nice to have “External” in the list of values and dump the check box. Also, to have another option for 2.5” drives that are connected would be cool. Overall the creation of the Wireframe is straight forward. Once your Wireframe is complete just use the Wireframe Orientation rotation axis boxes to adjust the view. You can also right click. I used 45, 45 and 45. My system looks like this so far:

Hey, what the flip? Where is my fourth external drive? There are supposed to be four external bays to the right of the server. Let me investigate this…ok back. So this is a little harder to understand and explain, and hard to see, but the first drive to the right is darker than the rest. I think I doubled up on the first drive.

I clicked on the darker drive and removed it and then it became light again. I did not realize I could add more drives to the same space. Is it supposed to do that? Interesting.

I guess I need to be more careful when I add drives. There is only one drive path for each framed box so be careful. Here is the new layout with the fourth drive added.

I have finally figured it all out and got used to how this Add-In works. Had to open another beer though.

Once I click on OK it takes me back to the Disk Management interface and updates the Wireframe. Very nice! You can see my PowerEdge two drive system and the external drives to the right.

Now, once you have got all of your drives in the right order you can go back and use the Advanced Mode to change the rotation and position of each of your drives. You could also use the Advanced Mode during the initial creation of your Wireframe but I would suggest waiting until after you complete the basic setup. I select the CD drive as shown below and click on Advanced Mode:

Now I will use the Movement buttons to move the CD drive up as shown below:

I have also moved the DVD drive up and am now rotating the Seagate Free Agent Pro drives to match their actual orientation. If you set your system up correctly then each box you click on should already match the drive path and disk name. I hear the wife coughing. Is that a hint?

I have finished all of the changes and my system is looking like it does in the closet. Well, without the dust and cables. I really have to work on that.

The Advanced Mode takes some getting used to but once you get oriented it is quite easy. Here is my final final version:

Sweet.

Importing the Wireframe XML file

Now that I am a “pro” with this Add-In it is time to upload it to my parents HP MSS. They are so lucky to have a son that cares so much. Seriously.

To import the Wireframe I downloaded at the start of this article I use the Import button and find the file:

Since their HP MSS is stock I do not need to make any changes to the Wireframe. Here is the result:

That was easy. I am finished with their HP MSS so I click on OK and get back to the Disk Management Add-In.

Cool red. It makes me want to add a couple of more drives. Maybe on another Friday night.

Conclusion

I am very happy with this Add-In. It has some good information about the drives and a cool Wireframe creation tool. You cannot tell from the amount of screen shots I had to take but the Wireframe is pretty easy to set up. I would like to see future revisions offer some different options for the external drives we all use and maybe even some additional name labels. Again though, overall this is a good Add-In and I am glad that I installed it in my Windows Home Server.

See you next Friday night

Timothy Daleo

Welcome New Writer

News

Andrew Edney

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Apr 19, 2009

0

I just wanted to welcome a new writer to Using Windows Home Server. His name is Phil Bevan and he comes from Australia. Welcome Phil!

Phil first article will be posted today – so take a look, and give him some good feedback.

Here is a short bio on Phil :

An Englishman by birth Phil Bevan has since moved to Australia where he works as an IT Consultant. He’s never been lucky enough to work for such high-tech companies as Andrew but he once saw Steve Balmer in Sydney and met PC Pro columnist Jon Honeyball in 1999 so he considers things have worked out alright.

He has no qualifications instead preferring to actually do work instead of reading books but this time has to be shared with his love of Computer Gaming which has lead him into the murky world of eSports where he spends his time as a Shoutcaster and Community Liaison trying to be the eSports equivalent of John Mottson.

Since discovering Windows Home Server he’s setup and runs a network based on the device that even “‘er indoors” can use and loves the simplicity, power and flexibility provided.

This is also a good time to remind you that if anyone out there wants to write for us, on any subject, be it a review of your favourite add-in, hints and tips, etc, then drop us an email to andrew @ usingwhs.com (removing the spaces) and introduce yourself.

Adding a Drive to your Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

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Apr 18, 2009

76

There seems to be a lot of people who are still a little unsure about adding or removing drives on their Windows Home Servers, so I figured some simple walk-throughs would help here.

In this next walk-through, I will discuss adding a hard drive to the storage pool.

ADDING A DRIVE TO THE STORAGE POOL

You can easily add a new hard drive to your server storage pool by literally just plugging it in and making a few clicks with your mouse.

Make sure that you have enough spare ports on your Windows Home Server for the new hard

drives. For example, if you want to add a new internal hard drive, you will need a spare power cable and the relevant cable for attaching to the motherboard, along with a spare port on the motherboard to connect the cable. If you want to connect an external hard drive, you will need spare USB or FireWire ports.

Here’s the procedure for adding a hard drive:

1. Connect the new hard drive to your Windows Home Server. If you are connecting an internal hard drive, you will need to first power off your Windows Home Server.

