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Software Windows Home Server Finally Fixed
Jason Mick (Blog) - July 22, 2008 8:43 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 85 comment(s) - last by mindless1.. on Jul 29 at 9:06 PM
The fix for Windows Home Server's broken file system finally is released to market

Microsoft's Windows Home Server (WHS) is almost fully back in operation after about nine months of difficulty.  The operating system marked the most troubled release of the last couple generations of Windows-branded systems.  Now at last it can move over and perhaps fulfill the bright potential that seemed to await it when it was released

Marketed as a home storage solution, and backed with hardware partners, Windows Home Server looked to be a very promising product, putting server style data backup in simplified form in the hands of the consumer.  However, soon after its release it was found that it corrupted files stored on it.  For a server, which is utilized primarily to safeguard data, data corruption is considered a "cardinal sin". 

As the months dragged on the list of file types corrupted grew.  The situations in which corruption could occur grew as well (initially the WHS believed that files could only be corrupted when edited on the server).  In the end, the WHS team discovered that the underlying file system to the OS was seriously broken.  In response to the problems, they issued a dire warning that files should not be stored on WHS boxes without having a separate backup.

However, they also got hard to work at making a fix.  Initially, they thought they might be able to pull one off by the end of the Christmas season, as they worked over the holidays.  Alas, the new year came with no fix.  Finally in May, the team released a beta build of the fix, followed by a release candidate in June.

On Monday the WHS team released the final fix, Windows Home Server Power Pack 1, in RTM form.  The English version is available through the Downloads Center, and Microsoft promises that German, Spanish, and French versions will soon be available.

The update will be pushed into Windows Update in August.  Also in August, Japanese and Chinese versions will be rolled out.

Microsoft briefly describes the pack, stating, "As many know, Power Pack 1 provides a range of new enhancements, including support for home computers running Windows Vista x64 editions, backup of home server Shared Folders, improvements to remote access, more efficient power consumption and better performance. And, of course, it delivers a fix for the data corruption bug."

HP, one of the hardware partners will be releasing updates of its own via its HP MediaSmart Server.  These will provide better security and streaming content.

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Excellent!
By therealnickdanger on 7/22/2008 8:54:23 AM , Rating: 2
This is what I was waiting for.

*looks for WHS copy to buy*




RE: Excellent!
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2008 9:15:27 AM , Rating: 2
If this actually fixes the problems with it, WHS would definitely make a nice solution. Honestly I might look at changing my current video server over to this since it allows for "RAID" of sorts without an actual controller(right?).

One question though is if you have drives with data on them already, can you make that into one big drive in WHS without loosing the data?


RE: Excellent!
By therealnickdanger on 7/22/2008 9:32:13 AM , Rating: 1
1. I don't think the OS supports RAID (well). When you say "video server", do you mean a server for streaming video to devices or for video editing? I don't think the latter will be very successful.

2. I can't imagine that you would be unable to "pop in" a HDD loaded with files, but then WHS has a special storage schema. Hmm...


RE: Excellent!
By Blight AC on 7/22/2008 9:53:11 AM , Rating: 4
The WHS is a media extender, I'd imagine he just wanted to store the video there for playback on supported devices.

The WHS storage is a software RAID of sorts. It basically melds multiple hard drives to appear as a single folder. When you connect a new HDD you have the option in the console to add the new HDD to the storage pool, but it will delete the contents of that HDD. What you'd have to do is log into the Server and copy the contents of the new HDD to the WHS Shared folders (if you have enough room) and then add the new HDD to the storage pool.


RE: Excellent!
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2008 10:28:58 AM , Rating: 2
There is redundancy in it though right? If a single drive dies do you lose data? Or is it just essentially a fancy implementation of RAID 0?


RE: Excellent!
By GreenEnvt on 7/22/2008 10:54:39 AM , Rating: 3
You mark which folders you want redundancy on. So if your photos and documents you want to be on two separate drive you just enable it for that folder. For folders you don't care about replacing, don't select those for duplication.


