NEPCW recently had the opportunity to work with Rob from http://www.EchoAV.net on a Windows Home Server (WHS) installation . We were sourced to build, configure and deploy the WHS to the customers site. We first started off by doing our due diligence by researching the specs and system requirements for WHS. WHS is built off Server 2003 platform and utilizes several interesting features including machine backups and drive duplication.
Our first order of business was to determine the drive configuration and sizes that we were going to use. We decided on two 2TB Hitachi drives in a non raid configuration. We toiled with the idea of using these drives in a RAID 1 configuration, but after some research we decided to let WHS deal with the drives and to utilize the duplication option in WHS for redundancy. WHS will take two drives of identical capacity and perform duplication which writes data to these drives identically in case of a drive failure, your data is backed up.
After we made the decision for duplication we loaded up WHS on a 2U rack mountable case with the following spec’s:
LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model
iHAS124-04
HITACHI Deskstar HD32000 IDK/7K (0S00164) 2TB
7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
Athena Power RM-2U2015SV48 Black 2U Rackmount
Server Case with power supply
Cavalry CAUM 2TB Black External Hard Drive
CAUM3702T0-B
After wrestling with SATA drivers so the WHS installation would actually see the drives, the installation went very smooth. During the install it reboots a few times and applies several OTA updates before you can even log in. Once we logged in we ran all available Windows updates and patches that it needed.
Since the two drives were installed WHS automatically put them into duplication mode, we tested this by copying data to the music share and watched it duplicate across the two drives. Now it does not update immediately with the duplication, but after a few minutes we could see the server storage report show the duplicate data.
What is interesting is that WHS shows the two 2TB drives as having almost 4TB of storage for the system, but in My Computer it just shows the 1 drive at 1.81TB.
Once this was complete we scheduled our visit to the customers site and installed the server and got it running on the network. We fired it up and then created the user accounts that duplicated the workstation accounts already in place. Once that was in place, we went to the Windows 7 Home Premium machine (W7HP) that would be connecting to it and ran the WHS connector software. Once it was connected we configured the workstation backups to happen between 12AM and 6AM everyday.
Windows Home Server Backups: Before installing this system we spun up 2 VM’s with WHS on one and Windows 7 Home Premium on another. We created the partnership and then let it complete a backup of the W7HP machine. Then we spun down the W7HP machine as if it had a hard drive failure. We then spun up another VM but just booted it from the WHS Recovery CD. When it came up it found our WHS VM and we plugged in the WHS password and we could see the backup it made of our W7HP VM. We chose the complete restore features and in no time we had our W7HP workstation back up and running, without original media and with all our data. Talk about slick, this made us very excited. This is the way all backup and restores like this should work.
You might ask yourself “How do you backup the Windows Home Server?”, and we would answer this way:
To deal with backing up the WHS itself, we decided a 2TB external drive utilizing NTBackup would do the trick. As of this writing all is working great, workstations are performing backups every night successfully and the WHS itself it backing up to the external drive, as well as duplicating across the internal disks.
We then moved all music, videos, pictures, documents and shared software to the WHS. We then setup the W7HP workstation with the built in Windows Media Center software. Then we pointed all media libraries to the WHS, added an XBox as a media extender and tested. Everything works great!
Rob from EchoAv setup 3 Sonos zones in the house along with a bunch of other cool Audio/Visual stuff that was pretty amazing.
All in all it was a great success for NEPCW!
Check http://www.EchoAV.net for all your Audio/Visual needs! Rob is doing some pretty exciting stuff with Sonos, iPad and much more!
New England PC and Web is excited to announce our brand new Managed Services offerings.
Our packages are designed to give you peace of mind at a budget. We offer total IT support with prompt and knowledgeable service, at an affordable price.
Our remote monitoring agent allows us to spot periodic problems in near real time and fix them fast, ensuring optimum availability for all users and keeping your business ticking along smoothly.
