23
Nov 2010
38 Comments
Microsoft shits on Windows Home Server users, product

Rest in peace, Windows Home Server.Microsoft’s Michael Leworthy on The Windows Team Blog reported today that the Windows Home Server team gave up on key technology Drive Extender (DE). What does this really mean? This means no drive pooling. This means no redundancy (i.e. your data goes bye bye if a drive fails). This means we’re back to drive letters, woo hoo! This means Windows Home Server is pretty darn useless (on its own).

Leworthy shared Microsoft’s reasoning behind the decision In a typical cover-ass fashion (emphasis mine):

When weighing up the future direction storage in the consumer and SMB market, the team felt the Drive Extender technology was not meeting our customer needs. Customers also told us that they wanted easier access to data stored on Drive Extender drives so they are able to view these files outside of Drive Extender. Therefore, moving forward we have decided to remove the Drive Extender technology from Windows Home Server Code Name “Vail” (and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) which are currently in beta.

Right. Customers chimed in and asked – hey, guys … I’d really like to get my data outside of WHS. I’d like to pull my drives out and plug in my USB disk cradle so I can access my financial spreadsheet. I’m totally okay with you stripping all the reliability and usability features in WHS! Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

For some odd reason, Leworthy isn’t 100% transparent in his post. For example, he conveniently skips over the fact that SBS partners – not WHS customers – drove the nail into DE’s coffin. Why? “Application compatibility” issues arising from DE use on SBS – not WHS.  (I guess DB9 doesn’t run well on SBS.) And there’s no mention of how they believe this is a non-issue and WHS customers won’t care.

So, are you still looking to upgrade to “Vail”?

“Vail” on its own is useless without DE, in my opinion. It may be salvageable, however, if OEMs find a glimmer of value in “Vail”;  they can bolt on DE-like/RAID-like solutions to fill the gap. Hell, if done right, the difference (to the user) may be indistinguishable. But do we really want a kludge of HP software housing my priceless photos and videos of keyboard cat? Probably not.

I emailed Drobo and they’re understandably excited (and ready) to receive an influx of Windows Home Server users. They may even run a promotion. I’ll update this post if they do.

Rant in the comments area. Anyone want to start a petition to get DE reworked or open-sourced?

Update: You can vote for the return of DE on Microsoft Connect.

  • jrronimo

    I’ll sign. I left a note expressing my disappointment on that blog post, but I don’t expect anything.

    I absolutely agree with you: WHS’s DE was one of the best features of WHS; it made things easy and was built-in. I wonder what percentage of WHS users even know that there is a such thing as add-ins? I certainly don’t trust a 3rd party to come up with a proper data duplication add-in.

    What if I want to add in more hard drives later? Or upgrade hard drives as I start to run out of room? This is certainly a scenario that I ran into on my current WHS system. I’ve swapped drives around in that more times than any computer I’ve ever owned, and it worked correctly and seamlessly each and every time. Losing this ability is a huge blow to my interest in WHS.

    Incredibly disappointing. Conveniently, I don’t have to ditch my WHS V1.

    • Joshua

      Screw MSFT. I will simply move to a different product. Amahi based on Fedora looks good. Or perhaps I will buy an OSX Mini Server, or even a Drobo. I hadn’t bought into WHS server as I was waiting for the product to mature some more, but without drive pooling, forget it. MSFT, you really are becoming a company of the past. Shareholders, you best replace Ballmer with someone with vision, before monkey boy drives the company into the ground.

  • Tyler

    Well, they basically killed the only reason for WHS existing as a product. I actually just built a small, low power machine that I’m running the original WHS on, was planning on upgrading to Vail when it came out. I guess I’ll be running the version I have now until the end of time.

    This is total BS. Why would they remove the only feature that was noteworthy in the product?

  • http://cognetic.com Thomas Pratt

    OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the main draw to WHS (Vail) – we are Drobo Resellers and I have had a DroboPro for almost a year now. I have loved it but will say I have had performance issues….it would be so great if they would just get it right!

    I think they did better with the current gen of hardware…..I love the iSCSI support from multiple systems as local drives…..also the redundency and ability to through in any ol drive to add space…..

  • Someone who doesn’t work here

    Time to start doing some work with ZFS.

  • http://www.syfuhs.net Steve Syfuhs

    Or, you know, they yank this out and go the RAID route. Leave it to the hardware vendors to figure out how this should work. Just a thought.

    • Someone who doesn’t work here

      @Steve->
      You can’t Dynamically add drives to a RAID array.
      You can’t use drives of different sizes.
      You shouldn’t use software RAID on Windows.