RE: Excellent!
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2008 12:24:04 PM , Rating: 2
Guess I'd be turning on duplication for everything then.


RE: Excellent!
By rykerabel on 7/22/2008 11:34:38 AM , Rating: 4
its a heterogenus mirror.

redundancy with different sized drives without loosing space. not an easy task and that is the feature that caused the bug.


RE: Excellent!
By jtesoro on 7/23/2008 1:14:51 AM , Rating: 2
If your WHS setup has two different-sized disks and you mark everything for redundancy, you your capacity will be limited to the size of the smaller sized disk right?


RE: Excellent!
By gramboh on 7/23/2008 3:22:34 AM , Rating: 2
Yep, with two drives that would have to happen if the smaller drive was full and there was required mirroring of ALL data.

The implementation is more effective with more drives.

Interesting concept, since I was thinking about getting a 4-bay RAID5 NAS with 1x 1TB. But with a WHS server I could add 4 1TB now, and when 1.5TB etc. comes out down the road I can add more drives to the same "array".

I wonder what performance is like, not that it matters hugely on a home network storage server.


RE: Excellent!
By Crassus on 7/23/2008 12:01:53 PM , Rating: 2
Not really, because the first disk has 20 GB taken out for the system partition, and the desktop backups are stored in the storage pool as well, so the space on the bigger disk will get filled as well.


RE: Excellent!
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2008 10:29:18 AM , Rating: 2
I stream video to my 360.


RE: Excellent!
By arazok on 7/22/2008 11:18:20 AM , Rating: 2
Now that WHS is fixed, I want to do this. Can the 360 decode H.264 (bluray) video yet? I know they added DivX.


RE: Excellent!
By Icelight on 7/22/2008 11:25:11 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, but it's a bit...limited. Level 5.0 and above is not supported, nor is any profile except for the 'Main Profile' (if memory serves correctly).

The trouble is, lots of HD video is encoded in H264 5.1...leaving you to re-encode it yet again to get it to play...

There's also only 2-channel audio support as well.


RE: Excellent!
By Alexvrb on 7/22/2008 7:41:44 PM , Rating: 2
You are correct about it currently only supporting 2-channel audio for H.264 content, natively. You are also largely correct that level 5.0 and above are not officially supported. However, you can change the reported level with h264info. I don't guarantee success, but i've seen files changed from 5.1 to 4.1 work fine. Also, it does support High Profile 4.1 as well as main and baseline. Supposed bitrate support is 10mbps, but this is not a hard limit and I have played slightly higher rate videos without any issues.

I know its not very high priority for MS, as they are concentrating on other things, but I would like to see native support for more stuff in future updates.


RE: Excellent!
By Doormat on 7/22/2008 11:56:02 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, if your video is encoded at Level 4.1 or below it'll work. You might have to do some work and install a H.264 decoder on the WHS box and tinker with it, but I have been streaming H.264 from my WHS box to my 360 for a while. I just use the PS3 preset in Handbrake, turn the bitrate down a bit and go from there.


RE: Excellent!
By Grast on 7/22/2008 10:56:06 AM , Rating: 2
FIT,

I have been beta testing Power Pack 1 since May, I have ran about 10 different builds with PP1. I have found that since May the data corrupton bug has indeed been fixed. PP1 also includes additions and enhancements to the services offered by Window Home server.

I highly recommend the software. I personally have 4 Terabytes of data being served by my Window Home Server.

Later...


RE: Excellent!
By Mitch101 on 7/22/2008 11:01:04 AM , Rating: 2
Since the underlying file system needed a major correction shouldn't everyone wait until they release the disc's containing the Power Pack 1 fixed version instead of buying the current version which could corrupt files as your doing updates till the patch?

It shouldn't be long until we see Windows Home server copies with PP1 pre installed.

I would mention slipstreaming but most people don't know how to.