Microsoft removes Drive Extender from WHS

[mbryanr]

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowshomeserver/archive/2010/11/23/windows-home-server-code-name-vail-and-drive-extender.aspx

 

Looks like a move to appease OEMs, while potentially adding customers to unRAID, FreeNAS, etc..

 

Another commentary on the WHS Drive Extender removal

[prostuff1]

This makes WHS (v2) nearly useless for home use.  I never liked the way WHS did data protection but now that the protection and easy expandability has been removed, it looses all appeal to me.

[theone]

...And we thought that because we are using a solution from a small solution provider that we will have future problems with support and features.

 

It seems that the big corporations don't care at all about there customers and customers' needs and opinions and are willing to essentially discontinue a solution altogether.

 

[neilt0]

Microsoft: Failing One Day at a Time.

[mvdzwaan]

...And we thought that because we are using a solution from a small solution provider that we will have future problems with support and features.

 

It seems that the big corporations don't care at all about there customers and customers' needs and opinions and are willing to essentially discontinue a solution altogether.

 

 

It has been discontinued from the new WHSv2 Vail release, which currently is in beta.

 

WHSv1 with the "older" disk extender will be supported.

[neilt0]

...And we thought that because we are using a solution from a small solution provider that we will have future problems with support and features.

 

It seems that the big corporations don't care at all about there customers and customers' needs and opinions and are willing to essentially discontinue a solution altogether.

 

 

It has been discontinued from the new WHSv2 Vail release, which currently is in beta.

 

WHSv1 with the "older" disk extender will be supported.

 

And that's OK because users of server software never upgrade? 

[theone]

...And we thought that because we are using a solution from a small solution provider that we will have future problems with support and features.

 

It seems that the big corporations don't care at all about there customers and customers' needs and opinions and are willing to essentially discontinue a solution altogether.

 

 

It has been discontinued from the new WHSv2 Vail release, which currently is in beta.

 

WHSv1 with the "older" disk extender will be supported.

 

And that's OK because users of server software never upgrade? 

 

Support is only until 2013 - What do they do then? (just 2 more years).

 

[boof]

 

No wait...

 

:o

 

I didn't realise this was in the wind. This is an epic disaster for WHS. There is very little reason to use it if DE is removed and nothing similar is put in it's place.

 

A huge shame as WHS is a nice product.

 

But yes, good news in a way for unraid.

[boof]

So reading on the various bits of fallout over the announcement I came across lots of people talking about this :

 

http://code.google.com/p/greyhole/

 

Which sounds (with only a quick skim) to be Drive Extended but under linux with samba. Anyone looked at it? I like the sound of it.

[james971]

I still don't like taking that storage hit from file/folder duplication for redundancy.

[Romir]

I have to admit, Amahi (which includes greyhole) has a slick application install and management system. I'm not keen on it trying to take over DHCP and DNS duties though.

[BRiT]

Wow. That removes any and all odds of me, my family, and any of my friends and coworkers from ever using WHS. Without Drive Extender, there is no draw to WHS.

[Chris Pollard]

wasn't drive extender just file based mirroring?

[BRiT]

wasn't drive extender just file based mirroring?

 

Mostly.

 

However they only mirrored/shadow copied the files or directories you set to be important. The Drive Extender also included pooling of drives to be shown as a single drive (not unlike the 'user share' /mnt/user/ feature of unRAID). Though I think a file might have been able to span between drives, but I could be mistaken on that.

 

I have no idea why on earth they would remove such a feature. Now WHS is back to the basic N separate drives and N separate shares. The WHS V2 was drastically reworking how Drive Extender worked so maybe they ran into major snafus, though from what I read it seemed to be operating decently.

[kapperz]

HAHA, one commenter...

 

"Store all of your data on the one drive and pray to your chosen deity that it doesn't Vail."

[madpoet]

Stunning move... they just took the WHS home market out to the wood shed and put a bullet in it.  I hope all those OEMs were worth it.

[lionelhutz]

You think the HP Drobo and this announcement are just a coincident?

 

If Microsoft actually paid attention then they'd create an unRAID or Flexraid type of file/drive redundancy so that the data protection is more efficient. Instead, they probably listened to the complaints about mirroring being inefficient and just dropped DE it instead.

 

It does seem retarded that DE includes the disk pooling and that got killed too.

 

I read something about Microsoft trying to put DE into all their server products and they were having some issues so instead of fixing it they dumped it completely instead.

 

Peter

 

[NAS]

If i was Limetech LLC I would be prepping for a big push into this market. Make the homepage more flashy, do a side by side comparision with WHS old and new, test unRAID on some WHS hardware, release 5.0 and make a special offer for moving WHS users.

 

This is a vast market of people who want these features and are prepared to pay for them. They more than likely got put of in the first place by either not knowing about unRAID or seeing the work Linux and getting scared.

[jakesplace]

Hi - this is a related question.  With Microsoft dropping DE from homeserver I am on the hunt for a new storage device.  Does unraid actually duplicate files across multiple drives like homeserver did?  I am not familiar with Raid - it sounds like the drive pool concept exists in unraid I am just wondering about data security in case of a drive failure.  Thanks in advance for help.

[prostuff1]

Hi - this is a related question.  With Microsoft dropping DE from homeserver I am on the hunt for a new storage device.  Does unraid actually duplicate files across multiple drives like homeserver did?  I am not familiar with Raid - it sounds like the drive pool concept exists in unraid I am just wondering about data security in case of a drive failure.   Thanks in advance for help.

 

unRAID is like an unstripped RAID4.  For a google search for RAID4 for an explination, but the short answer is unRAID uses a single parity drive for data protection.  The parity drive, in conjunction with the other data drives will allow you to recover all data from one drive failure.

[ohlwiler]

A brief overview:

 

http://www.lime-technology.com/technology

 

Unraid operates at the device level not at the file level.

[jakesplace]

Thanks for the comments. So after reading it sounds like one disk that fails can be calculated from the other disks plus parity check. Nice.  I will put together a machine and try this out. 

 

I also agree with comments above a couple earlier posts in this thread  .  A comparison with homeserver and what you can do with unraid would be nice to see.  Couple additional questions:  Is there a utility which could be installed on client computers and do same type of backup as homeserver?  That plus the restore is a great feature which has worked extremely well.  Is there a utility where the unraid system could be backed up?  That is another homeserver feature that is nice to have although a bit clunky.  Finally some type of streaming server for media would be great. Is there something that unrAid will support?  I know Linux has just about anything getting something thT is configured and works would be a big help

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

[neilt0]

It looks like The Ballmer is going to talk to his "Developers! Developers! Developers!" about it... http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/29/steve-ballmer-looking-into-removal-of-drive-extender-from-window/

[james971]

If i was Limetech LLC I would be prepping for a big push into this market. Make the homepage more flashy, do a side by side comparision with WHS old and new, test unRAID on some WHS hardware, release 5.0 and make a special offer for moving WHS users.

 

This is a vast market of people who want these features and are prepared to pay for them. They more than likely got put of in the first place by either not knowing about unRAID or seeing the work Linux and getting scared.

 

You mean sort of like this?

 

http://blog.amahi.org/2010/11/26/whs-vail-fail-drive-extender-greyhole-and-you/