      • Alan

        More to the point a RAID is all or nothing. I can’t duplicate important folders and not duplicate other less important stuff.

  • http://720pgamer.com Illrigger

    WTF?!?!? The only reason I use WHS is for DE – I have to work around all the limitations of the OS in order to get it. Screw that, this is one more nail in MS’s coffin, if you ask me – it’s the only innovative thing they have done in the last 5 years, and they throw it out…. morons.

  • Vail is Dead

    I can understand Microsoft’s reasoning. I suspect they have had trouble with DE. It seemed their original plan was to redesign it and make it a core component of the rest of their small server family.

    No doubt they ran into problems and don’t want to have to support it for all their different servers so they are killing it off. I agree with everyone else that this is a bone-headed move for WHS. As a home consumer I want to be able to put different size drives in my WHS and want duplication across drives. And I want it to be easy! If I now have to refer to things with different letters and buy drives that are all the same size with a vendor’s version of RAID, I’m not going to be happy.

    We already know that WHS v2 will require a complete resetting of everything with a manual transfer of data, so there is no straight forward upgrade path. If I’m going to have to do that, there’s no way I’m going to switch to an inferior product. Apart from server back, I don’t see any “must have” features in Vail. I’d want MCE/WHS integration anyway before moving so Vail is no longer an option.

    Vail is Dead! I just hope WHS isn’t dead too.

  • Big Mistake

    Wow! Here I’ve been keeping myself tied to the whole Microsoft infrastructure because WHS was the solution for backing up all our household PCs, storing our photos, videos, etc.

    If WHS is not going to be a viable product I can finally break that dependency. I’m getting heavily into video editing and since Windows Live Movie Maker is pretty anemic and iMovie ’11 is very attractive, it’s about time I broke the stranglehold. Not only am I giving up WHS, I’m thinking it’s time to stop the PC buying at home.

  • Steve Perry

    I agree, this is a major problem for me to upgrade. For me this is strike 2. Strike 1 was requiring a 64 bit CPU.
    I was hoping I could get a 1tb vail server transfer all my files, the plug my existing 1tb external in and instantly get to 2tb.
    This Sucks.

  • CablDeVil

    Booooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! you crap up my windows7 phone now your pooping on my WHS Vail.

    Boooooooooo!! Back to Linux for me unless they address this issue!

  • Brian Vallelunga

    Please vote up the Connect request to add it back in to Vail. If the decision is truly based on customer demand, then, as customers, let’s demand it:

    https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/feedback/details/624029/add-drive-extender-back-to-vail

  • Blubster

    HUGE disappointment for me!

    I was really looking forward to ‘Vail’, and even started to build a second server just for the purpose of testing and migrating data when ‘Vail’ would be available. I selected every component based on the assumptions that ‘Vail’ would have more features than WHS1, not less essential features. Drive Extender is one of the only advantages of WHS over other free NAS OS, like FreeNAS.
    I WANT to be able to select which folders need to be duplicated, and which don’t, and I absolutely don’t want to have to deal with how occupied my hard drives are. I want to add hard drives if i need to, so hardware RAID is out of the question.
    No other NAS OS can do that, WHS1 can… It really is a shame that ‘Vail’ is not going to!
    God i feel so disappointed… I just installed the refreshed preview and was starting to play with it, all excited… :’(
    If SBS users have compatibility issues, they always can have a hard drive not in DE, and use applications with it… Do not screw us without good reasons!

    I don’t want to overreact (dude it’s just an OS!), but that’s how i feel… :’(

  • Van

    The only good thing about this is I may save a couple hundred dollars. Won’t need to buy a new CPU (my current WHS cpu is 32bit only) and I wont need to buy any new WHS software. Sad thing is, I was eagerly ready to do both.

    • http://720pgamer.com Illrigger

      The bad thing is that all the new drives out there require Advanced Format, which WHS v1 doesn’t support, so even if you stick with your existing server, you’re hosed when you need to add storage. They screwed us coming and going with this.

      • Jim

        The implication of partitioning an advanced format drive on a legacy OS is track misalignment, which will cause write performance issues.

        If you want to put advanced format drives in a WHS, you only need to partition the drive on a Vista or better OS first. This set’s the partition start sectors properly, and works like standard disks.

  • kay.one
    • Blubster

      Voted, 303 for at this time, I doubt (but hope) it will change a thing though…

  • Idiot

    “your data goes bye bye if a drive fails”

    Unless you have backups.

