I just bought a ProLiant N40L's, put 2 x 3TB HDDs + 8GB or RAM in it, and am now looking to set it up.

What I am looking to achieve:

- A media server for streaming mainly videos and some audio to (potentially) 3xPCs (all running Win7 Home Premium), 2 TV's and a couple of Android devices (not at the same time…). It will primarily stream to the TVs.
- a FLEXIBLE backup solution for the 3 x PCs. i.e. have the option to only backup specific folders, vary between 'simple copy', 'synchronise', etc. Can't see myself ever wanting to back up a whole PC/HDD on a sector by sector basis.
- Ability to manage it remotely and, if possible as an added bonus, access it remotely over the web.
- Low-cost solution (no '00 on software).
- OS/software MUST be Windows-based.

Media server is not a problem - I'll run Serviio or similar on the server, under whatever OS I have running on it.

Flexibility is the most important aspect of the backup scheme for me. Each PC has 2 HDDs, and runs SecondCopy. Each of them backs up the critical files/folders of the other two on its spare HDD. The server is to be used to merely add another layer of backup. Unfortunately I didn't do my homework properly, and ended up buying a copy of WHS 2011, which despite all my efforts to set it up wouldn't provide the solution that I am after.

My question therefore is:
- Should I drop WHS and use a copy of Win7 Ultimate that I also have? I can them used Remote Desktop Connection to manage the 'server'. Also, two of the PCs are only turned on sporadically, so I can run something like SecondCopy on them that will back then up to the server whenever they are turned on. I can also run a copy of SecondCopy on the server that will ensure that its two HDDs are mirrored. Alternatively I can use the RAID-1 solution on the server to achieve that instead. It is not a perfect backup solution, but I am comfortable with it, and prefer its flexibility to that offered by WHS.

How does that sound?

Hi j_cocker welcome to the forums!

I do not understand the issue you had with WHS2011 it does provide a good backup solution for your PC's and you can pick and chose what you want it to backup. I use WHS2011 as a media server to deliver media to my TV's, PC's and Android device both within the home environment and outside the home. I don't know how much content you desire to store on your ProLiant N40L but if you have a rather large media collection you will end up using more drives than the 4 you can install in that ProLiant.

I have also used WHS v1 to do the same thing and I am certain their are other solutions which can achieve the same goals you desire but if you want to maintain a Microsoft Solution then your options are limited to what Microsoft has to offer. You could use Win 7 to act as a media server much the same way I am using WHS and still use it as a central file storage to share with your other PC's. If you want Remote Access to those files you could install the free version of LogMeIn to gain access to that Win 7 OS running on the ProLiant.

The Client Backup and Recovery Solution provide by WHS be it v1 or 2011 is totally awesome which one does not actually realize until they have to perform their first recovery. The data redundancy options provided by WHS2011 leave much to be desired and are not as simple as WHS v1 with its DE or Drive Extender but to handle that I use Stablebit Drive Pool and others use Drive Bender or have chosen a RAID Solution.

If you read through the forums you will see exactly what others do with their servers from the small servers to the mega sized monster servers. Some of us crazy people have more than one server and others have a mixed environment with servers and NAS Solutions. This doesn't make us any better in fact I envy those who are able to stick with a small solution but unfortunately my need to store my media has meant the need for a large capacity solution which also means I needed redundancy to protect my media and backups of the most important data even with that redundancy.

Good Luck with figuring out what you want to do with your ProLiant N40L and a solution to support those 3 TB Drives.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Thanks you!



Are you saying that I can pick and choose which individual file/folder to back up? My understanding is that WHS2911 only back up on a sector-by-sector basis... Note that I am not looking to back up a PC, just critical files/folders.



I realise that, but I am no way near that limit just yet. All my critical files & media take around 400GB out of the 3TB I have at the moment (assuming that I mirror my 2 x 3TB HDDs). I still have 2 (and possibly more) empty expansion slots on the server should I need them in the future.



That's a good idea! MS Remote Desktop Access was giving me problems.



Many thanks again for taking the time to reply - I am still very new to this whole server concept, so really appreciate it!

What I mean by your being able to pick and chose what to back up was referring to the drives. I typically backup the OS drive. The other drives I have in my clients are just for the files I am working on and when they are finished I move them to the server. This is mostly for ripping movies and such. If you think about it for a minute when you have a server there is no real need to have much data stored on your computer.

Where the recovery comes in is a real big time saver. Imagine you wake up and your hard drive no longer functions. Well you pop in a new drive, run the client restore disk, possibly you may or may not have to load the NIC drivers and then select the backup you want to restore from. Typically it takes about 1 hr to restore a hard drive depending on the size and amount of data which needs to be written to it. Saving you all the time having to reinstall everything which can take 1-2 days. The other thing that's real nice about the backups is you can enter them on the server and extract files from them. The first backup takes the longest then every backup takes only a few minutes and its all done without your having to do anything. Even if you run a backup once a week its only a minimal amount of time. The backups also do not eat up a lot of hard drive space on the server but its the #1 reason why I continue to run WHS and everything else is just a bonus.

If you want to use RAID you can but if you want to mix and match drives and use consumer grade drives then running Stablebit Drive Pool or Drive Bender does offer a cost effective and simplistic solution for the end user.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8