We Got Served

By now, you have not only seen that Power Pack 1 Beta is soon to be available, but also seen the list of things that have been changed or fixed or tweaked in it.  Well, I know I’ll be taking the plunge and installing it on my system without backing up my data.  But then again, I am much more adventurous than most, and I am not afraid of breaking my Home Server. In fact, I’ve built a reputation for breaking it. At the most inopportune times too.  But I completely understand the desire not to break your server, and still being able to test PP1 beta.

So, we are going to go over some of the options of how to test PP1 and how to backup your data.  Remember, you are supposed to break it, so bad things don’t happen when it is released!

Prepare for the Installation

Here are the options you really have for testing Power Pack 1 Beta:

• Take the plunge.  Install PP1 beta without backup up anything, and test it on your production box.  I recommend against this unless all your data is easily replaceable, and you don’t depend on your Home Server to work properly. I understand that this will be done by a lot of people, myself included but I would recommend another solution to test Power Pack 1.
• Building a second box. If you have the money, or the spare parts and are willing to pay for the extra power it will use.  This is probably your best bet.  You don’t have to worry about your Home Server, and you don’t have to worry too much if you break the second “testing” box.  It however, does cost more money, and I know some of us don’t have the money to spare, or want to have another box sitting there.
• Backing up your important data and installing Power Pack 1 Beta on your Home Server.  This is one of the best ideas because you don’t risk losing anything important, and it won’t cost you anything extra!  I’m going to go over some of the ways you can back up your data in a bit, but this is probably the best way.
• Virtualization!  There are two ways to run this option.  Both are available to download from Microsoft.  Virtual PC and Virtual Server.  If you want to run a virtual machine on your desktop computer, run Virtual PC.  But if you are going to install a virtual machine on your server, install Virtual Server.  I’m going to go over the differences between the two and give you a general install configuration to test it out on.  If you are a computer enthusiast and want a fun project or you already have the programs installed, this is a great way to go and very fun.

You have my recommendations, but I’m not going to tell you which one to use.  I’ll leave that up to you.  Remember, because this is a beta, things could very well go disastrously wrong.  It is always a possibility.

Data Backup

There are a number of ways to protect your data from accidents before installing Power Pack 1 Beta.  If you have a single drive system, then I would recommend that you use a Disk Imaging or Disk Copy utility to create an exact duplicate of your hard drive so you can restore from it later as there shouldn’t be any complications from cloning the disk.  Another option is to manually copy the files either across the network or to an unpooled drive. You can just use Windows do to this, or use programs like RoboCopy, or TeraCopy.  This may take hours or days depending on how much data you have and how you are copying it.  If you have more than your system drive in the storage pool, do not clone/image/disk copy your system.  You will most certainly run into problems down the line.  This is from numerous peoples experience and unsupported by Microsoft.

Power Pack 1 Beta in a Virtual Machine

For those without the loads of money or time to throw at another computer, virtual machines are a great idea. Microsoft has two free versions to use: Virtual PC and Virtual Server.  Let me go over the differences and why you should install them on which machine.  Remember, both are completely free downloads from Microsoft.

Virtual PC

Virtual PC is a normal program that requires direct interaction with, like any other.  It is a decent list of features, is very easy to use and still powerful enough to satisfy the Enthusiast.  If you are going to be testing on a desktop PC, this is the best option as there is some hassle in using Virtual Server if you are going to be using it on a desktop PC.  The Interface for Virtual PC is very clean, but very basic.  But then again, you don’t need hundreds of options.  There are only a few important ones.  Like being able to load ISOs instead of having to burn disks.  Or the biggest thing I’ve found very useful and very big time saver is the undo disks.  You can revert back to the last committed hard drive change if something goes wrong.   The only possible problems you might have is that it can quickly take up lots of space (clean install of WHS is about 5-6GB), and the max drive size is about 127GB, and you can only have 3 hard drives.

If you are testing it on a PC, this is the one you want to get.

Virtual Server

Virtual Server is great.  I just can’t get enough it it.  Not only does it have some more features that Virtual PC, it also expands a few of them too.  Like SCSI disks that are sizable up to 2TB.  Or running scripts on startup and shut down.  Though honestly some of the best things about Virtual server is that it runs as a service exclusively.  It comes with a Client application so you can connect to it, or you can use the web interface it installs.  And it supports SSL for the web interface.  I almost swear it was designed to run on Windows Home Server.  Infact, it is designed to run on any headless server, and Home Server absolutely fits the bill.  However, I would recommend a decently beefy CPU (dual core prefered), and a lot more than the recommended memory for Home Server (2GB should be good).  However, if you are going to use this solution, I would recommend a dedicated hard drive from the virtual hard drives and it will likely get very full very fast.  Not to mention the load Virtual Server will put on it.

Not to mention, because Virtual Server runs as a service, you will never need to actually log into your server. Unlike Virtual PC.

Summary

Well, I would have more information right now, but I’ll save that for the next part.  For now, Power Pack 1 Beta is already available for download on Microsoft Connect!  In the next part, we will go over ways to test out Power Pack 1 Beta and to report bugs.  See you next time!