So I'm Thinking...

So, Microsoft have confirmed the SKUs for Windows Server 2012 and the entry level version, Essentials, is intended to replace Small Business Server and Home Server.

I've been looking at the feature lists and I think I've got a problem. Essentials does not include Hyper-V. Without that, I cannot run my nzbapp appliance or any other VMs. And that kind of removes one of the key advantages of using Server OS at all.

Also, the price of €425 for the essentials OS has been announced. That's a little steep, methinks.

So now I'm thinking, maybe the Windows 8 Client OS will work ok after all. It does come with Hyper-V, has storage spaces included, will likely have much better driver support out of the box and will run Windows Media Center which might work well for my TV viewing needs and would allow for a setup similar to that described at mediacenterhd.blogspot.ie.

Industry Catch Up

So, it's been a while since I've had a chance to post. Mostly because the system is now bedded in and works surprisingly well so I've not had to tweak too much,

There are a couple of irksome issues, the worst of which is that the network connection on MediaServer will often (every few days) fail and require a full system restart. I've not got to the bottom of this but suspect network drivers.

Things are moving pretty fast with Microsoft. They've replaced Server 8 beta with a release candidate and changed the name to Server 2012. There goes the name of this blog! At least it looks like it might be released before the end of this year.

I'm not going to update to the RC because there's no direct upgrade path from beta, there are issues with migrating parity storage spaces from Server 8 beta to Server 2120 RC and there's no guarantee that there will be an upgrade path from RC to final.

So, I'll be waiting for the final product to come out and considering  new server build if the pennies permit (move from core2duo to i5 or i7, maybe)

Microsoft have also indicated just four versions of server 2012; Datacenter, Standard, Essentials & Foundation. Apparently Home Sever is no more and a lot of the previous Home Server functionality is rolled into Essentials. Assuming Essentials comes with Hyper-V (I'm really loving running all my media utilities in nzbapp), I think that's the one I'll be building MediaServer8.1 around!