What do you get?
• Unlimited Break/Fix Helpdesk Support (after 30 min. onsite visit may be required)
• Unlimited Break/Fix Remote Server Support (Except when onsite presence is required)
• Scheduled onsite monthly maintenance
o Software Updates
o Disk cleanups and Defrags
o PC Optimization
• Anti-Virus monitoring
• Asset Tracking and Reporting
• Backup monitoring
• Event log monitoring
• Disk Space & Disk Space Consumption checks
• Windows Services
• Start stopped services
• Exchange Server monitoring
• Performance: Processor Health, Memory Usage, Network Interface, Physical Disk
• Detailed invoicing of all billable and non-billable work
We continue to offer hourly service pricing as well discounted pre-paid support hours and a la carte pricing for many services. Please contact us for more infomation.
Bring your desktop or laptop PC down to New England PC and Web to take advantage of our $99 Virus Removal and PC tune up Special. So if you are in the Massachusetts, Rhode Island or New England area, stop on by or give us a call!
What do you get with this special?
Remove any viruses, spyware and malware
Stop annoying pop ups
Remove fake anti-virus programs like AntiVirus 2010 , WinAniVirus, etc
Will optimize and tune-up your system
Clean and vacuum your computer and blow out fans and keyboard on laptops
Recommend upgrades if needed
Give us a call today while this special lasts! 508-443-3402
Or visit us at:
389 West Center St
West Bridgewater, MA 02379
Disclaimer: There are cases were the virus/spyware/malware is so bad and embedded into the system that we need to reload the operating system. This is an additional charge and is not included in this special. We will of course let you know this before we proceed with the repair.
For a limited time we are running a super special on our DC Jack repair!
New England PC and Web special on laptop power jack repairs for our customers in the Boston, south shore and well the world really! (Shipping not included)
$99 DC Jack Special (This includes the labor and the brand new DC Jack!)
CALL TODAY!! 508-443-3402
People may also refer to this repair as:
Laptop power jack repair
DC power jack repair
DC jack replacement repair
Super wiggly, not powering on, won’t charge the battery and have to prop the power cord on a book to get it to work repair
WE STOCK 95% of all laptop DC jacks in house, so our turn around time is usually 24-48 hours!
*Please note that there are a small group of laptops that require DC jacks that are on cables. These types of DC Jack repairs are NOT included in this special because the jacks themselves are more expensive. We can tell your right over the phone whether or not your laptop has these special jacks, so give us a call today!! 508-443-3402
Many Toshiba’s and Mac’s have these special cables and are usually around $35-65 more***
Does my laptop need to have it’s DC jack replaced?
Although it is a good idea to bring your laptop down to us for a free diagnosis, there are several symptoms that your laptop will display if you do in fact have a bad jack.
The light that indicates charging with turn on and off as you wiggle the AC adapter
You have to hold the AC adapter plug in a certain position in order for it to charge
You notice that even when the laptop is plugged in with the AC adapter, it is still running on battery
The laptop shuts down randomly when the AC adapter is moved or plugged in
Excessive temperature from the area of the DC jack (Dangerous, if this is happening please shutdown the computer and unplug it)
Smoke or the smell of burning plastic (Dangerous, if this is happening please shutdown the computer and unplug it)
The plastic pieces around the area of the DC jack are falling apart
Loose or sloppy connection when plugging in the AC adapter
DC jack just fell out of the computer (I know, this is the obvious one)
Just some of the models we service:
Dell DC jack repair
Toshiba DC jack repair
Acer DC jack repair
IBM ThinkPad DC jack repair
Lenovo DC jack repair
Sony DC jack repair
HP DC jack repair
Compaq DC jack repair
Gateway DC jack repair
Fujitsu DC jack repair
And many more!
Although we do MAC laptop DC jack repair, this special will not include them. Jacks on the MAC are a bit more expensive. If you would like us to give you a quote, give us a call today!!!
