Division M are set to release Beta 4 of storage pooling application Drive Bender later this week. Drive Bender, set to be released on a variety of platforms including Windows Home Server 2011,  presents multiple hard drives as a single pool of data storage – either as a logical drive letter, or a network shared drive. Drive Bender is able to do this with internal and USB (or any externally) connected hard drives, of any size.

Ahead of the new release, the company has unveiled the final WHS 2011 UI for Beta 4:

Drive Bender certainly looks like it’s getting a good deal of polish as it nears release. We’ve had a lot of emails and comments here at WGS, asking for us to do a detailed comparison of the three storage pooling add-ins currently in development. We’ll definitely be running such a feature later in the Summer, but only when we can compare the final releases for each add-in. Comparing beta products is not fair to any of the developers, and honestly isn’t a lot of use to readers, as so much can change before we see the fully released versions of each product.

In the meantime, there’s a lot of discussion regarding the add-ins over at WGS Forums, as home server owners compare their experiences. If you want a sneak preview of how the betas are progressing, make sure to check out the forums.

More: Drive Bender

We’re coming up to the last week of the year, and that can only mean one thing…. yes, it’s time for the third annual We Got Served Reader Awards 2009!

2009 has been a busy year in the home server world, with many new manufacturers releasing hardware, and new community add-ins released which do a great job of providing new features for the platform. As usual, this year’s awards will be judged by a reader vote, from a shortlist nominated by the WGS writers and forum moderators – but before we announce the nominees, let’s remind ourselves who won last year’s awards:

Best Windows Home Server Hardware 2008: Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server

A surprising result last year, as I was convinced that Tranquil PC would claim the prize with their excellent SQA-5H, which was smaller than FSC’s model and came with more drives. But, the WGS readers spoke!

Best Digital Media Receiver 2008: Xbox 360

Second prize wasn’t enough to stop HP cancelling their MediaSmart Connect line early in 2009, but it was Microsoft’s (still) excellent Xbox 360 which took the plaudits last year.

Best Windows Home Server Software 2008: TwonkyMedia Server

Even without a standalone add-in for system builders last year, Twonky still managed to walk away with the award for their excellent DLNA compliant media server software.

Best Windows Home Server Add-In 2008: Grid Junction

Your prize for 2008’s best add-in went to Kentdome Technologies for their Grid Junction UPS add-in for Windows Home Server.

So to 2009, where we’ve seen a new crop of add-in developers step into the ring, new manufacturers release Windows Home Server hardware, and the category begin to expand and grow. To be eligible for nomination, the product (or major update to the product) must have been released in this calendar year (from Jan 1st 2009) – there are always old favourites we want to vote for, but the awards are for this year’s products!

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the nominations for the We Got Served Reader Awards 2009!

Best Small Windows Home Server Hardware 2009

A plethora of choice in the category this year, with a variety of home server form factors emerging. In fact, we’ve seen two distinct format emerge, the larger 4+ bay multi-drive home server as well as the smaller, cheaper 1-2 bay systems. As a result, it’s only fair that we split the hardware category into two, as each form factor has a specific target audience and feature set.

In the new Small Hardware category (1-2 bays) we saw great new models enter the market from manufacturers such as HP with their LX195 MediaSmart Server, a beautiful piece of styling from RipNAS, VIA’s Artigo A2000 barebones system which was a compact 2 drive model, as well as the ASUS Home Server TS Mini, which appeared this month. It certainly seems as if the cheaper end of the home server market was well served this year, but which model do you think was the best? Feel free to re-read the reviews of each and then place your vote below.

Best Large Windows Home Server Hardware 2009

But 2009 wasn’t just about the little guys! At the other end of the spectrum we saw a lot of activity in the 4+ bay arena too. HP refreshed their EX 490 Series MediaSmart Server line with two new models and found time to release a small business variant in the shape of the X510 Data Vault. They were joined by major competition in the form of Acer, who released the Aspire EasyStore Home Server globally this year, combining great features and sharp pricing. Finally, there’s Lenovo, who surprised us with their IdeaCenter D400 model this year which took a unique look at home server styling.

Best Digital Media Receiver 2009

We expect this category to be closely fought! At the beginning of the year, HDHomeRun finally appeared outside the USA, offering networked TV tuners to the UK and Australasia – a truly excellent product. Popcorn Hour’s C-200 established itself as a firm favourite with media enthusiasts everywhere, but had competition in the form of the Xtreamer Media Player which offered similar features at a low, low price. We were also impressed by the QNAP NMP-1000 which pushed media around our digital homes very well in test.