2. When the Windows Home Server has been powered back on, using one of your home computers, launch the Windows Home Server Console.

3. Click the Server Storage icon to display your available server storage.

Your new drive will be listed in the Non Storage Hard Drives area, with a status of Not Added. As you can see, I have installed a drive with the details ST315003 41AS internal ATA drive with a capacity of 1.3 TB. For those of you who are interested, it’s a 1.5 TB Seagate drive.

There might be situations, such as an application or Windows Home Server add-in needing its own hard drive, where you don’t want to add the new hard drive to the server storage pool. In these instances, you can just leave the new hard drive in the Non Storage Hard Drives area. This just means that the hard drive is not used as part of the Windows Home Server storage pool, even though it can be used for “other” storage outside the storage pool.

You can also use it to backup files from your Windows Home Server, but that is the subject of another walk-through, so for now, let’s just assume you want to add the drive to the storage pool.

4. Click the newly added hard drive, and then click the Add button above the list, or right-click the hard drive and select Add from the context menu.

This will start the Add a Hard Drive Wizard.

5. Click Next to start the Add a Hard Drive wizard. You will be offered the choice to add the hard drive to the storage pool to increase the storage capacity of your home server or you can use it to back up files that are stored on your home server. For this walk-through, leave the default selection and click Next to continue.

The next screen in the wizard warns you that if you click Finish, the hard drive will be formatted, and any files stored on that drive will be deleted. You can also see information about the drive on this screen so that you can be sure you have selected the correct drive.

If this newly added drive contains any data that you want to keep, stop the process now!

Remove the drive from the Windows Home Server, connect it to one of your other home computers, and copy the data off before starting the process again.

6. If you are sure that you want to format the drive, and that you have copied any data you want to keep to another storage location, click Finish. The hard drive will be formatted, and then it will be added to the storage pool.

Depending on the size of the hard drive you are adding, the formatting process may take a few minutes, so be patient.

When those two things have taken place, you will see the screen that tells you that the new hard drive was successfully added.

7. Click Done to finish. Your new hard drive has become part of your available storage pool.

You will now be able to see the new drive, along with any other drives you already had as part of your storage pool. As you can the status of my new drive is healthy, and my server storage pool total is 2.73 TB.

You will notice that the total server storage size may not be a rounded-off number. This is because you can add all different size drives to your server storage pool. You can add any drives you have lying around at home to increase your server storage—and believe me, you will soon want to do this!

The procedure for adding a USB or FireWire hard drive is the same as just described. I also added a USB hard drive to the pool.

You will notice that the icon of the USB drive is slightly different, in that it shows a cable attached to the drive to indicate it is an external drive. You can also see that the Location column indicates that it is External (USB).

You should consider using only USB 2.0 or FireWire external drives. Do not use USB 1.1 external drives, as they are slow and will cause your Windows Home Server to perform slowly, which you really don’t want to happen.

After you’ve added the new hard drive to your Windows Home Server, it becomes part of the total amount of shared server storage. Under no circumstances should you just disconnect it and use it for something else, as this will cause major problems to your storage.

If you want to know how to safely remove a hard drive from your storage pool, click here to read the walk-through.

Windows Home Server Book Giveaway Winners

Andrew Edney

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Apr 18, 2009

0

Last week I said that I would giveaway 2 copies of my book – the Windows Home Server User’s Guide and all you needed to do to win it was send me an email with a suggestion for an article.

Well, I got lot of really good suggestions, so much so that I have decided to give away 4 copies instead of the 2 🙂

So, without further ado, the winners are:

Robert Hegglov from Sweden

Craig McFarlin from the US

Joseph Ozdemir from Australia

George Bellis from the UK

Congratulations guys, I will be emailing you shortly. For everyone else, don’t worry, there are a lot of giveaways coming up over the next few weeks, including a few very special ones. So stay tuned to Using Windows Home Server and if you haven’t subscribed yet via RSS, just click the RSS Posts link at the top of the page to have posts sent directly to your favourite RSS reader.

Removing a Drive from your Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

-

Apr 18, 2009

70

There seems to be a lot of people who are still a little unsure about adding or removing drives on their Windows Home Servers, so I figured some simple walk-throughs would help here.

In this first walk-through, I will discuss removing a hard drive from the storage pool.

REMOVING A DRIVE FROM THE STORAGE POOL

A time may come when you want to remove a hard drive from your Windows Home Server,
either because you suspect that there might be a problem with it or because you want to
replace it with a larger and possibly faster hard drive.

You cannot remove the primary hard drive, which is the one with the Windows Home Server program files stored on it. If you want to replace the primary hard drive, you will need to reinstall Windows Home Server.

To remove a hard drive, just perform the following simple steps:

1. In the Windows Home Server Console, click the Server Storage tab.

2. Click the hard drive that you want to remove, and then click the Remove button above
the list, or right-click the hard drive and select Remove from the context menu.

