Expertise Level: Standard

Home Server Smart 2012 is a disk health reporting add-in for Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. The add-in monitors your server’s hard disks at user-defined intervals for errors and issues, raising alerts and issuing email notifications when problems are detected.

Features:

• Continuous disk health monitoring by an always-on service.
  • Monitors health of attributes and will generate alerts when a failure condition (threshold is met or exceeded) is detected.
  • Monitors disk temperature and airflow temperature, and generates alerts when unacceptable temperatures are detected (airflow temperature is flagged in HSS 2012 only).
• Customizeable temperature thresholds for Warm, Hot, Overheated and Critical.
• Temperature display can be shown in Celsius (default), Fahrenheit and Kelvin.
• Proactive alerting when changes occur on certain “super critical” attributes such as bad sectors, spin retries and end-to-end errors, even if they have not actually “failed.”
• List of physical disks shows status icons for an “at-a-glance” view of disk health.
• Each attribute shows a colored icon in addition to a status message relative to its health.
• Double-click any SMART attribute to learn more about that attribute on the selected disk.
• Supports most IDE/PATA and SATA controllers that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls or WMI.
• Supports most USB and FireWire enclosures that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls.
• Allows you to clean up data from “stale” disks — disks you’ve removed from the server.
• Allows you to perform a manual polling of the disks for the latest data, rather than waiting for the service to poll them again
• Works with disk pooling software Drive Bender and StableBit DrivePool.
• Default setting not only ignores virtual disks, but hides them from the UI (since they have no SMART data anyway).
• BitLocker Drive Encryption integration – encrypt, decrypt and manage all of your volumes, whether or not those volumes have a drive letter – you can even enable the BitLocker server role from within the add-in!
• Allows you to encrypt drives that participate in drive pools.
• Allows you to hide disks that cannot be encrypted, decluttering the UI.
• Allows you to make use of an HSS helper service to unlock BitLocker-encrypted USB volumes at boot time when those disks participate in disk pools. This can help ensure the disks are ready for use when the pool is started.
• You could ignore individual problems on disks in HSS for WHS v1, but now you can un-ignore (resume) them, either on an individual basis or for all problems on all disks.
• You can now ignore entire disks (and resume them as well) – useful for hiding flash drives and media card readers, as well as disks that you know are showing incorrect information (rare, but it’s been reported).
• Improved the ability to stop, start and restart the HSS service.
• Shut down or reboot your server from within the add-in.
• Send alerts via email.
• Bug Report Helper – runs a small self-test to detect installation problems and provide details to help in troubleshooting.
• Don’t use, and don’t plan to use BitLocker? You can hide the BitLocker tab completely.

Developer: DojoNorth Software

Download: Home Server SMART 2012

Release History

v2.2.1.21 (21st January 2012)

• Beta release

StableBit Scanner is an advanced hard drive scanning and monitoring tool for Windows Home Server v1, Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. It monitors all hard drives in your home server looking for damage then analyses and retrieves files from the damaged sectors of the disk.

StableBit Scanner reads and monitors the on-disk Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology data in order to predict disk failure. StableBit Scanner tries very hard to get at the S.M.A.R.T. data, it asks the Operating System, it asks the disk directly by issuing commands to it, and it talks to USB bridge chips in order to get direct access to drives behind USB enclosures. If S.M.A.R.T. detects disk failure, you are notified immediately.

The latest beta release for Windows Home Server 2011 has been issued by the developer – new in this build:

• Added per-disk settings. These settings are stored in the Scanner’s store and are associated with a particular disk. They are not stored on the disk itself.
• Give your disks a custom name.
• Disable SMART.
• Disable Direct I/O.
• Added option to “ignore” SMART warnings. Ignore is intelligent, where it will re-issue the warning if any of the problem attributes change. There is also the option to permanently ignore all SMART warnings on a per-disk basis. To access this feature, a new button will become available on the SMART dialog when you have SMART warnings issued for a disk.

