I like building things. I get exactly what I want and I have fun and learn by doing it. Sometimes I get hassle, but hey, that’s how you learn. This project was actually very easy and you can follow these steps too to get a home server solution at low cost. Until I built this unit I had an old, noisy and hot Windows XP box that I used as a server – it stored lots of files and ran MControl to control the house automation (lighting etc) using X10. So far, so fine. Over time though, the storage increased to around 4TB (all USB disks) and since I’m passionate about backups I always seemed to be overflowing from one disk to the next and then having to backup the changes. That said, the solution worked fine allowing me to store my extensive DVD collection and saved video files in one place and have them available around the house on my Media Center PC’s in the lounge and bedroom, an X-box for TV viewing in the kitchen and any laptops on my wireless network.
Then Windows Home Server (WHS) came out. Nice, because Microsoft (MS) had thought about how to make it easy to add drives to increase a storage ‘pool’ using any type of drive that you could connect – even USB drives. The result would be a ‘virtual’ huge disk. No more running out of space between disks. Nice but I’m glad I waited. Exited early-adopters took a hit with the early version when a few of them suffered a data corruption bug, and although I listened with interest to the Home Server Podcast, We Got Served and Ian Dixon on The Media Center show, I held out.
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