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Windows Home Server Corrupts Files
crustymonkey points out a ComputerWorld article which says that "Microsoft Corp. has warned Windows Home Server users not to edit files stored on their backup systems with several of its programs, including Vista Photo Gallery and Office's OneNote and Outlook, as well as files generated by popular finance software such as Quicken and QuickBooks."
Crustymonkey asks Don't back up your files to Windows Home Server, as recommended by Microsoft themselves? I'm not exactly sure what the point is in having a home server if you can't back up files on it."
Look into the LinkSys NSLU2 Network Storage device. It's about the size of a cable modem/router and has an ethernet port, 2 usb ports, and a web front end for samba. I reflashed the firmware with debian, but it still works as a samba server (among other things).
I would suggest a good DVD writer. There is lots of room, you can schedule backups, and all the people need to do is to remember to put in a new DVD every week or on whatever schedule you/they set up.
As to Microsoft screwing up yet again, it's just funny. Very funny.
Think Allen has rubber chairs to throw around now?
The link from the summary leads to... damn it's so bad I can hardly say it. Worse than tubgirl and goatse combined.
As the blank screen fails to load, an ad pops up. Then a "greeting page" appears on the blank page ("greetings from our advertisers")
Then I notice the "click here to ignore this greetings page and enter ComputerWorld, the world's worst IT magazine".
Of course I quickly hit the "back" button so I wouldn't be assaulted with a million ads and a paragreph of content-free lead-in text before "click here for next page".
Honestly, guys, can't you find a better link? Oh shit, the only two that Google News shows is ComputerWorld and PC World.
Why is it that the very WORST sites on the internet are IT sites? It's embarrassing! And people wonder why, if you RTFM, "ewe muss bee knew hear". We KNOW BETTER! We know what is ready to assault us if we dare click a link to an IT site!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
From what I understand from the article is that if you save certain file types to a Home Server for backup purposes from a workstation, you can corrupt them if you edit the original files and try to back them up onto the server again. Well that defeats the whole purpose of having a backup system. Like photos for example. If I backup all my photos onto the Home Server, then I decide to change the contrast on a few of them on my everyday PC, I can corrupt the ones I've saved on the Home Server if I save over the original backups. Then if I decide I need space on my PC and delete the ones saved there, my edited photos are inaccessible if I didn't save them anywhere else.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
When I submitted this story last week, I mentioned that it was likely due to the way it handles ADS (NTFS' Alternate Data Streams) on shared folders. Fortunately, there are only so many programs that actually use those.
That said, yeah, I wouldn't use Windows for a server, either. It's just not reliable enough, given that you can do better for free.
Similar setup here, too.
In fact, running a Linux + Samba + SSH/SFTP/SCP + RAID ( + Optionally NFS ) seems the best solution available.
You can't suggest them to install and configure Debian all by themselves.
BUT
There are virtually hundred of "network enclosure" : Small empty external cases, with a 1Gbps ethernet and a small ARM chip running Linux+Samba+Apache, almost ready to use, you only need to buy disks and mount them in (several computer part shop even propose you to sell a pre-assembled such solution).
Linksys, D-Link and Netgear are a few of the constructor whose name jump to my mind right now, but there are virtually hundreds of them.
The best part is :
- These box have Linux pre-installed on their flash memory. So no difficult configuration is required for the average users. Maybe just help them to configure secure access and configure the router if they also want to have access to the files from outside home. The computer part shop often can do the hard-drive mounting and deliver a ready-to-use product.
- Almost any of those box runs Linux, so their firmware is modifiable and you can find several guides explaining how to run external software or even installing additional software into the firmware. MLDonkey is such an open source eD2K / Bittorrent / etc. client which is also precompiled for embed Linux.
Not only the enclosure is useful for average user, it may be useful for lazy power-users who don't want to assemble their own server or prefer silent and energy efficient servers.
- A lot of those boxes have USB2 "Host" connectors, so you can connect additional HDD to the server. But as it is Linux, a lot of different and interesting usage can be found be power users like plugins webcams, or use the box as a print server in addition to a file server.
So yes, you can't easily tell your friends to *install* Debian all by themselves, but you can get them to buy an enclosure with Linux pre-installed. (And if they upgrade their box to a newer one, you can recycle the old one into some fun project thanks to Linux' openness and available USB2 connectors).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yeah, most NAS units don't corrupt your backups if you change the working versions. Clearly Microsoft is the leader in adding valuable features to its products.