This will launch the Remove a Hard Drive Wizard.

Beware, because the removal process moves the files that are stored on that hard drive to another
hard drive, you must ensure that you have sufficient space available in the storage pool before continuing. Otherwise, you may lose files or some shared folder duplication may stop.

3. Click Next. The wizard will check that there is enough storage available to move the
files to before continuing.

Depending on how many hard drives you have in your server storage pool and how much data is stored within the pool, the process of calculating the available space could take a few minutes. As usual, be patient!

4. Once the calculation has completed, you will be presented with a Hard Drive
Removal Consequences page. Review this information as it could be very important.
There are two major areas of possible consequence, plus a reminder if you’re removing
an external drive.

• Files and Folders is where you will be informed if files that are stored in duplicated
folders will continue to be duplicated.

• Computer Backups is where you will be informed if any computer backups will
be lost.

• Do Not Disconnect will appear if the drive being removed is an external hard drive.
The wizard is reminding you that this drive must be connected and powered on
until the wizard has completed.

It is also possible that you won’t have any consequences (wouldn’t that be nice), in which case you will will just be told you can remove the drive.

If you have only two hard drives in your Windows Home Server and decide to remove
one of them, the biggest consequence is that shared folder replication cannot continue, because a minimum of two hard drives are required for replication. You will be warned of this on the Hard Drive Removal Consequences screen.

5. Click Finish. The hard drive is removed from the server storage pool, and the data is
moved to other hard drives within the pool. You can monitor the progress while this is
taking place.

Depending on how much data needs to be moved from the hard drive, the removal process can
take a long time. The wizard even advises that this process could take several hours to complete. Do I need to say that you should be patient?

6. Once the removal process has completed, you will be presented with a Hard Drive
Successfully Removed screen. Click Done to complete the removal process.

If the hard drive is an external hard drive, you can now safely unplug it from the
Windows Home Server. If the hard drive is an internal hard drive, you will need to power
off your Windows Home Server and remove the hard drive before restarting the Windows
Home Server.

Black Hat Europe Over For Another Year

Andrew Edney

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Apr 18, 2009

0

This week saw the Black Hat conference once again return to Amsterdam for 2 days of intense, and informative, security briefings covering topics such as newly announced vulnerabilities.

There were over 400 attendees over the two days, and 6 new vulnerabilities announced. Lord Erroll, a member of the UK House of Lords delivered a very interesting keynote speech on Privacy.

If you are interested in learning about new security vulnerabilities, and what you can do to protect yourself, you should consider going along.

For more information on the next set of briefings, click here.

And if all that information wasn’t enough, there were donuts!

UK Windows Media Center and Home Server User Group Meeting only a few days away!

Andrew Edney

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Apr 18, 2009

0

This is just a reminder to anyone who is interested in attending the 1st UK Windows Media Center and Home Server User Group meeting which is going to be held in Birmingham next Tuesday evening (the 21st April).

Sessions include Windows Home Server (presented by me – so come along and heckle if you like), Windows Media Center Addons, Windows Media Development, Windows 7 preview and even a live roundtable discussion. And believe me, the roundtable discussions are usually a great deal of fun!

To register for the event, click here.

HP Publish iStream User’s Guide for HP MediaSmart Server 2.5 Update

Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

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Apr 16, 2009

0

Earlier this week we told you that HP had announced an update for the HP MediaSmart EX485 and EX487 servers, known as the 2.5 Update.

This update included something that HP are calling iStream, which is the application that sites on your iPhone or iPod Touch and allows you to access your media content stored on your HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server.

Phil Churchill, the ever eagle-eyed guardian of MSWHS.com reported that HP have now published the User Guide for iStream, which can be downloaded here.

This User’s Guide contains everything you will need to know in order to set up and use the iStream application – all you need now is the software!

As reported earlier in the week, the 2.5 Update should be out by the end of this month and the iStream application will be available via the Apple App Store.

MOVIES, GAMES AND TECHMOVIES, GAMES AND TECH

MOVIES, GAMES AND TECHFashion Trends and Culture

1st UK Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server Usergroup Event

Add-in Review : Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer Edition and Giveaway

HP MediaSmart 2.5 Update Now Available

Review of Samsung’s F2 Series EcoGreen Hard Drive – HD502HI

How to install or remove an Add-in for Windows Home Server

Add-In Review : Task Viewer

Installing the Disk Management Add-In on Windows Home Server on a Friday night

Background

Equipment Needed:

Add-In Description

Download and Installation

Configuration and Setup

Importing the Wireframe XML file

Conclusion

Welcome New Writer

Adding a Drive to your Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server Book Giveaway Winners

Removing a Drive from your Windows Home Server

Black Hat Europe Over For Another Year

UK Windows Media Center and Home Server User Group Meeting only a few days away!

HP Publish iStream User’s Guide for HP MediaSmart Server 2.5 Update