We discussed the release candidate of Windows Home Server Vail on the podcast this week and Andrew hinted that a release candidate would be available soon, well Andrew was right and today Microsoft put out the RC and now officially call the product Windows Home Server 2011
Andrew says:
This is the release candidate, so it’s pretty much feature complete – so if you are looking for a feature that you were hoping Microsoft might add at the last minute (such as Media Center) or add back (such as Drive Extender) then unfortunately you are going to be disappointed. At this point, Microsoft tend to only fix “serious” bugs prior to shipping.
As drive extender has been removed Microsoft have come up with a replacement strategy for file sharing, here is what Andrew says:
The following changes have been introduced to the server folders feature area:
· Server folders are now created on regular NTFS drives (volumes) as opposed to Drive Extender volumes.
· Server folders can be created on any server hard drives. Therefore, there are no limitations to the number of folders that can be created.
· Server folders can be added to existing locations on a hard drive. When adding a new server folder, you can choose to either create a new location, or choose an existing location on the hard drive for the server folder.
· Using external USB drives for storing server folders is discouraged because the server folders may become unavailable if the external drive is disconnected.
· Server folders can either be deleted (which will delete the shared folder and the data on the hard drive), or just unshared (which will preserve the data on the hard drive).
· A new Move a Folder wizard enables you to move server folders from one hard drive to another to support scenarios in which the free space on the hard drive becomes too small for storage.
· Server folders cannot be created on hard drives that are not formatted with an NTFS file system.
The following changes have been introduced to the server hard drives feature area:
· The Hard Drives tab on the Dashboard now lists NTFS drives (volumes) instead of the hard disks (spindles) that were listed in earlier releases of the products.
· Previous Versions for Shadow Copies is now enabled at the hard-drive level as opposed to the server-folder level in earlier releases of the products.
· The server monitors for the presence of unformatted internal hard disks and provides the Format a Hard Disk wizard to help format them. It is recommended that you use external hard disks for Server Backup only.
You can try the RC via Microsoft’s Connect Site and make sure you have a look at some of Andrew’s Home Server videos on UsingWindowsHomeServer.com. I am sure we will be talking about the new release next week on the show
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