Tranquil PC’s Weblog

Check out this space saving PC desk mount system…

The tiny, fan less T7 PC is here seen mounted behind a 17″ glass fronted monitor.  Nice clean lines, space saving, and power saving too

Learn more here

The T2-WHS-A3 wins a ‘Recommended’ Award from PC Pro….

Check out the magazine (on the shelves 14th February 200

5 out of 6 stars

The T7-HDx - Designer Storage Expansion modules for the Tranquil T7 Home Servers

Since it was conceived, the T7 Home Server was designed to accept a ‘slide’ on external HDD device to easily expand the internal storage.  The devices, known as T7-HDx, quickly connect and merge with the T7 servers.

This device is now being prepared for shipping over the coming weeks. 

What does it provide?

· The T7-HDx is be available in two versions, the 2X5 (2x 500GB) and the 2X1 (2x 1000GB).  The HDDs used are the low energy, reliable, quiet Western Digital Green Power disks.

· The disks can be set to function as 2x individual disks (default), or 1x large disk, or a safe RAID (mirrored) array.  The disks are heat pipe cooled to the alloy chassis.

· There can be up to four T7-HDx devices attached to a T7 Home Server, providing up to massive 9TB of storage.  HDD access is via high speed port multiplier technology.

· The included ‘bridging’ links ensure that the T7 and the T7-HDx devices form an aesthetically pleasing, singular component, even being wall mountable.

· Low energy, low noise, ease of connection, and long term reliability are fundamental design features of this unique mass storage device.

Do I need one ?

There have been calls to Tranquil PC, for the last six months, to release the promised ‘slide on’ storage extender for the T7 Home Server.  To fully benefit from Home Servers data duplication feature at least a second HDD is needed.  The T7-HDx is a graceful, low noise, low energy addition to the T7 Home Server, offering multiple storage extensions.  If you want to expand the storage of your T7 Home Server, with a fanless, quiet, low energy device, the T7-HDx is the best item available.

How does it connect?

There are only two simple connections – a) power (using the 4 way power cord, supplied with the T7), and a b) high speed data cable. There is also an eSATA port, for use with the T2 Home servers etc.

What are the environmental features?

The power consumption (idle but spinning drives) of each T7-HDx is approx 11 watts.  The maximum power consumption is approx 18 watts.  The chassis, being primarily recycled aluminium, is re-cycle able.  The acoustics for the unit are a mere 21dBA (similar to a T7 Home Server).  

Can I disconnect the T7-HDx and review the files on another PC ?

Yes, the device can either be connected via a USB2.0 port or the eSATA port, to a suitable computer. Although removing the device should only be done while the Home Server is turned off.  For a safe way to ensure your data and backups are backed up, to a removable device, see below.

When Home Server PowerPack 1 is released, can I use this device as an Home Server external backup device ?

Yes, when Home Server PowerPack 1 is released later in 2008, the new ‘backup feature’ will allow an externally connected HDD (such as the high capacity T7-HDx), to be used to ‘back up’ the Server itself, allowing the backups, and data to be easily ‘removed’  and stored off site, from time to time.

When will it be available?

The T7-HDx will be shipping from early March 2008, subject to availability.  It will be formally made available for pre-order during February 2008.

What is the price?

The T7-HDx 2X5 (1TB) will be available from £249.00 (+VAT)
The T7-HDx 2X1 (2TB) will be available from £449.00 (+VAT)

Can I get a discount, as a current T7 Home Server owner ?

Yes, upon release, there will be an option for current T7 Home Server owners, to claim a discount against the purchase of any T7-HDx devices. 

In case you would like to read a little more about Windows Home Server, and want to fill a few of these restful days (I wish) learning more - why not download the ebook.

It’s a snip @ $17.50 - and you can get it from :

http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590598989

Windows Home Server - by Andrew Edney

(we don’t get any income from this….. it’s just a great read !!)

I wonder if it it’s possible … a 2TB home server base unit, servicing not only my Home Server needs but my Media Centre needs too….. ?

I’m just reviewing a new ‘project’ from our labs.  Code named TVMServer - this fan-less appliance could see the end of the costs and worries of many of the ‘digital home’ issues.

Providing all of the WHS (Home Server) services you’ve come to love, but with TVM (Television and Media) server features too.  All in one box !  The associated HD enabled Set Top Boxes complete the package.

Imagine, you have up to 4x HD TV screens (the HD Set top box supports Svideo, Component Video or HMDI video, and analog / Digital Audio) in your home, and the new TVMServer.  Each of the STBs can enjoy streaming live Digital (DVB-T) TV, playback TV recordings, setup recordings, TV guide, etc.  Also enjoy Music / Photo review, and online entertainment (some in HD).

Is this possible, is it affordable ?  At the moment our concept review systems are looking good, and if everything goes well - you may soon be seeing this most interesting of solutions being listed on the Tranquil PC eshop.

Leave a comment if you want to know more.

Well WHS does seem to be such a gift !  Expanding my storage and sharing those media files - just so easily.

But perhaps one of the most powerful, yet simple services is the backup system.  I’ve had many many calls and emails from our customers who have used the  backup / restore feature….. some due to HDD failure, dropped notebooks, theft etc

One client (I recall) actually bought a Tranquil Home Server, as his HDD in his notebook was failing (SMART reports), and he wanted to ‘backup’ the notebook, as soon as he could get it to power up, then immediately replaced the HDD with a bigger (new) one, and restored it all back - seems an expensive way to restore a PC, but then he does now have total peace of mind for the future… and lots of other gadgets on the Home Server.

