After months and months of talking, blogging, waiting, as of today the Release Candidate for Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 (aka “Vail”) and Windows Small Business Server Essentials 2011 is now available.
We would like to remind our readers not to get ahead of yourself this is still not the final version of the product, but the Release Candidate (RC). This means it is feature complete, and only minor wrinkles will be ironed out prior to the final release. The RC includes features like server and client backup, health monitoring, remote web access, streaming media, and simplified dashboard management, and a new Move Folder Wizard, which provides simplicity for moving data from one drive to another.
Screenshots
Hardware OEM Solution Providers
Microsoft is not alone in their quest to arm households with servers, their formidable partners include none other then Tranquil PC , which will be involved in both hardware (RAID firmware) and software integration. Then there is Acer, who is also working on a new WHS based server, an old friend, Intel is working to make their Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) based solution available for Windows Home Server 2011 and Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and a new comer, Datacore, will be strategizing on data storage functionality for WHS users.
Download Windows Home Server 2011 Release Candidate
We are confident that the final release of Windows Home Server 2011 will be everything we have been waiting for, and for now, we encourage you to participate at WHS Connect, or Windows Home Server Support forum and here at HomeServerLand and provide feedback and findings so that we can all benefit from it in the end.
More: windowsteamblog
Fantastic news. OK so we have Tranquil PC, Acer, Intel providing technologies or will we see an Intel Home Server [hardware]? and Datacore! Anyone else? What about LaCie and HP?
Won’t be upgrading. Sticking with v1 until I find a linux\nas solution.
Without DE, Vail is no different to Small Business Server.
HP Pulled out ou WHS….
Wow! It’s really nice to see all of the OEM solution providers getting on board with Windows Home Server 2011 and Small Business Server Essentials 2011. I was pretty bummed when I heard that HP was dropping their MediaSmart line. However, we still have Tranquil and Acer in the mix which is great.
Also, I’m really excited to see DataCore jumping in as they’ll have some really interesting solutions to bring to the table I’m sure. Anything that can help lessen the blow of the loss of DE in WHS v2 would be greatly appreciated by all (my money’s on Intel but I’m sure that DataCore can pull something really nice out of their hat as well).
Thanks for the heads-up Home Server Land!
– MIKE
DL now… will try it on an oldish desktop I have gathering dust, but it’s not going anywhere near my home data, live build until I know what the longer term future holds. I have lost confidence in MS actually support a home build for any length of time and think they will just concentrate on the small business edition … also can’t help thing that given all the uncertainty, there won’t be a queue of developers wanting to develop add in’s as there was for v1 (hope I’m wrong).
I’ve been developing add-ins for WHS v1 pretty much since its inception. I’m not sure what other WHS v1 developers are doing, but I can tell you that I personally won’t be making the move to WHS 2011 and I won’t be porting any of my apps (WHS Outlook, WHS Quicken, WHS QuickBooks, Add-in Central, etc.) over to WHS 2011. WHS v1 was an exciting, game changing product. WHS 2011 is just a disappointment. I’ll be sticking with WHS v1 as long as possible (I’ll even be writing new add-ins for it – i.e. WHS Office).
– MIKE
EPIC FAIL.
Parition sizes are limited to 2TB?! WTF?! So if I have a share that’s full of videos that has 3TB of content, I have to segragate items into two separate shares. If I want to protect data, I have to manually do so, and if I’m running out of space, I have to manually run the “move folder wizard.” The whole point of WHS was to be a HANDS-OFF appliance.
With WHS Fail, my home server has now become work, that will have to be tended to on a regular basis. With Drive Extender, it was a set-it-and-forget-it process. With WHS Fail, it becomes a second job.
I think I’ll pass.
Matt
Hi Matt,
You can have a share larger than 2TB but yeah the Server Backup cannot back those up. It appears that the reasoning behind the 2TB partitioning scheme by default per the Format a Drive Wizard is to avoid that a consumer ends up with a share they cannot back up. It does sound half-baked
Fantastic that big old Microsoft abandoned development on the product outright, and given us a dorky wizard for formatting a new drive. Wow, I’m so impressed. NOT
Bye Bye WHS, you were great while you were around…
Later WHS hello unRAID!
What is the point in this anymore? 99% of comments all over the web are negative.
I only see 2 viable options here.
1. They should just kill this product all together.
2. Delay the launch and fix DE.
To all the those who will talk about Raid, come on already when Vail had DE which dropped the ability to read drives outside of WHS, that was a huge issue for many. The only viable solution is to return to DE.
The users were clear about what they wanted, the lists were long but the main 3 were
1. Updated OS with 64Bit support.
2. Media Center Features
3. Improved DE Features.
To this they did get No 1, but did not implement No 2 and ripped #3 out all together.
WHS 2011 is at best a totally different product, at worst a bad product and in reality for existing WHS users a downgrade.
It is folly.
I have a great idea for WHS v3.
RIp out PC backups and put a Red UI on it!
I couldn’t resist the download of WHS 2011 (curiosity) and it was just as disappointing as predicted. I have already loaded v1 on my new server in place of 2011. There is no reason to upgrade (even if that were possible) as WHS v1 does most things just as well and some (DE of course) so much better. Is there any point in blogging all this as Microsoft have made no reasonable response to all the negative mail. They seem to be completely ignoring the vast majority of feedback supporting the retention of DE as the core to WHS’s survival. So it is stick with WHS v1 or off to Fedora/Amahi for those more ambitious types.
GOOD LUCK to all version 1 users everywhere.
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By removing Drive Extender, Microsoft has killed the single key feature that made WHS a great product. I won’t be ugprading. During the break between vail betas, I have tested and found Amahi to be a great product. I had to spend a little bit more time configuring it, but once setup has greater flexibility than Vail. I thought I would never use a linux product, however it has been a great replacement for my aging WHS v1 box.