This could potentially be the "my dog ate my homework" for the 21st century. "I did my homework, but the power went out before I could save it, and my backups were all corrupt!"
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
In this capacity, the problem would be with using WHS as a file server. I must say this is nail #2 in the grave of my disappointment with WHS. My first problem with it is that there is a bug in performance - reads are fine, but writing data to a WHS share is unacceptably slow. Some will claim it's Vista autotuning, or differential copy, or something else but it's demonstrably just piss-poor performance on WHS.
Overall the product is a good idea, it's just poorly implemented at present. If they fix this new bug and fix the performance issues, I'd actually be pretty happy with it.
Well since the article NEVER mentions backup I'm trying to figure out why the blurb and everyone is going on about backups being corrupted. What is actually happening is that there is a bug in WHS folder sharing. If you edit files with particular programs that exist on a WHS share the files will be corrupted.
Here is the KB article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/946676/en-us?spid=12624
It too doesn't mention using WHS to backup but does say that you should backup the possible affected files before storing them on WHS.
I've seen this before in AD groups. Windows will do a 'delayed write' of a file, then let you know later on if the write failed. Great if you're copying files up, terrible if you're saving a document while quitting the application and you get told 30 seconds later that your data was lost.
Example: http://cdslash.net/temp/images/datalost.png
Quite frustrating. I've yet to lose serious amounts of data so far, but I'm sure it'll happen.
From a later post, I guess Windows Home Server *automatically* backs up clients that are connected to it, so you have your pretty little PC you open up your pictures and crop them... and whatever, Home Server at some point will back that up (corrupting the files in the process).
Except in reality you are twice as likely to shoot a friend or family member than defend your home with your home defense gun.
Actually, this is not true.
This comes from a highly dishonest "study" by Kellermann. The only "use" counted in the study was to kill someone, so (for example) holding an attacker at gun point until the police show up was not counted as a "use" of a gun. There were other major flaws too.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html
A better study is the Kleck study.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgeff.html
It is no more true to say that owning a gun makes you likely to shoot your family, than to say that owning kitchen knives makes you more likely to stab your family.
For me it was Visual Studio files, the scenario is I have a solution in a directory on the Home Server that I open in VS and start to edit. I save very often, as a force of habit, and randomly VS would say that the solution file or the project file was invalid. I would open it in a text editor and it's garbled, should be plain text. The work around I use is to do all editing on my local drive and copy the contents to the Home Server when done. I have not had any issue with file corruption since, also I have not had data corruption issues with programs that edit my pictures or music files directly on the Home Server. It has something to do with the way they implemented the drive extender. Bittorrent downloads require the same type of workaround, download somewhere and then copy to Home Server, but you can seed from the Home Server with no issues. It will be nice to have a fix.
Here's more about why it's a bad idea from the MS performance team: http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/01/21/network-stored-pst-files-don-t-do-it.aspx
>>> Except in reality you are twice as likely to shoot a friend or family member than defend your home with your home defense gun.
False conclusion based on faulty data sampling.
A statistic does not get created unless there is a report. Cases where someone gets shot almost always generate a report. Cases where the homeowner's possession of a gun thwarts the crime and nobody gets shot are less likely to be reported.
Guns in the home are not high on the list of dangerous objects for average Americans. Check it out. The fact that drug dealers, thieves, and gang members often shoot their family members and 'friends' is used to make it sound like average people are not capable of defending themselves without endangering their families. It is a false impression intentionally created by lumping repeat criminal offenders in with the general population's statistics in these cases.
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
The problem isn't actually anything to do with backups.
The problems is probably due to Windows Home Server file shares not catering for NTFS streams (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941914).
Your question is based on a flawed predicate.
The purpose of WHS is not ONLY to be file server. That's one purpose, and as long as you don't edit the file on the server, you're ok.
Another purpose is to create automated remote backup of all computers on the network, basically in such a way that you can create a new image via a restore CD, but also in a way that doesn't duplicate files between images. You can also access individual files in the backup. It's like a hybrid image/file backup with duplicate file consolidation. It's pretty efficient.
Another purpose is a remote access gateway to allow you to log in via terminal services to any computer in your network.
Another purpose is to provide a web based remote access to your files.
