[NatroN]

I'm toying with this idea too..

I come from the IT business and I'll totally agree with: Servers do their job.. frontend is another part... so I'd say - server for serving data, backup, and if needed download clients...


but on the other hand, I've running a pc 24/7.. this pc is in idle most of the time.. and if I want to do anything else I've to boot another pc... and if I want to surf the net while watching a movie I start i third...

On the one hand it is right this way.. but in times of "green IT", client virtualisation, load balancing... It's definitly not!

Additionally I've to start from scratch! I'll move in a few months.. leaving my WHS where i live now... at my parents. I'll need a new PC for my mediacenter, because now I've one with crappy sound, no hdmi output, very big.. and not a case i'll set up at the living room..

So there are three (ok at least one of them is shit) solutions:

1) WHS and XBMC on the same machine in the same os.. see what happens.. I think this won't do well.. (whs and graphics?? not really )

2) WHS on my present Mediacenter.. xbmc on a new mediacenter.. nobodys interessted in crappy sound, and a ugly case when speaking from a server.

Contra: 2 Pcs.. wait to boot for xbmc, twice the power consumption,..


3) WHS and XBMC on the same machine.. but in different OS? This is where Virtualisation comes to play.. I know whs doesn't do very well on a Virtual Server, even a mediacenter (especially xbmc) will have troubles with virtual server...



So what should i do? Anybody tried xbmc on a virtual machine? Anybody's running his Home Server in a virtual machine?

[C-Quel]

I to use Windows Home Server with sabnzbd+ and utorrent addins accessible from anywhere i am due to my mobile phone and terminal server could not live without it now probably the only thing microsoft made a half hearted attempt and and sort of succeeded!

[mpw222]

You definitely don't want to run xbmc in a vm, I doubt that would even work because of graphics issues. Even if it did, there would be a major performance hit.

You probably don't want to run whs in a vm either, especially if you don't give your hypervisor direct access to your hard drives.

If you really want to consolidate things, just use XP display drivers. The driver model for graphics drivers in xp and server 03 (including whs) is identical, and performance should be similar with the caveat that Whs services do create some overhead.

[NatroN]

that xbmc won't work well in a vm was clear..

... but what about this Setup:

1st Disk (120gb sata): Windows7, XBMC, VirtualServer (and the whs machine??)
2nd Disk (1TB sata): Whole Disk for The Virtual WHS Machine (i think this should work great..I mean.. it's win2k3 - and built for virtualisation,... more or less)
3rd Disk (1,5TB sata): Whole disk as a virtual disk for the windows home server

So the server has (in the first step) 2 Disks only for himself.. should be enough for duplicating and backup. Why needs the whs direct acess to the disks? (whole physical disk to 1 virtual disk... partitioning is done by the whs itself.. - should be almost the same?)

[Dhaire1982]

Hi, I am running a HTPC with the new Zotac Ion N330 and XBMC live install and I set it up to stream from my WHS box for all media. When I go to stream movies both in converted MP4s and VOB files the motion is choppy it speeds up and slows down and the Audio does not work. I am wondering if anyone has had the same problems and if so what they have done to remedy them.

[mpw222]

Hi, I am running a HTPC with the new Zotac Ion N330 and XBMC live install and I set it up to stream from my WHS box for all media. When I go to stream movies both in converted MP4s and VOB files the motion is choppy it speeds up and slows down and the Audio does not work. I am wondering if anyone has had the same problems and if so what they have done to remedy them.

Try making a local copy of one of the files and see whether the choppy motion goes away.

And a random tip for WHS users (probably not your issue) - WHS runs chkdsk on all installed drives at 12AM every night. If you're streaming high bitrate files, this will almost always cause problems. The only way to avoid this is change the timezone so that your WHS runs the check at a time when you're never watching media on it.

[NotShorty]

Personally I think you should let WHS, or any other server-type, do it's job: "serving", and not divide resources between backend- and frontend-services.

Agree. My ideal setup would include an XBMC Live extender (VDPAU FTW ) for quick boot times and flawless m2ts playback. No HTPC case; mine's getting mounted on the wall behind my tv


Haven't been to this thread in a while, nice to see that it's full of great advice! You all may have inspired me to put WHS on my server that's currently collecting dust.

• BTW, I use and love ClamWin free antivirus. It works fine on WHS AFAIK.
  
• HP has a free MediaSmart app for the iPhone, but it has mixed reviews on the App Store.
  
• If you built your own (non-HP) WHS, you can get an app for jailbroken iPhones on cydia, (and eventually for free on the App Store).
  

OK, time to force myself to be productive... right after I get media flagging in Aeon working right

NS

[pecinko]

I was using XBMC on WHS a while ago. Main problem is to find graphic card with solid drivers for Windows 2003. Otherwise, I did not have any problem at all.

Cheers, P.

[JustinAiken]

Considering between FreeNAS, whs, or unraid here...

-I have an Asus Striker Extreme mobo, 2 GB RAM, sitting around, so all I'd need is a case/CPU

-I have lots of HDs of different sizes - 1500 (x2), 1000, 750 (x3), 500 (x2), 320...

-I don't want a full 1:1 backup where I need two drives for each thing, but I do want some parity type protection... I don't understand how it works, but I know with unRaid at least you only one extra HD (as big as the biggest) for all backup...

[NotShorty]

Considering between FreeNAS, whs, or unraid here...

Try Windows Home Server Free for 120 days.

http://www.wegotserved.com/

Not familiar with FreeNAS or unraid...

[havix]

+1 for unraid

[Piketfence]

I have been using WHS for quite sometime now. It has not failed me. My hardware config is:
Acer WindPC with onboard Atom processor
2- 1TB western digital green hard drives

Thats it. It's no frills and I use it for nothing other than pushing files from it to my Xbox running a hard mod Xecuter 3 chip with XBMC. And the occasional log in to stream music through the built in web server when on vacation or on business. It is VERY solid.

I chose the WindPC for it's low power consumption while idle AND while running full throttle. It is a match made in heaven.

Btw. If you have an iPhone I highly suggest the XBMC app from Collect3 (I think). No need for extra remotes right?

[Jkinney]

+1 for WHS, I did try freenas for bit,I really like the full webgui control. I got a little messed up with file permissions

I've been using WHS little over a month now, really easy to setup, + i can use Utorrent..I have it running on a atom board, 1.2TB of storage, 2gb mem, an old tower. Quite solid

[Geeba]

-I have lots of HDs of different sizes - 1500 (x2), 1000, 750 (x3), 500 (x2), 320...

WHS will also pool these to one large storage area - then just check the files you want to duplicate and leave the ones you dont... it really is a top bit of software

[JustinAiken]

I want to do the following:

1) Mismatch drive sizes - I have a bunch ranging from 1.5 TB to 300 GB
2) Parity protection - like unRaid does... devote one drive to safety, no more
3) Lots of drives - 9 or 10 (external USB drive support would be great!!!!!)
4) stick drives together... right now I have like 5 movie directories on 5 different drives; I want to jumble them together so that I can have 5 HD's, all showing up as /movies
5) Keep data intact, so that if I pull a HD out of the server, all the movies on it are still readable by another computer

Which out of FreeNAS, unRaid, and WHS can do all of those?