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Disk Management for Windows Home Server was probably one of the first add-ins I installed for WHS, and is one of those must-have add-ins for WHS. My opinion, of course! Sam Wood has *finally* (yea!) released a new version to the wild in the form of v1.1. Lots of improvements. Lots of enhancements.
And in the spirit of a growing number of add-ins, Disk Management for Windows Home Server is transitioning to commercial/professional software. The great thing is that you get a chance to support your favorite add-in without costing you an arm or a leg. Hell, I can spend $10 in one day getting my caffeine-laden soda fix! Well, maybe not quite that much…
The official announcement from the author, Sam Wood:
Tentacle Software is proud to announce the release of Disk Management 1.1, the next version of our very popular Windows Home Server Add-In. It has, as they say, been a long time coming.
We’ve kept this release under the radar, for the most part. We’ve talked about it in hushed whispers (through various threads on We Got Served, and teaser posts here) for at least a year and a half. Why did it take so long? We really, really wanted to get it right.
New Features
We re-architected the entire Add-In to use a Windows Service to do all the back-end heavy lifting. That’s given us the flexibility to add a bunch of functionality that you’ve all been asking for.
Everyone loves bullet points, so here are our new shinies in no particular order:
- Significantly improved user interface (including a collapsible pane for the wireframe if you don’t use it)
- Significantly improved performance, especially on multi-core CPUs
- Charts for disk space statistics
- Charts for disk space utilisation over time
- Disk statistics logging to a file
- More disk details, including the NTFS mount point for each disk
- Real counting of the actual backup database size (for all you crazy kids with backup duplication enabled)
- A detailed help file
The new UI is something we’re really proud of. No more pop-up windows to see detailed information about your disks, it’s all there in one display.
New Price
The other major change is that we’re going professional. Disk Management will no longer be free.
There are a number of reasons for us to do this, but mostly we believe that Disk Management is worth paying for, and moving to a paid model will help ensure that Disk Management is supported and maintained in the future.
Disk Management is available as a free 30-day trial, with no feature or functionality limitations. You can try it out with no risk and see how awesome the new version is. If you love it as much as we do, a license for v1.x will cost you US$10 per server.
New Website
The Tentacle Software website has had a major facelift. We’ve got a whole new style, and a new store. Have a look and tell us what you think; we would love to hear your feedback.
The Future
We’re very excited about this release, as I’m sure you can tell. We believe that Disk Management 1.1 is the start of something special for us, and we’ve got plans for all sorts of goodies for Windows Home Server that I’m sure you’ll love.
We want to sincerely thank all our beta testers, and everyone who has given us feedback. Disk Management and Tentacle Software are two years old and we couldn’t have made it this far without you.
I don’t know about you, but I do like what I see. Enjoy!
21. February 2010 at 6:11 pm
I want to install on my HP EX487, but also know the new HP interface software is coming down the pike fairly soon.
Since this Add-on is so integrated into the UI, does anyone have any insight into whether it probably will or will not work (or break something) when I install the new HP MSS software?
21. February 2010 at 6:23 pm
I have it installed on my X510. Actually a beta version. No problems at all, or at least none that I have noticed.
21. February 2010 at 4:55 pm
Still my favorite add-in. Glad to see its progressing, but I always liked it being free. I guess I'll have to pony up the $10 to try out what's new.
21. February 2010 at 5:12 pm
Free for 30 days to see if you wish to upgrade…
22. February 2010 at 1:26 am
Sweet! I've been waiting for this for a loooooong time and can hardly wait to get it paid for and installed!
22. February 2010 at 2:09 am
I am asking this question in all sincerity and not trying to be any kind of smart aleck. I thought WHS was supposed to have some quite sophisticated disk management integrated within itself. What does this additional add-in add to the management that WHS already does?
I have had a home-built WHS since prior to PP1 when the "data corruption bug" was all the rage, and have been quite happy with it. I fear that Microsoft is about to screw up a good thing with this Vail version. When they try to make something be too much to too many different people, they screw it up so it is less than it was previously for everybody. I hope that doesn't happen here.
22. February 2010 at 4:49 am
What does Vail have to do with this addin?
As for disk management, this utility is more for monitoring and not for actually managing disks.
22. February 2010 at 2:34 pm
Either overlapping this feature or breaking the add-ins. I wouldn't worry since most add-ins are not that expensive and vail is quite far away still.
23. February 2010 at 8:35 am
You'll get those issues with community add-ins, as they don't have such stringent QA as a large business. In this case, Sam Wood (or Tentacle Software) has spent over 2 years developing it to this point, with a lot of community feedback, and he's aware of the impact his add-in has on the processor. I implore you to download the trial and give it a go for yourself.
23. February 2010 at 11:32 pm
I'll defiantly give the trial ago it will give me something to do before I install my 3.0 from hp.
22. February 2010 at 7:02 am
I'm happy to pay $10 for it.
22. February 2010 at 10:16 pm
Booo, don't pay for addins, folks.
23. February 2010 at 1:24 am
So you'll pay $0.99 for a new song or $1.99 for a new TV show, but when it comes to storing that song or TV show and monitoring to make sure your storage is in good shape you won't spend $10. Too many people wanting everything for free. This addon has established itself as a must have in the WHS community. And I commend the developers for creating such an addon. I will definitely be paying the $10.
23. February 2010 at 1:04 pm
I will gladly pay $10. I don't mind helping with the bills. Its when companies, want to charge prices like $40 or $50 that I have to ask myself "do I need it?". But $10 for a fully developed product no problem!! Thanks SAM!!
23. February 2010 at 3:15 pm
I'm more than happy to pay the $10 for it, I'm just curious if we get product updates for life, or will we have to pay each time
28. February 2010 at 5:58 pm
As am I … I see nothing on their site indicating how to buy or what the terms are for the purchase (updates for life, changing/upgrading servers, etc.).
I would certainly pay the $10, as I feel good work should be rewarded. But I would need to know that my payment buys me updates for the life of my home sever.
23. February 2010 at 3:51 pm
Does anyone have a link to the previous free version?