Best Windows Home Server Software 2009

There hasn’t been too much new news in the commercial software category this year, but we have seen a couple of our favourite community add-ins develop paid-for variants, so they’ll pop across into the commercial category from this year. A good example of this is LightsOut which was released in v1.0 form this week. My Movies for Windows Home Server is a perennial favourite, and also received a number of updates through the year. As usual, Diskeeper and PerfectDisk released enhancements for their disk defragmentation software for Windows Home Server, and both are in with a shout of winning the award. Last year’s winner, TwonkyMedia Server is back, this time with the much-needed standalone media server add-in for the platform. Finally, Time Traveler for Windows Home Server was recently released and offers the ability to rollback to previous version of files and folders stored in your home server’s shared folders.

Best Windows Home Server Add-in 2009

Now we come to the category that’s always the closest fought – who will win your vote for the Best Windows Home Server add-in for 2009? The Windows Home Server platform has continued to grow this year with many more applications appearing, and the quality of those add-ins has also been increasing too.

The WGS team have selected some of their favourites for voting, and they include: @WHSTweet which reports your home server’s status via Twitter, AutoExit 2009 for Windows Home Server, which had a big boost this year with a new version, P80 which allows you to view a wide range of diagnostic information about your home server from the remote website, WHS PHP/MySQL/Wordpress is a trio of add-ins which work together to bring the popular web publishing platform to Windows Home Server, WHS Health, a new add-in which publishes Windows Home Server alerts to your smartphone and finally, WHS BDBB (Windows Home Server Backup Database Backup) which many have found essential in protecting their client backups.  As there has been so many great add-ins this year, we’re also throwing in FirePlay for Windows Home Server, the highly rated remote media streaming client, and finally Advanced Admin Console, which brings a host of additional controls to the Windows Home Server Console. Phew!

If you don’t see your favourite listed in our nominations, then you also have the opportunity to vote for your own choice – but remember, the product should have been released this year, or had a major update released to the public.

As now written in the great WGS tradition, your votes will be counted over the next few days and the award winners will be announced on New Year’s Eve. Good luck and congratulations to all nominees!

Today sees another new chapter in the development of We Got Served, with the opening of a new website that will be solely dedicated to Windows Home Server add-ins.

Home Server Plus (http://www.whsplus.com) is a new resource for the Windows Home Server community that builds on the collection of add-ins we’ve hosted here at We Got Served with a whole host of new features to make finding, installing and using Windows Home Server add-ins easier and more enjoyable.

Home Server Plus Home Page

All 73 of today’s free, community developed add-ins are listed on the site with the following features:

• Easier Navigation
  Add-ins are easy to navigate and find thanks to their categorisation in to Backup, Communications, Home Server Management, Internet, Media, Miscellaneous, Power, Remote Access and Security.
• Add-ins Assessed By Ease of Use
  Each Windows Home Server add-in assessed and categorised by level of user experience required – from Standard, through Advanced to Expert. So if you’re new and just learning the ropes of your new home server you can ensure you build your experience with add-ins step by step.
• Screenshots and Videos to Check-out Before You Try
  Screenshots and embedded 4-5 minute YouTube video of each add-in running on Windows Home Server, to allow you to view features and functionality before deciding to download.
• Links to Your Favourite Support Resources
  Links to add-in developer’s website for download and documentation, as well as links to a dedicated We Got Served Community Support Forum for each add-in and WGS Review.
• Every Add-in Rated and Ranked By the Community
  Rate each add-in you download, and see an up to the minute view of what the community has rated the Top 10 Highest Rated and Most Rated add-ins.
• Hate It? State It!
  Share your opinions on each add-in with the community, and tell your friends about the coolest apps, courtesy of links to the leading social networks (Digg, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and over 100 others) or via email.
• Full Release Histories
  Release history listed for each add-in, so you can be sure you’re running the latest version.
• Easy Keyword Search
  Full search capability to locate add-ins by name, part of the name or keyword.
• Keep Up to Date Via RSS
  RSS feeds available for new add-in posts and community comments, so you can be sure you’re always up to date with add-in news.

Here’s a few screenshots of the new site:

Home Server Plus Category Menu

Highest Rated Add-ins in Sidebar

Social Networking Links

Why the new site?

We Got Served has been the home of Windows Home Server add-ins ever since we collated and launched our first add-in list back in 2007. Since then, the list of add-ins has grown tremendously to the point where there are now 73 free community add-ins available for download. To be honest, whilst we’ve got a reasonable resource available for add-ins via WGS Forums, I think we can do a lot better and the existing database and download facilities we have are quite restrictive, and not the friendliest to use. They’re also quite hidden, tucked away in the forums and given the prominence of community add-ins, they need to be set free!

