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  #1  
Old Sat 19 December 2009, 07:39
Art
Just call me: Art #2
 
Lancaster,Texas
United States of America
Microsoft Home Server

I installed a Microsoft Home Server several weeks ago and it is great. I added a 500 GB drive to a old Dell 2Ghz machine with 521 Ram. 1 Ghz with 512 is minium. HS is a version of Server 2003 and as such driver support for printers is limited so installing a network printer can a problem but someties XP drivers will work. It also runs without a monitor,keyboard or mouse with all operations done frome one of the PC`s on the network.
Setup is straight forward, unusal for MS, and once the server is running then you go to each PC and run the connection software off the CD, again straight forward. I have it setup to do daily full backup saving the last 7 daily, last 4 weekly and last 6 monthly plus permante save of initial backup.
Now is the BIG advantage!! When disk dies you replace drive with one of equal to or larger size and boot PC with supplied restore CD and do a restore of ENTIRE drive or selected files from any of the saved backups.
If the NIC supports wakeup then if the PC is turned off Server will wake it up, do backup and then power off PC. I have also a directory in the Public area that has install for all applications. When I get a new piece of software I copy it to it`s own directory and then install it from there.
Since I had an old PC I could use I bought the software for $85 USD but if you don't have an old PC then HP has one with 1 TB and some software addons for $500.
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  #2  
Old Sat 19 December 2009, 08:50
MetalHead
Just call me: Mike
 
Columbiana AL
United States of America
Nice setup. I have looked at it and have a friend using it. It have all kinds of other features as well.
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  #3  
Old Sat 19 December 2009, 12:45
riesvantwisk
Just call me: Ries #46
 
Quito
Ecuador
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Art,

would it not be better to install that server in a RAID1 or RAID 5 configuration? Then you don't have to restore from any backup when a disk breaks and just tell the server to put the drives in sync again.

If it would be in a business situation that just needs storage then I would install a NAS and not a windows machine.

Ries
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  #4  
Old Sun 20 December 2009, 07:39
Art
Just call me: Art #2
 
Lancaster,Texas
United States of America
X nas

You missed the important part. The PC is FULLY! restored by booting off the restore CD and selecting the backup you want restored. You can also do selected file restore. NAS won't do this automaticaly. Think Ghost image. The hard part of restoring a crashed PC is getting all the drivers and apps installed not the data.
You can run Raid 0 thru 5 if you want though with the prices today I would probably run off site backup for the server via the internet in a busines environmet. In a home network I would take the chance that the server and a PC won't die at the same time.
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  #5  
Old Sun 20 December 2009, 07:46
riesvantwisk
Just call me: Ries #46
 
Quito
Ecuador
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Art,

I was just saying that a NAS in RAID1 or 5 would be better in a business case (if you use it for data storage only) . In case of HD failure you simple drop in a other HD and the NAS will do it's work, most NAS systems can handle hot-replace (where you can exchange a drive while the machine is on). Once the new HD is detected teh NAS will re-sync the drives. This is for many users much simpler then messing around with restore DVD and restoring backups.

Offsite backups might be great for europe/US people.. but don't forget that the rest of the world is not connected by fast internet, I am for example connected at 512/128Kb (yes that is kilo bit/sec).

Ries

Ries
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  #6  
Old Sat 26 December 2009, 08:26
Art
Just call me: Art #2
 
Lancaster,Texas
United States of America
Trial run

Decided to try Vista by restoring it on my new PC that I had upgraded to XP. Did a manual backup and then did a new install of Vista. Seems to be perfume on a pig but have a free upgrade? to Windows 7 coming and wil try it. spent most of day on Vista.
Started a restore of the XP and and imediatly ran into a problem. I hadn't saved a copy of the NIC driver to a flash drive. After I finaly got it copied to the flash drive I booted up with the restore CD installed the NIC driver and selected the version of XP I wanted restored. Took about 45 minutes and it finished. Rebooted the PC and ALL!! of the drive was restored! For those that have had to recover a drive this is fantastic to have all apps, data and drivers installed.
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  #7  
Old Sat 26 December 2009, 08:55
riesvantwisk
Just call me: Ries #46
 
Quito
Ecuador
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This sounds a lot like what Apple has with there timemachine! Geat little tool that runs in the background and backups your system each hour.

If your main HD crashes you can restore from your last backup, and this also included status of all accounts, programs, licenses.