WHS is a very useful product, and this is an unfortunate bug, but it doesn't mitigate its entire existence.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
What a way to contradict yourself! WHS is not 'enterprise class'. You get what you pay for so don't complain. If you want 'enterprise class' software from Microsoft, you should use the normal Windows Server edition instead of a home edition. This is no different from Linux's if it breaks you get to keep the peices. Unless you pay lots of $$$$.
At least Outlook files (.pst) are unsupported on Network Shares, for various reasons:
Read
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/01/21/network-stored-pst-files-don-t-do-it.aspx
I'll agree that a normal home user does not know this, but any IT professional that's working with Outlook should know this.
Why would that be? The reason is that the unix tools for creating this type of setup are simple and transparent, while the windows tools for creating the type of setup include shades of obscurity, clunkiness, and conflict with various bits of (probably badly written) certain windows apps. The fact that windows has these features is certainly a bullet point that you will find in certain sales presentations, but the experience of setting up a network to provide these features isn't so pleasant, and it's not something most users are even aware is possible.
Wow...you really have no idea what you're talking about. Want to set up a roaming profile for a user? It's really simple, when you create the user account specify a network path for the profile to be stored on the line that says "Profile". Oh shit, you're right! That was incredibly obscure, clunky, and conflicting with software!
Want to minimize the size of the roaming profile by assuring that the My Documents, Application Data, etc folders are not stored locally or in the profile? Set up a Group Policy in your domain to activate folder redirection. It will take you about 3 minutes to conifgure the folder redirection, and it will apply TO EVERYONE. Damn that was hard.
Too lazy to add the profile path on the profile line when you create an account? Write a script that automates the account creation process and automatically populates the path field with the correct data based on the username, along with any other fields that you would manually have to fill out. Oh fuck! You can write scripts in Windows to manage the system? That's as easy as using Linux!
Windows does provide (at the insistence of some very large customers) for the possibility of having network-available home environment/desktops. The thing is... this setup is not the default in windows environments, even in large networked windows environments, while it IS the default in medium size (50 workstations and up) unix workstation environments.
Do you know why it's not the default? For the same reason that any of 9000 other settings are not the default. Because it's easier to start with something small and build on it. Because not everybody wants that functionality enabled by default, so you start with the lowest common denominator and give people the CHOICE to enable the functionality that they need and disable the functionality that they don't need. When you think about it, how many people really need roaming profiles? In some businesses it makes sense, but at most companies the same person will be using the same PC every day. Why add another layer if you don't need it?
You are editing a file that is saved directly to a shared folder on WHS, which WHS accepts and gives the A-OK signal to your software, then later has a problem writing the file, and tells you about it, with no chance of recovering the file at that time. Since this can happen after you have exited your software, you have no way of recovering the file.
The problem is not:
The third one is the trickiest. See, if you go to the current WHS Discover site (click Help and How-To's) you will see that the big thing is Remote Access, Media Sharing, and Computer Backup. This would lead people to believe that any other use, is not what it was meant for, and when something goes wrong, you should have known better.
But, one only needs to look back at previous pages for WHS to see that Sharing was a central feature. Yes, full sharing, not just Media Sharing. Even the Overview of that page focuses on sharing first, and backup (protection) was third. The first overview item was Sharing, and that is simply what this problem is about, shared folders. Either for your own use as a networked server, or to share with other users.
Now, if you go to Eric Bott's blog, you will see the explanation that the largest factor is "a home server is under extreme load." Well, I'm sorry, but if the touted role, even at the beginning and not right now, was acting as a share folder to save your stuff to, then by damn it better do that. If the server gets loaded down, it should not pretend it got the file and tell you later that it didn't, it should just either not respond (and your software would have to let you know it couldn't do it) or it should give an error response (your software's problem now).
Honestly, this product was marketed as a home server for storing and sharing your files, with acting as a backup server making 3rd on the list of features. Now, they want to change that and say that it is for backup first, file sharing from special locations and under special conditions, and not really for file storage.
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.
What the hell? Nearly 15 years ago, we had a Mac network at school, and everything was done from the network drive, and we never had any problems like this. Hell, before that, we had a network of BBC micros, and there was no local storage - everything was done on the server. In fact, that was the typical model in those days. Funny how it's nearly 2008 and Microsoft can't even manage something that's been standard practice for decades.
... and then they built the supercollider.