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Serving PP1 to your server at home
24 Jul 2008The Internet has been abuzz with the news of the release of Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server (WHS PP1) a couple of days ago. I’ve had an HP Media Smart Server for several months and have been waiting like so many others for this update to fix the infamous data corruption bug.
I updated my server a couple of days ago and it’s been working just fine. I’ve also received the HP MS WHS update with PV Connect and the McAfee anti virus trial but I’ve not had much use for PV Connect just yet and I’ve chosen to disregard the McAfee trial.
As part of the upgrade I’ve also, and I’ve updated all of our home computers with the WHS connector software which features an option to wake a PC for backup.
As well as the data fix there are a few features that I’ve found particularly good…
Remote Folder Access Improvements
The remote web based access to shared folders no longer suffers from the file name truncation bug which means that I can now access all of my nicely organised data that is in deep folder trees. There’s also drag and drop access and the option to view thumbnails of files. An extra option to zip files for download is also included and I can see this getting a lot of use in the future.
Home Server Backup
Whilst I haven’t got any storage to plug into the server to use for backup just at the moment (though I do have a NAS drive that I currently use) this is a feature I imagine will be very useful in the coming months and is one I hope to look at in more detail in the not too distant future.
Load Balancing
Several changes to the balancing of files across the server’s disks I’m hoping will provide better response in general on the server and also be less power consuming. Previously the server seemed to balance disk file 24x7 even when there had been no user updates made. Well I’m hopeful that it will be better performance and I have noticed that my server does so far annecdotally make less hard disk activity noise. It’s on a shelf above my desk so I can hear what it’s up to.
So that’s my key features list, but finally for those people who do update their pre-PP1 WHS, the updated restore disk can now also be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Centre.
For more information on Windows Home Server and HP Media Smart Server why not take a look at wegotserved.co.uk and mediasmartserver.net?