Cheers,
Ries
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  #8  
Old Mon 28 December 2009, 12:16
foinikas
Just call me: Sakis
 
Trikala
Greece
Consider to stay on Xp prof dont go to vista and if you can avoid Win7 since there is totaly new and EAT crazy amount of resources the best choise until now is Win xp pro with the last updates.
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  #9  
Old Mon 28 December 2009, 16:30
Art
Just call me: Art #2
 
Lancaster,Texas
United States of America
Win7

I just got a new Dell Insperion with 8 Mg RAM and a 64 bit processor. With XP home it shows 3.25 MG Ram but msinfo shows 8 MG. With Vista it shows 8 MG. The only reason I would consider Vista or Win 7 is that ArtCam takes 8 minutes to load and goes down hill from there. Artcam is the only software that I appear to have any problems and I am asuming that it is caused by a 64 bit processor running at 32 bits. If it runs clean then I will get a 64 bit version of XP. I got a free Win7 upgrade with the PC.

Last edited by Art; Mon 28 December 2009 at 16:39..
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  #10  
Old Mon 28 December 2009, 17:50
foinikas
Just call me: Sakis
 
Trikala
Greece
win 32 bit will not see more than 3.5g of ram in that case cause i also use artcam i suggest win7 64 bit or winxp 64 bit also i thing that artcam is 32bit i have no problems running it in a core 2 duo at 2,3ghrz with 4giga of ram that it counts also is the graphic card and for this work i suggest ati even if my current is an xfx8800gt 512 ram.
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  #11  
Old Sun 03 January 2010, 20:46
shaper
Just call me: Jed
 
Perth, WA
Australia
If your on 64bit OS then I'd forget winxp 64 as an option, it has really poor support from many peripheries manufacturers for drivers, my experience with vista in this respect has been much more favourable and I'm told win 7 is better again.
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  #12  
Old Mon 04 January 2010, 01:33
Surfcnc
Just call me: Ross #74
 
Queensland
Australia
32 Bit and 64 Bit Systems

Hi Art

These boys know what they are talking about. The addressable memory on a 32 bit system is 4 gig, while on a 64 bit system it is 128 gig. The current memory module size on the price point are the 2 gig sticks, loaded into a system with 4 expansion slots this gives the 8 gig figure so often mentioned as the "memory capacity" for the current generation of new machines in the field. The x64 chip can be used for either a 32 or 64 bit system and makes no difference to the memory limitations imposed by the 32 bit code.

Large video cards will further reduce the available system memory. An x86 (32 bit) system has only 4 gig addressable and that includes the GPU memory. The 1 gig video cards available now will not circumvent the limitation as many have discovered !!

I have tested the win7 operating system right from beta to the RTM (Release to Manufacture) and am pleased to report this has been the most headache free code release from Microsoft bar the server products. You will find the system resources (memory) used for a clean install of Win7 are lower than that of Vista. Win 7 will also boot faster than Vista however the speed difference between the two operating systems will soon start to merge as they are loaded with an endless applications we all seem to need these days.

Your windows home server machine is also a very smart piece of kit and can back up both 32 and 64 bit systems despite being based on windows 2003 server 32 bit code. Hope that clears up the "bits" for you all.

Art, 8 mins sounds far to long for anything to load, the assumption here being that this is just the application load time and not the job loading time. PM me if you like as your problems do not relate to running 32 bit code on a 64 bit CPU but I do have some diagnostic suggestions for you.

Regards
Ross
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  #13  
Old Mon 04 January 2010, 18:47
Surfcnc
Just call me: Ross #74
 
Queensland
Australia
Ahh ha - thought so.

Art - Try this

Artcam uses the Sentinel key server to check the validity of its software. I modeled it today and the sentinel process ran at a constant 50% CPU on a dual core 3 gig per core AMD CPU running Win7 x64.

Go Alt Control Delete to access the task manager, then go to processes tab and sort them by CPU to see if it is going a little too hard.

The last Win7 machine I bought for a client had the x64 version installed as the default showroom option (bit surprised by that), so I'm guessing that is what you got, maybe.

Anyway the older 32 bit driver runs but absolutely maxes out the CPU cycles.
Go to http://www.safenet-inc.com/support_a...l_drivers.aspx and download the Win7 32 and 64 bit driver and upgrade and all will become calm again. Note the process is still a 32 bit process but the CPU cycles issue is resolved with the new driver.
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