    • http://720pgamer.com Illrigger

      The point of DE is that it IS your backup, with easy-to-mange redundancy. Now you have to use an alternate solution…

  • Michael

    There goes the only reason to use WHS.

  • http://experts.ninjacamp.com Farina

    This is ridiculous…how could they be so stupid? Is there something I’m missing as to how this could actually make WHS better?

  • Steven

    “RAID sucks as the basis for a consumer storage product” (Microsoft, 11 Aug 2008)

    http://blogs.technet.com/b/homeserver/archive/2008/08/11/why-raid-is-not-a-consumer-technology.aspx

  • http://greyhole.pommepause.com Guillaume Boudreau

    For anyone interested in tinkering, there is a Linux alternative to DE called Greyhole.
    It is not that easy to use, and probably still has some bugs, but it does have the features everyone loved about DE, and then some.
    For those keen on trying it, check the website and install it yourself on your own Linux server, or install Amahi, which comes with a Greyhole implementation.
    (Being the Greyhole developer, this should be considered a shameless plug, but one I think many WHS users could care about. I’m an ex WHS user myself, before I saw the light!)

  • tuxplorer

    Something got removed and people are actually complaining! Oh the irony!!!! Move on. Microsoft has been shipping incomplete, broken and dumbed down products for quite some while now (hint: Vista era).

    • StuFuk

      Hint: We’re not in the Vista era.

      Anyways, the petition link is broken and I’ve been eying Amahi for quite a while so I guess this boneheaded announcement seals it.

      • tuxplorer

        I meant ever since the Vista era. Windows 7 is half baked as if Office 2007/2010 and Visual Studio 2010. Most MS products now-a-days aren’t supersets of previous versions. Something is broken, missing or not finished in time for shipping.

  • Fowl

    Am I missing something? What other (compelling) feature, other than automated backups does this leave WHS with?

    Very disappointing.

  • just1

    VAIL without DE —> FAIL

    I’m sure to stay with WHS v1 if DE isn’t include in VAIL, with all my HD I don’t have other solution…

  • http://720pgamer.com Illrigger

    Well, I am going to try out FlexRAID, I guess. Looks like it will do most of what DE does anyway, and it should work under Vail if there are still any features in it that are worth having by the time they ship it. I’d get a DROBO, but $400 (minimum) for bare hardware is a bit more than I want to spend.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexRAID

  • Not a DE Fanboi

    Almost every complaint here is from someone using a SERVER as a backup solution. To be fair, the abilities that DE provides are very nice and will be missed but I for one use WHS as the server that it is, not just for serving up media and backing up my home network. Perhaps they will replace DE with a NAS/SAN solution. That would be nice.

  • disasterarea

    I’d like to know how many WHS customers M$ have, as I ve touted it since I discovered it and it seems to me to be a product that they simply have not advertised. No one (even technical gurus) I speak to here in Aus has ever heard of WHS, and I myself don’t know how I stumbled across it.

    I agree, the DE functions have been my favorite part of the whole experience. mind you , with 3.5TB of stuff on there, I’m not liking the duplicate file corruptions that can’t be solved without deleting the file – I mean WHAT????

  • someone

    “Right. Customers chimed in and asked – hey, guys … I’d really like to get my data outside of WHS. I’d like to pull my drives out and plug in my USB disk cradle so I can access my financial spreadsheet. I’m totally okay with you stripping all the reliability and usability features in WHS! Ahhhhhhhhhhh.”
    Would be nice if you have a look at the other bug reports and feature suggestions. Indeed a large amount of people wanted DE to be altered so they can take their drives and a USB cable to see what’s on them outside of WHS.

  • http://www.amahi.org CPG

    Several people have pointed it out already, but Greyhole is a very worthy replacement for DE and Amahi (http://www.amahi.org) is a very worthy replacement to WHS.

    Disclaimer: I am part of the Amahi development team

  • http://www.amahi.org CPG

    Several people have pointed it out already, but Greyhole (http://code.google.com/p/greyhole/) is a very worthy replacement for DE and Amahi (http://www.amahi.org) is a very worthy replacement to WHS.

    Disclaimer: I am part of the Amahi development team

  • Mike

    Old post I know , but new to me..
    Because WHS 2011 is under pinned with Server 2008 you can convert a disk to Dynamic instead of MBR and span a volume across multiple disks.
    Before everyone gets there panties in a twist over DE being canned .. wait for the add in’s that are bound to come hot and heavy after the WHS 2011 launch .. I’m willing to bet DE type addins are coming .. with more control than the old WHS DE.. I for one will be switching to WHS 2011 ..
    Zar