With the new site we can say goodbye to user registration requirements and poor auto-screenshot re-sizing and hello to cool features like video previews, community ratings, improved commenting, social networking links and more!

What will stay here at We Got Served is our community support forums, which are linked from each and every add-in on the new site. As many of you know, we provide a forum for every add-in that is released to provide a community support resource, which developers are free to use to connect to the community, but is mainly a place for WGS readers to chat and help each other out with the add-ins they use. Some forums are tumbleweed zones, others are vibrant with readers and developers swapping ideas for new features or reporting and supporting other users with problems. We’ll continue to build that support resource here at WGS, whilst Home Server Plus will be dedicated to showcasing what’s available.

What’s happening now?

I hate the phrase, but let’s say we’re in “beta” right now. I’m putting the finishing touches to the new site, which mainly includes creating, uploading and linking the video clips for each add-in (which, as you can imagine, is a pretty laborious job!) Whilst that continues over the next couple of weeks, I’d love you to go and check out the site and do the following to help test the site:

• Find and rate all of the add-ins you currently use.
• Download a few new add-ins that you don’t currently use, check them out, share your opinion on them via the comments area, and rate those too. Let’s get some discussion going!
• Click on links and let me know if any are broken.
• Feedback anything you like, hate or can’t get your head around in the comments for this post, plus any ideas you’ve got on how we can make the site even better.
• If you’re a website owner who currently links to the (pretty horrible) existing URL for add-ins at WGS (http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php?autocom=downloads) then feel free to swap the link out for a nice, short and and shiny new one (http://www.whsplus.com)
• If you know your way around Camtasia Studio and would be up for helping out with creation of add-in preview videos, then drop me a note – I’ll dig into the WGS Competition Swag Bag and I’m sure I can send out some home server goodies for contributors.

Going Forward

At some point in the next few months, I’ll close down the add-ins section here at WGS and point all existing links to the new site. It won’t be for a while as relinking is going to take ages, but if you’re a current WGS add-ins section junkie, start getting acquainted with the new place!

I’m really excited about the new site, and hope you guys find it a much more useful resource to discover, download and discuss the add-ins which make the Windows Home Server community such a fun and vibrant place. But, it’s a resource for everyone, so let me know what you think – good and bad!

Check it out: Home Server Plus

New from developer Pål Andreassen is an add-in called Media Connect Configuration, which allows you to edit the settings for Microsoft’s media serving software, Media Connect, which comes bundled with Windows Home Server.

The configuration software is available in-box on HP’s MediaSmart Server and can be downloaded from Microsoft here.

This add-in simply starts that configurator from within a Windows Home Server Console Tab and allows you to allow and block access from your home server to various media devices in the home – an Xbox 360 for example.

You can add, edit or remove the folders you wish to share with media devices as well as decide if Media Connect is to start up automatically, and if new devices will get approved for access by default or not.

Pål mentions that there are still a few bugs to be knocked out in the add-in, so make sure you report them over at our dedicated community support forum.

Download: Media Connect Configuration | Support Forum

Felix Kollmann has been busy updating his add-in, Router Control, which monitors traffic going through your router and allows you to access information on that traffic via the WHS Console.

Last time we checked in, the add-in was in its infancy at v.1.0.0.7. Since then, a slew of updates have been released with the add-in now at 1.0.0.11 and a preview of version 1.1 now available for testing.

Features and fixes as follows:

1.1 CTP1 (Preview Build)

• Traffic history + background monitoring
• Semi-automatic online update + notification on new versions
• Complete rewrite of client/WHS Add-in GUI
• Automatic error reporting
• Based on Windows Service

1.0.0.11

• Added Schema DB link to Router Control Settings tab
• Fixed service implementation path on some Home Servers

1.0.0.10

• device DOM max-spec (base for service implementations) is now retrieved by web service during build (which enables user without database access to build RouterControl.IO.Services)
• Diagnostic Tool now checks for updates on Router Control
• CommonInternetGateway did not handle missing services correctly
• Diagnostic Tool now contains version number in title bar

1.0.0.9

• Diagnostic Tool now creates a ZIP file containing all diagnostic data
• Service implementation is now based on the max-spec (sum of all uploaded schemas)
• Server sided Router Schema handling now based on SQL database
• Diagnostic Tool is now based on absolute paths

1.0.0.8

• added Router Control Diagnostic Tool
• fixed a bug causing the router schema to be downloaded multiple times
• schema version increased to 2; requires reuploading of router schema
• added a workaround for a bug in the fancy list view (pre PP1 only)

Download: Router Control

Not to be confused with the similarly sounding WHS Outlook, Outlook for WHS in a free add-in which allows you to access your Outlook email on any of your home computers via the Windows Home Server Console.

