August 30, 2009 at 5:50 am
bigjim01 (8/30/2009)
I have had absolutely NO problems with Windows Home Server at all. The Windows Home Server that I have does not have hardware RAID as mentioned in the article would require you to have identical disks. As for not having ZFS, the only reference I have heard of that with respect to operating systems was linux:sick:. Linux is not practical for a home user as it is extremely complicated and extremely not compatible. I for one have looked at linux for over 12 years and I have come to the conclusion that I would NEVER use it for my own personal needs, I prefer to use the best operating system out there, which in my opinion is Windows. I have not studied operating system theory and design and I am not likely to. I do not trust open source software, and will most likely never will. I would suggest that unless you have read and understood every single line of code that you should not trust it either. I understand what Microsoft's motivations are and I know that they would not put anything adverse in the operating system as it would open them up to a huge liability not to mention would be a public relations nightmare.
I dont think you want to do linux with ZFS, I would not. However, I would do OpenSolaris+ZFS+Samba. The beauty of Open software is that you are more likely to get the truth of issues at hand, which might also scare people away. I use windows at home, but to be honest, it do crash, it needs to restart, it is not very stable but getting to the truth of why would be very hard because that is digging into company secrets. I dont trust windows because it's not open source, because I do not know what's in there. It's like purchasing an encryption from a company that does not show you the code, then you know they might be selling the keys to the encryption to others. Take sql server for instance, if it were to be open source, ms would have to fix some of the issues or I believe that other programmers would laugh at ms seeing what they are not able to manage. It would also allow for bug fixes from communities, free bug fixes reviewed by several and then reviewed by the product owner, ms. So yeah, I trust open source more than closed programs, simply because I believe in human nature, hide what you are ashamed of and show what you are proud of.
August 30, 2009 at 6:14 am
Well if you can get to the root cause of spaghetti code, that is great. I will spend months to years try to figure out where everything goes. I have been running Windows for decades and the root cause of most of the problems that I used to have (Windows 95 era) were caused by low quality hardware, which would effect even the poorest Open Source crapware. I did not get any secrets from Microsoft, I used common sense and found the issue to my own problems. SQL Server rocks over every other database product on the planet.
I am not trying to change your opinion, and I guarantee that you will NEVER change my opinion on usage of Open Source software. I only want to counter your opinion about Windows Home Server with the TRUTH that it works, and works flawlessly. It does not backup less evolved systems like Macintosh, Linux, or Open Solaris but I don't have any of those physical systems around. I do have them installed in Hyper-V virtual machines, and it looks like they will be going away as I have no need of them and never log into them.
Open Source is bad for developers because all they will do is copy and paste code without ever understanding the concepts behind the code. We should share concepts not execution. We can only grow intellectually when we share concepts not code.
James E. Freedle II
August 30, 2009 at 6:43 am
bigjim01 (8/30/2009)
Well if you can get to the root cause of spaghetti code, that is great. I will spend months to years try to figure out where everything goes. I have been running Windows for decades and the root cause of most of the problems that I used to have (Windows 95 era) were caused by low quality hardware, which would effect even the poorest Open Source crapware. I did not get any secrets from Microsoft, I used common sense and found the issue to my own problems. SQL Server rocks over every other database product on the planet.I am not trying to change your opinion, and I guarantee that you will NEVER change my opinion on usage of Open Source software. I only want to counter your opinion about Windows Home Server with the TRUTH that it works, and works flawlessly. It does not backup less evolved systems like Macintosh, Linux, or Open Solaris but I don't have any of those physical systems around. I do have them installed in Hyper-V virtual machines, and it looks like they will be going away as I have no need of them and never log into them.
Open Source is bad for developers because all they will do is copy and paste code without ever understanding the concepts behind the code. We should share concepts not execution. We can only grow intellectually when we share concepts not code.
Open source crapware? Seems I touched a nerve there somehow.. I see a lot of bad code in closed products as well as open products, I dont believe good code comes because a product is open or closed but by how it's all managed and the project is driven. About six years ago I tried to find a music program that could handle a library of about 200gig only, itunes and a lot of other closed (super duper programs by your view since they are closed ey?) crashed, then I stumbled upon musikcube which is open source and that did not crash because of the modest sized music library and worked well enough.
"SQL Server rocks over every other database product on the planet." Oh boy, I got a fannboi on my hands. Actually the sql server team admitted in some book I read a couple of years ago that Oracle is 20% more effective in general or something like that, so I have to disagree. All thou sql server is reasonable priced and suits most of my needs.
