HP Microserver - Which OS?

[craig1]

Got a freebie HP Proliant Microserver. Going to stick a couple of 2TB HDs and 8GB RAM in it. The big choice is which OS to stick on it. The choices are WHS 2011, Server 2012 Essentials, Win7 or Win 8. Don't want to go with any Linux install.

Core uses:
- media server
- file server
- backup server

WHS 2011 seems to be the OS of choice though but it'd be nice to hear of any other experiences that might convince me otherwise.

[b0redom]

Got a freebie HP Proliant Microserver. Going to stick a couple of 2TB HDs and 8GB RAM in it. The big choice is which OS to stick on it. The choices are WHS 2011, Server 2012 Essentials, Win7 or Win 8. Don't want to go with any Linux install.

Core uses:
- media server
- file server
- backup server

WHS 2011 seems to be the OS of choice though but it'd be nice to hear of any other experiences that might convince me otherwise.

FreeNAS. It's free, and although it's BSD under the hood, it's pointy-clicky so you shouldn't ever need to venture on to the command line.

[Durbs]

I use Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 on mine. It's available in your Action Pack/MSDN subscription. Think they have a 2012 version now?

[garethevans1986]

VMWare ESXi.

[doomage]

I use Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 on mine. It's available in your Action Pack/MSDN subscription. Think they have a 2012 version now?

+1

[Sysman]

I'd steer clear of WHS2011.

It was fine as a cheap means of getting hold of Windows Server without getting an Action Pack / MSDN subscription but it's locked down, and quite frankly appears to have been a rush job.

My WHS2011 is now running as a virtual machine under Scientific Linux, on an HP Microserver.

[captainham]

I'd steer clear of WHS2011.

I like my custom-built WHS2011 to be fair. I like the built-in client backups and web access, I know you can get these with pretty much any setup but the fact it comes with it out of the box is a bonus in my book.

I know users of the first WHS were unhappy with the loss of Drive Extender, but a software RAID setup via the OS does the job just fine for me.

Never given me any grief at all, my only dilemma will be what to replace it with when support ends, whenever that may be.

[redgiant]

I like my custom-built WHS2011 to be fair. I like the built-in client backups and web access, I know you can get these with pretty much any setup but the fact it comes with it out of the box is a bonus in my book.

I know users of the first WHS were unhappy with the loss of Drive Extender, but a software RAID setup via the OS does the job just fine for me.

Never given me any grief at all, my only dilemma will be what to replace it with when support ends, whenever that may be.

+1

I have the same setup using the hardware RAID and it's working fine. I have installed the light out plugin so the server wakes up and does the backup of my three machines (3 laptops) and then closes down when done. I also store all my media and it works well once its setup on the homegroup inc. on the xbox in the lounge.

I know the Windows Server Essentials 2012 isn't a like for like replacement so i'll hold off until for a few years at least.

[Sockpuppet]

FreeBSD. I've used ti for years and having the ability to dial in from work and have a more usable box than just standard NAS is brilliant.

[Sysman]

I like my custom-built WHS2011 to be fair. I like the built-in client backups and web access, I know you can get these with pretty much any setup but the fact it comes with it out of the box is a bonus in my book.

I answered in the context of WS2012 Server Essentials being an alternative.

I know users of the first WHS were unhappy with the loss of Drive Extender, but a software RAID setup via the OS does the job just fine for me.

Never given me any grief at all, my only dilemma will be what to replace it with when support ends, whenever that may be.

I didn't use the previous version of WHS, so the loss of Drive Extender was a case of "what I'd never had, I never missed".

I do miss the WHS2011 backup capability - backing up only the changed blocks of a virtual machine is not just a cool feature but meant I could take backups several times a day, and I never had any problems with recovery.

Foibles I came across with WHS 2011:

• No which way could I get XP Pro to connect to use the admin control panel. I could work around this and run it headless by using Remote Desktop from XP. Had no problems with Windows 7 here.
• Running WHS 2011 (and all WS2008 variants for that matter) on a wide screen results in a horizontally stretched display. You can't change the resolution to suit a wide screen, nor install display drivers to override that. I think that the latter feature is quite sensible for a server, and it's an irritation rather than being a big deal.
• If you are going to abide by the conditions of the licence, you are not supposed to run things like Office on it. This is an area where WS 2012 Server Essentials scores over WHS 2011.

More serious issues:

• As stated above I was very happy with the backups. However once I had a few months' of these on an external disk, each and every time I rebooted (damn Patch Tuesday, not to mention the extra patches WS gets in between), the system would spend approximately half an hour scanning the backup disk. It took a while to notice this because I usually just let it churn while I do something else, but the first time I wanted to burn a DVD just after a reboot I had to wait until that backup scan was complete. Nice feature of ImgBurn here by the way: it looks for high I/O activity and doesn't start burning until things are quiet, and has probably saved me from producing quite a few coasters.
  
  The unfortunate thing here is that if you boot from DVD to do a restore, you face that same half hour delay before you can start the restore. This is a pain in the neck and represents downtime which should be unnecessary.
  
• This I found with connected XP systems: more than once, the connector software stopped working. It seems to be a simple matter to remove and reinstall it, and things apparently carry on as normal. However when you come to do restore by booting from a USB stick you cannot access any workstation backups made since you reinstalled the connector. You can see them in the server control panel, but the restore routine only offers a choice of backups created before you reinstalled the connector software.
  
  This one really chucked me off. I think that if you zap all the relevant workstation backups when you reinstall the connector software you should be OK (probably zap all references to that workstation on the server to be on the safe side), or giving the workstation a new name should be OK, but I didn't get around to testing this.
  
• I really wasn't happy with the WHS 2011 server setup wanting me to switch my registrar to a choice of Go Daddy and one other who I had never heard of before. I wasn't going to let it loose on my router settings either. I was perfectly capable of setting that stuff up myself, so it wasn't a show stopper, but it did leave me with a sour taste in my mouth.

On the Mac side, I didn't expect WHS 2011 to work with my old non-Intel Mac running Leopard, but it doesn't work with my Mac mini running Mountain Lion either. I don't know whether it works for Intel Macs running interim versions of OS X, since I skipped those. I am not too worried here as I have Time Machine backups for my Macs, but it would be nice if the connector software for Macs actually worked as advertised.

In summary, WHS 2011 was fine at the price, but if the OP is considering 2012 Server Essentials, I would recommend that instead.