Testing, selling, advising - it’s one thing to do all of these stages, to assure ourselves that products really are right. But to have to restore your own PC (due to severe problem) ?  Oh, that’s getting very real.

A catalogue of problems.  My wife’s notebook (Sony VAIO) suddenly decided to ‘go slow’ I mean really slow….. >15 minutes to get to the logon screen !! Then once Windows opened everything was super super slow ….. Hardware / Software /Malware … not really sure.  Normally a swift ‘Windows System Restore’ does the trick, but not this time … (the oldest restore point was only the previous day, and that made no difference.)

Time to test WHS Restore for REAL ? (oh and let’s use a bigger HDD drive at the same time ?)

So within just a few minutes the 100GB HDD was exchanged for a new 160GB (She would like a bigger HDD). Now to restoring.

Booting the Sony from the Tranquil WHS Restore invoked a lot of confidence, finding the Server, and the backup PC name with ease.  ** Just a note here for those restoring to a NEW HDD - you will need to run the ‘Disk Manager’ to create (a) new partition(s) for WHS to restore to.  I actually had a small problem here.  My wife had left a SD card (photos) inserted (not easy to see) - so that confused me a little - so a small tip for you - remove any other storage devices !

Then on to the restore itself - absolutely fantastic … it just restored approx. 90GB of data - including all of the OS partition and applications.  It took approx. 2.5 hours for the whole process.

Ran a few quick tests, and all seemed well.  Then I installed a new Virus checker, and it found 2x Trojans (shame that OneCare did not take care of those, in the first place).  Now it seems we have the ‘go slow’ culprit !

Now my wife is happy again

In summary - the WHS Restore service is extremely simple to use, whether you need it to assist replacing a small HDD, recovering from a severe HDD failure, or like me.. just wanting to restore due to an ‘unknown’ issue, it does it, with ease and confidence.

(PS - just a small note, if you change the size of your HDD, Windows may well need to be re-activated).

WHS users may want to check out the comments made below - re Backing up Files to a WHS.  This issue it seems revolves around a HDD that WAS FAT32 - but was then converted to NTFS (remember only NTFS formatted drives can be backed up to WHS).

Tranquil WHS client struggled with Backup (checking files after backing up, a wise move) :

Initial (worrying) email :

I have WHS up and running on my new Tranquil T2-WHS-A3 server. I have set it up to backup 2 computers every night. So far it has done 2 backups of each computer. Both computer are running Windows XP with NTFS partitions with a wired network using a Netgear WGR614 Cable/DSL router.

When I try an access a file in the backup, I can Open the Backup OK and the explorer screen showing all the folders in a drive opens OK. But when I click on a folder to access a file in that folder I get the following message

“X:\foldername is not accessable. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”

Later email from David (thank you) follows :

However, looking further I realised that the only backups I could read were the ones of the original ‘C’ drive of both my main pcs that were supplied formatted to NTFS. I could not read the backups of the data or photos drives. These drives were originally formatted to FAT32 and had been converted to NTFS when I noted from the documents of the Microsoft WHS site that WHS would only backup NTFS formatted drives. These drives were converted to NTFS using the conversion routine in Norton Partition Magic 8.

I decided to copy the data from these drives to another drive, delete the drives, create new drives and format them to NTFS and then copy the data back. When I had done this to one drive I deleted all existing backups and tried again. I could then read this backup and restore files with no problems. I then did the same to all the other drives that had been converted and I can now read all backup with no problems. I then decided to backup by Sony laptop. All the drives on this were formatted to NTFS and I can read the backups from that as well so all is well.

Thank you for your help and if the same problem occurs with another customer, ask them if they have converted their drives to NTFS!

Regards

David R

Have you tried to install ‘WHS Connector’ on a VISTA based PC ?  You may discover that the ‘WHS Server’ can’t be found (this may be due to running the setup application as a restricted Vista user.

If this is the case - you need to run the connector software on your CD as ‘Adminstrator’.

Please see screen shot to the below, which shows how.

1.  Right click on the ‘Setup’ file.
2.  Run as Administrator
3.  Complete setup process.

If you get to the last stage, and find that you are presented with ‘can’t connect to the ‘Server’ again, then go ‘back’ and try to re-connect.  If this fails (again) then re-start the Home Server, wait, then try to re-connect again.

You will be finally presented with the ‘Ready to use screen’.

Click Start (and you will be logged on)

Your must now use the console to ‘Activate’ Windows, this is done, by going to ‘Settings on the Console.  You may be prompted to Activate Windows by pop up warnings too

Then in the Resources tab, please activate Windows.

Your Server is now ready to use

(TIP - make sure you remember the STRONG password that you entered as the ‘Administrator’ PASSWORD !!)

Check out - TheDigitalLifestyle.com Podcast -

Vista After hours and Tranquil’s Home Server

I have two interviews this week recorded on location in Manchester. James Senior from Microsoft UK talks about the “Windows Vista After Hours” events hosted around the UK. He explains why they where running the events and how they were showing off consumer products like Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server to IT Professionals. The 2nd interview is with James Thompson of Tranquil PC, Tranquil produce a great range of Windows Home Server products (like the one I review a couple of weeks ago). It’s 47 minutes of real world stuff

It’s here the awaited WHS November (just) update

After installing the update, you’ll need to re-start the Home Server - if you carefully check the screen above you  will notice there has been two version changes - now reading 6.0.1500.8 (for the Backup & Restore and the Storage Manager).

You will get a RED WHS ICON, requesting that you change your WHS Remote domain name.  This is to ensure the new SSL certificate can be taken advantage of.
Once you have changed the domain name (use the same details as before, ie domain name / MSN live email etc) - the ICON will return to the happy green again.