"Open Source is bad for developers because all they will do is copy and paste code without ever understanding the concepts behind the code." This is bad, and I see lots of people doing just that in closed products. So I it's a behaviour not limited to open source, at least it's never been that in my time. By the way, there have been some lawsuits about closed products having copied code from open onces and vice versa.
What I see in your post is a lot of anger and will to defend others products because of god knows why?! You should try and realise that no one is perfect, the problems of windows 95 and 98 were not because of bad hardware, well some of the issues were, but a lot of it was because of bad code in the microsoft windows 95 operating system, a series of OS that till this day still is far from perfect. It's getting better and better thou but I dont see why you want to claim it to not be MS faults but hardware faults, man you are weird, just accept it for what it is and that there are faults in both the OS and the hardware.
" I only want to counter your opinion about Windows Home Server with the TRUTH that it works, and works flawlessly."
Errr you know, it does not, it has issues, for instance, remember this one because I found it to be quite embarrassing to ms. Search on "Windows Home Server bug corrupts files" and you will find several indepent sites talking about it and ms admitting to it. There goes your flawlessness down the hill.
My hope for you bigjim01 is that you learn that nothing is perfect, no company makes perfect products. It's more an issue if the problems with the products is something you can live with or not. And do not be to fast with throwing out open source, microsoft has their own open source site now days you know.
August 30, 2009 at 7:08 am
Yes, I am tired of having it shoved down my throat. If I were interested in Open Source Software, I would look for the information. Yes there is bad code in both Open Source Software and Closed Source Software, so that does not help the bug count.
I have used Oracle in the past, and hopefully it stays in the past. I do not see any reason to recommend the high cost of Oracle, so I look at it as cost & performance issue rather than pure performance. I do not have any information on a pure performance issue. I am not a fanboy, I just like what works and works well, in addition to being easy to use.
Agreed about copy & pasting code, which is why I said it. I would be an idiot to imply that it does not happen in Closed Source Code as well, as I worked with a developer that did that. Also having the code is like opening someone's brain to dig in and find information rather than asking. I refrain from even copying and pasting my own code from project to project. I try to develop code modules that can easily be included in various projects and thereby coding in good object oriented programming style.
The little anger is from having Open Source pushed at every angle that it is the last best hope for mankind, of which it is not.
Software is not perfect, and I have been around much longer than anybody realizes and I have studied human nature to an exacting science. I have also studied computers from the lowly memory register to today's computers. There is only one program that everyone writes that is most likely bug free, and it is the Hello World program that we all write. The more the complexity the greater chance of bugs creeping in because there are a lot of variations that can not be completely covered. As I stated earlier, I have NO problems with Windows Home Server and I have no issues with files being corrupted. The server works like a champ and keeps all my computers backed up flawlessly. Your mileage may vary. I have set up a virtual machine to act as a test platform for monkeying around with Windows Home Server and it has worked great as well.
I know Microsoft has an Open Source site now, and I still do not care about Open Source software. Just as I do not care about web "applications" and will never care about them.
James E. Freedle II
August 30, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Regardless of open source or not, I want my data safe. The source being open to people to review just makes it more safe. Not dependent on 1 disk or several disks that still has the risk of failure due to a raid and who knows if the company making that hardware raid part will be around or if the same version can be found etc. That is one reason why ZFS a software raid is so good. It also contains error correction codes etc, it's the BEST on the market, and it's free. I'm not a sun guy thou, I'm not a guy for anyone, I go with what is good and it does not take that long to set these things up eather. If WHS were to have ZFS I'd pay for WHS but since it does not, I have to invest a few hours to learn and set it up and then it just works. I've had a bit of bad luck with hardware and read about so many others that has had bad luck and thus I want my server to not be dependant on much of anything and thus a server set up for raidz2 is what I go with. You should invest a bit of time to learn about zfs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN6iDzesEs0
I know Microsoft has an Open Source site now, and I still do not care about Open Source software. Just as I do not care about web "applications" and will never care about them.
And oh, you are using a web application to read this web page which is a web application, you know that right?
August 30, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Well I could try and learn about ZFS, but I would have to push something else off of my plate to do so. I have had my Windows Home Server for almost a year now and as I have said, it had worked like a champ and preforms like a server should. I was not sure how it would work at first, so I downloaded a trial of the software to see how it would work. It impressed me enough to purchase the machine.
As far as I knowing this is a web "application", yes I know it is, and this is really not so much what I was referring to. Actually this is one of the few things that web browsers were designed for. What they were not designed for was to replace real applications such as the applications that are apart of Microsoft Office. I still call these web pages and you write web pages, you can't build them as they are not true applications.
