An alternative to that bloated, ubiquitous and always calling home PDF viewer:
Free PDF Reader | nuance.com
Nuance PDF Reader - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com
So far so good.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Add-In Update: Disk Management 1.1 for Windows Home Server | We Got Served - Windows Home Server & Your Digital Home
Absolutlely one of the best add-ins for WHS.
Add-In Update: Disk Management 1.1 for Windows Home Server | We Got Served - Windows Home Server & Your Digital Home
I'm off to download and install right now.
Add-In Update: Disk Management 1.1 for Windows Home Server | We Got Served - Windows Home Server & Your Digital Home
I'm off to download and install right now.
Friday, February 19, 2010
New Hard Drive
The home server is running out of space in terms of memory, drive capacity and internal real estate.
On the board I am running off with 2 SATA ports and 2 IDE controllers.
Memory-wise I have 2.7 TB of space across 6 hard drives (2 SATA and 4 IDE)
In the box I am close to maxed out with four out of five 3.5 inch bays and two converted 5.25 inch bays.
My current project is to fix this. I have just installed a 4 port PCI SATA card, a Thermaltake hot swappable drive bay and a 1.5 TB SATA hard drive. In order to do this I removed one of the old 250 GB IDE hard drives and moved some others around. I had room to keep all of the hard drives, but I wanted to be able to leave the hot-swap bay open. By leaving it open someone can easily add another hard drive in my absence and I can do the rest of the work remotely. Besides, with an extra 1.25 TB (1.5 TB - 250 GB) I should have more than enough space.
Things progressed well yesterday. Removing the old HD from WHS went easily though it was time consuming; it also left all other HDs critically full. The physical install went fairly well. The box is getting very full so it was hard to get my fingers into some places. The problems started when it came time to get the SATA card's drivers installed. For some reason WHS is having a hard time connecting to the internet for web-browsing (it seems to connect for remote access - most of the time) so it was difficult to automatically install any drivers. I have also removed all optical drives. So it was a matter of going to a couple of different sites to put drivers on a USB stick and then install them manually. It worked - eventually.
At the end of the process I am left with a pile of of red drives and one massive empty drive. So, now I am engaged in a strange process of removing hard drives from the storage pool starting with the smallest and then re-adding them. This has the effect of forcing the system to re-balance the storage more appropriately across all of te drives. Unfortunately it is time consuming and the server is basically down while it happens.
CMM
On the board I am running off with 2 SATA ports and 2 IDE controllers.
Memory-wise I have 2.7 TB of space across 6 hard drives (2 SATA and 4 IDE)
In the box I am close to maxed out with four out of five 3.5 inch bays and two converted 5.25 inch bays.
My current project is to fix this. I have just installed a 4 port PCI SATA card, a Thermaltake hot swappable drive bay and a 1.5 TB SATA hard drive. In order to do this I removed one of the old 250 GB IDE hard drives and moved some others around. I had room to keep all of the hard drives, but I wanted to be able to leave the hot-swap bay open. By leaving it open someone can easily add another hard drive in my absence and I can do the rest of the work remotely. Besides, with an extra 1.25 TB (1.5 TB - 250 GB) I should have more than enough space.
Things progressed well yesterday. Removing the old HD from WHS went easily though it was time consuming; it also left all other HDs critically full. The physical install went fairly well. The box is getting very full so it was hard to get my fingers into some places. The problems started when it came time to get the SATA card's drivers installed. For some reason WHS is having a hard time connecting to the internet for web-browsing (it seems to connect for remote access - most of the time) so it was difficult to automatically install any drivers. I have also removed all optical drives. So it was a matter of going to a couple of different sites to put drivers on a USB stick and then install them manually. It worked - eventually.
At the end of the process I am left with a pile of of red drives and one massive empty drive. So, now I am engaged in a strange process of removing hard drives from the storage pool starting with the smallest and then re-adding them. This has the effect of forcing the system to re-balance the storage more appropriately across all of te drives. Unfortunately it is time consuming and the server is basically down while it happens.
CMM
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Home Server Seduction
Using old computer components about two years ago I was able to cobble together a box with enough power to run a small home server. I have since been seduced into getting it fully operational. Now that it is fully online and operational I have started this blog (which hopefully will one day be hosted on the server). Getting to this point has been an adventure and was probably blog worthy, but now that I am a little more savvy this small blog may be a little more useful and interesting.
So what seduced me? The thought of central storage, backups and remote access to my files anywhere in the world. About three weeks ago I finally achieved all of the above.
Hope you enjoy the blog.
CMM
So what seduced me? The thought of central storage, backups and remote access to my files anywhere in the world. About three weeks ago I finally achieved all of the above.
Hope you enjoy the blog.
CMM
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