Is Windows Home Server 2011 useful?

[HarryH3]

So I'm playing around with WHS 2011 on a spare box. But after setting it up and reading more about it online, it seems that WHS is little more than an expensive NAS. Microsoft has dire warnings about installing other apps on WHS, claiming they may "break" the server. WTF? I'd like to use this PC as a server/HTPC/browser via the TV. Can this be done with WHS or would it be better to just install Windows 7? I just wonder if there is some magic in WHS that isn't obvious to me. :confused:

[psycik]

If you want centralised backups then yes go for it. Although I'd be tempted to use Crashplan now for machine to Machine backups - although these are not image based like the WHS backups are. Just files. But has the advantage that it's cross platform.

I run plex and VMware server on mine and saw someone else proclaim they had nextpvr running On windows 2008.

Also you need to invest In a drive extender technology as unlike the first version of whs, whs2011 doesn't have any built in.

[psycik]

Oh and any drive extender software (drive bender etc) will probably work with windows 7 anyway.

[HarryH3]

There are other automated backup programs that don't hog a complete PC. The free version of Macrium Reflect does disk imaging quite nicely plus it also lets you mount the image and extract individual files if that's all you need.

It seems that Windows 7 will make a better HTPC and I can still setup file shares and dump backups to it. WHS would be more useful if it wasn't so crippled. I'd love to have something along the lines of a domain controller that would let me automate admin setup on all the PC's in the house, push new software, etc. I didn't realize just how crippled WHS is.

[psycik]

Yeah the lack of WSUS is annoying and the backups of Windows 7 are pretty good nowadays any way. TBh there's not a lot of reason to have it. The older WHS was better as you could also backup W2k3 machines. WHS2011 you can't do this.

I only really moved for, at the time, client backups, and x64 OS.