As I said before, I have absolutely no interest in Open Source and if people keep trying to push it down my throat, I think that I am going to write something that will seek out all open source code and eradicate it. It will be so funny, it will take a very long time to infect and will erase all backups and online systems. But seriously, if I were interested in Open Source I would seek it out.
James E. Freedle II
August 31, 2009 at 11:19 am
IceDread (8/30/2009)
And I still can't understand why pick WHS, a system that has proven to have quite a few bugs, some file types not compatible etc.
Care to provide a source or two for that alligation? otherwise it's just slander and hearsay.
Not to mention hardware raid is slow and binds you to that hardware.
{princessbridemode} yew keep using dis word 'hardware raid', I doan thing eet means vas you thing eet means {/princessbridemode}
seriously, dude you keep saying 'hardware raid' and that has NOTHING, zero, zip, nada, null, to do with WHS. So it makes me (and I suspect others) question if you have clue one as to how WHS handles drives and storage, or you are just on a mission to bash it since it's MS technology instead of descended from the loins of the allmighty Sun. WHS does not use hardware raid. It uses a dynamic system that allows you to easily add or remove drives, and mirrors data that is designated to be stored redundantly across multiple drives. It does NOT use hardware raid, it does not even use traditional software raid. Drives do not have to be matched (as with raid 1, 5, or 1+0), and can even be connected in different ways (some IDE, some SATA, some USB etc)
All thou I'd probably do WHS if it supported ZFS but seeing how it does not have the latest, the best, no WHS for me.
ZFS would be complete overkill for the needs that WHS is trying to fulfill, and frankly I wouldn't trust the average non-geek to configure it correctly. What WHS does is similar in some small ways ('pool of drives' as one logical unit approach.) to what ZFS does, although not trying to be all things to all needs as ZFS does such as supporting raid analogs etc.
But hey, obviously there's no way you'll ever run WHS, it's not for everyone, and clearly 'not for you'. So have fun figuring out a way to keep all your systems backed up, setting up a server with ZFS and some kind of raid implementation to store your critical data in a fault tolerant way, etc. etc. I'm sure you'll have fun with that, and will take much pride in how whatever you come up with however many tens or hundreds of hours later, is so much better that WHS.
In the meantime, my stuff's backed up, I didn't have to spend a ton of time collecting the software and utilities etc to make it work, and it just 'works' without a lot of effort on my part, so I can use my free time for other things.
August 31, 2009 at 11:29 am
WHS uses a technology that duplicates data across multiple drives in software. It isn't RAID, and it is similar to what Drobo uses to ensure that different sizes of hard drives can be used.
WHS had a bug early on that could result in corrupt files in some cases. That has been fixed. Saying that the software is crap because it had a bug means that you ought to go back to a filing cabinet and abacus. All software has bugs; good manufacturers deal with that and implement fixes. ZFS has had issues as well[/url]. Do I condemn it now because of bugs in the past?
No, you educate yourself, and make a current, informed decision.
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August 31, 2009 at 11:43 am
WHS seems to do what I'm looking for - it will also work as a media server for streaming music and video.
Still waiting for the new chassis to come in and build the final version.
August 31, 2009 at 11:51 am
I use mine like that as well. One cool thing I did was to mark the Music folder available offline on my Tablet PC so I can have one music folder that is protected by folder duplication on the Home Server. I also stream my music through my xbox 360 so that I can listen to music on my first floor (my computers are on the second floor). I am looking at a possible Media Extender so that I could have it streaming to another room in the house.
James E. Freedle II
August 31, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Seams some people take offence rather easily if their choice of product is questioned. If I want a home server I want a place to keep my files safe and at a low risk of getting lost if there is hardware or software issue. I also want speed and stability. ZFS may be overkill, but since it's there why not use it? I like overkill when I can have it. I dont want to use OpenSolaris (you have a bit less hardware to chose from since not all hardware is supported), but since it's the best for a zfs server it is the choice. I expect that in not too many years, ZFS will be available for other systems as well or a substitute for ZFS will fill that role. But until then, no WHS for me. If WHS full fills your needs and keeps your data safe enought, good. I just want to expand your views a bit, if enough people starts to see the beauty of ZFS maybe it or something similar will be available for my windows machines in not too long, would be awesome.
August 31, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I just read up on ZFS, and there are some caveats on it that would potentially keep me from using it.
For example, it appears to be very sensitive to being run on non-Sun hardware or in virtualized systems. I see instances of total data loss on the OpenSolaris boards.
Also, if I'm reading this correctly, ZFS doesn't allow multiple concurrent access to data, and isn't designed for clustering. That's supposed to be fixed some time next year, it looks like.