Here’s the lowdown:

What is Outlook For WHS?
The Outlook For WHS Add-in allows you to access your MS Outlook client through the Window Home Server Console. This will allow you to send and receive email from any PC on your network or even via the Internet using the Window Home Server Remote Access.

In addition to that it works with common Outlook Add-ons such as Plaxo. This is a free alternative to other commercial add-ins that do the same thing but the difference being the $25 price tag.

Installation Instructions
– Install Outlook to your Windows Home Server
– Configure your email accounts
– Install Outlook For WHS via Windows Home Server Console

Download: Outlook for WHS

Asset is a free media server add-in from Illustrate (developers of the RipNAS home server and RipNAS Essentials CD Ripping add-in) which improves the audio streaming capabilities of Windows Home Server, in a similar way to commercial products like Twonky Media Server.

Using a media server add-in such as Asset allows you to play back a wider variety of audio file formats stored on your home server to a greater number of digital media receiving devices in the home.

Asset features:

• Designed from the ground up as an audio UPnP server,
• Album Art support
• Customizable browse tree with advanced search facilities (Album by Release, Style, Composer, Conductor…)
• Configurable Wave / LPCM decoding (no quality loss) for devices which cannot play specific audio types,
• ReplayGain can be applied to Wave / LPCM stream, volume matching across tracks for devices which have no support,
• Extensive tagging ‘standards’ compatibility,
• Wide-ranging audio support: mp3, FLAC, Apple Lossless, WMA (inc Lossless), m4a, AIFF, Wave
• Windows Home Server (WHS) specific install, with WHS Connector configuration,
• Windows 2000 / XP / Vista compatible,
• Runs efficiently in the background detecting new & changed tracks (as service),
• Free

Download: Asset UPnP

Windows Home Server is indeed now on MSDN and Technet and is currently running at a world record 4 hours uptime.

Go have some developer fun, download it and take a look – it’s free!

Thanks to Dean for the screenshot.

More Info: Team Announcement | MSDN | Technet

Since I’ve been here in the US this week I’ve had a couple of people gently remind me that I’ve not published the list of Top 10 Windows Home Server add-ins requested from WGS for a couple of months.

I have to apologise and say it just completely dropped of the radar, but I really love it too, so I need to make sure I keep doing it!

Okay, here’s your rundown for February 2009:

1. Advanced Admin Console
2. WHS Disk Management
3. AutoExit 2008 for Windows Home Server
4. uTorrent
5. WHS Customizer
6. Whiist
7. My Movies for Windows Home Server
8. LightsOut
9. Any Service Installer
10. FTP Manager

There are now 77 free and commercial add-ins for Windows Home Server – check them out.

More Info: Windows Home Server Add-ins

Our moderating team over at WGS Forums have this week launched a brand new Windows Home Server Frequently Asked Questions section which is designed to provide answers to the most common questions asked by new (and experienced WHS owners).

The FAQs have been compiled based on common posts we’ve seen on the forums, and currently cover a wide range of topics including:

Upgrading from the WHS Evaluation Edition
How to Manually Uninstall an Add-In
Troubleshooting Windows Home Server

and a whole lot more.

Head on over to the WGS Wiki to check out the list and feel free to shout if there’s other topics you’d like to see covered.

More Info: Windows Home Server FAQs

Great news on the way for those of you who use Squeezeboxes with Windows Home Server to play music around the home.

Currently, the software used to control your Squeezeboxes, SqueezeCenter is relatively fiddly to install on WHS, but the next release of the application, 7.3.3 will include a Windows Home Server add-in which will make installation much easier.

Version 7.3.3 is currently in beta, and a post on the SqueezeCenter forums is asking for specific feature and integration requests for WHS – head on over and let the guys know what you want!

Download: SqueezeCenter for Windows Home Server

CD Ripper RipNAS Essentials recently received an update to version 1.5. New features and fixes are as follows:

• Inclusion of SqueezeCenter update DSP (to automatically inform SqueezeCenter when new tracks are ripped)
• Asset On / Off added to control page
• CD Ripping Engine on / Off added to control page
• DSP effects button to access DSP effects
• Fixed Batch Ripper crash when unloading (from restarting WHS)

Download: RipNAS Essentials v1.5