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August 31, 2009 at 1:52 pm
One thing that should be pointed out about the approach WHS uses: the data storage drives that WHS uses are normal NTFS volumes; you can readily pull these disks from a WHS server and read your folders/files by mounting the drives on another machine that understands NTFS volumes. This can come in very handy in certain circumstances.
But if all you want is a NAS that provides some local drive redundancy, WHS is probably overkill. (Likewise, setting up OpenSolaris to get NAS functionality? I envy the amount of free time you must have!) There are lots of inexpensive good/great appliance-like NAS solutions that have easy to administer raid capabilities. Where WHS excels is that it's not just a NAS, but rather it integrates NAS capability with lots of other server functionality (media streaming, printer sharing, remote access from the i-net, backups, etc), and it's all easily administered with a nice GUI accessible from any client computer.
August 31, 2009 at 3:11 pm
IceDread (8/31/2009)
Seams some people take offence rather easily if their choice of product is questioned.
No, I get offended when people make accusations like buggy and unreliable without providing any references to backup that statement, especially when it directly conflicts my personal experience with the product. I get offended when someone states that there are liabilities with a product (e.g. hardware raid locking you into specific hardware) when it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the product. I get offended when someone argues against a product being useful when they plainly based on their statements have zero idea what the product really does, or the needs it's supposed to meet. Likewise when they suggest it would be better to replace product X with product Y when Y has one thing perhaps it does better (file system) without ANY of the other functionality of product X.
If I want a home server I want a place to keep my files safe and at a low risk of getting lost if there is hardware or software issue. I also want speed and stability.
are you implying that a WHS fails to provide any of that? And frankly if that is your criteria, I'd argue that ZFS is still a wee bit too close to the 'bleeding edge' of the 'leading edge' to claim that superior stability, or less likelyhood of data loss due to a software issue (at least based on links others have provided here)
But more seriously, if you see a home server as nothing more than a 'file server' then just get a NAS device, or build a basic Linux server with some mirrored drives or something. But the fact still remains that WHS is far more than a mere fileserver, so it's just rediculous to say 'just get a file server' as an alternative to anyone who's looking at WHS for those other features.
ZFS may be overkill, but since it's there why not use it? I like overkill when I can have it. I dont want to use OpenSolaris (you have a bit less hardware to chose from since not all hardware is supported), but since it's the best for a zfs server it is the choice. I expect that in not too many years, ZFS will be available for other systems as well or a substitute for ZFS will fill that role. But until then, no WHS for me.
because you'd rather hassle with OpenSolaris, or do without and wait for better linux support for ZFS? You're not making sense.. It's not like there's an alternative to go out and get that does what WHS does but uses ZFS to store the data.. So you are saying that you're choosing the birds in the bush over the one in the hand? Or is it that you don't feel you need the features that WHS offers, regardless of the file system it uses?
Now it's one thing if you tell me 'most of my systems are not windows based so WHS won't work for me'.. That I'd understand. But otherwise I really don't get your point.
If WHS full fills your needs and keeps your data safe enought, good. I just want to expand your views a bit, if enough people starts to see the beauty of ZFS maybe it or something similar will be available for my windows machines in not too long, would be awesome.
a) proposing something that doesn't exist in a practical form now, but might in the future, is not 'expanding my views'.. it's saying 'frankly a lot closer to FUD than expanding my views.
b) Proposing something that doesn't have any of the same feature set as an alternative is not an alternative. An openSolaris system running ZFS isn't an alternative to WHS becauase other than operating as a file server, it has none of the same functionality for backup, media streaming to xbox, easy personal website, etc..
c) shooting down X in hopes that it will somehow drive up interest in Y rarely works. Especially because if you are successful in shooting down X, the people considering Y say 'well there's no demand for X, so I doubt there's a market for our improved version of X we call Y'
That said, I agree something like ZFS for windows would be nice, but I suspect two things might prevent it
1) Sun's maintance of a TM on the name
2) Licensing restrictions that would forbid selling any product that contained it, or require anyone using to make other portions of the their code open-source.
August 31, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I see a lot of folks here bashing a guy for standing up for Linux against a crack-pot zealot. Any reason y'all are ganging up?
I'm not saying either side here is correct. They're not. But y'all sure aren't making this discussion look like a balanced perspective, either.
WHS isn't evil just 'cause it's Microsoft. And Linux ain't evil just cause it ain't. A little less hyperbole and a little more on-topic would be nice here, folks.
Can we get back to storage, and stop feeding the rabid animals?
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