The USB Drive Reinvented - that’s the bold claim of iTwin, a USB dongle for Mac and PC which allows remote connection of two computers without the need for the usual network headaches. Plug one iTwin into your first computer at home, the second into the remote computer, share files and folders. Remote file sharing for the masses? Sounds too good to be true? Let’s find out.

Swap €99/$99 for your iTwin courtesy of Amazon or the company’s online store, and it’ll land on your doormat in a matter of days. As seen increasingly nowadays, iTwin’s packaging designers have spent far too much time in the Apple store, as the product’s branding (and indeed name) leans a little too heavily in the direction of Cupertino – black and white? Check? Heavy use of Myriad Pro? Check. For a product that only recently announced support for OS X, then the brand design inspiration is a little cheeky.

Open up the pack, and you’ll find  a Getting Started guide and the iTwin itself. At first glance, it looks like someone has glued two USB drives together at the bottom. Indeed, that’s almost exactly what has happened – except for glue, read a proprietary connector that looks a little like a fat SATA connector. iTwin is in fact a pair of USB dongles that connect snugly during initial configuration, and then pull apart easily for remote use. One side stays connected to your local computer, the other connects to your mobile computer. That’s the principle.

Previous versions of the device shipped exclusively with Windows software, although since September, both Mac and PC users have been supported with a plug and play experience. Connect the iTwin to your computer, and the device’s software will install with minimal input required from the user. Our review unit arrived without the Mac software, however. If required, Mac users can download the OS X installer from the company’s website and install manually, if required. It’s a little clunky, with a two stage process required to install the software, plus an automatic download to ensure you’re running the latest version, but donate a few minutes and the device should install without incident.

Once installed, the iTwin may need to be disconnected and re-connected to restart the device, after which it can be configured.

You’ll be asked to set a name for your iTwin Pair, and importantly, a code with which you can disable the connection – handy if you lose one of the iTwin connectors when out and about. Registering the device with your email address will ensure the kill code is sent to you.

Using iTwin

Once configured, you’ll be presented a folder named iTwin Local Files, into which you place any file or folder that you wish to share remotely.

Detach one half of the iTwin, and connect it to your remote computer. It will automatically connect to your local computer and (after a short pause) present those files stored in the iTwin Local Files on your computer at home. No need for domain name setups, DNS configuration, port forwarding – it simply just works.

Any file you place into your respective iTwin folder whilst out on the road will then by synced back to your home computer.

File access speeds from that home computer are going to vary based on your internet connection speed at home, and of course, your remote network speed. Testing the connection over a (reasonably decent) 3G remote connection and a half meg uplink at home was not a great experience, in truth. That’s probably not the iTwin’s fault, but rather a product of the UK’s lousy Internet backbone (especially out in the villages).From plugging in the iTwin, it took about a minute for the file listing to be displayed, and about 50 seconds for a 6 Meg file to be transferred and opened. So, if you have a poor Internet connection (particularly the upload speed) then a cloud storage service like Dropbox may be a better option.

Over remote Wi-Fi however (for example, in a coffee shop or hotel guest network), iTwin works a treat – files were available within 5-10 seconds of plugging in and that same 6 Meg file was available in just 10 seconds. No quibbles on performance here.

Speeds aside, let’s be clear, the amazing this about iTwin is that it works without effort. It’s perfect for your non-geek friends and family who are looking for a remote file access solution – a couple of clicks to set up, then simply plug and play. For the security conscious, all data shared between the iTwin dongles is protected with 256-bit AES encryption, and where possible, compressed before transfer to optimise speeds. Each time the two halves of the iTwin are plugged into a computer, they create a shared random 256-bit AES key, which resides only on the two halves of the paired iTwin, and not on their host computers. Before allowing any data to be transferred, both halves of the iTwin are authenticated by iTwin’s own servers.

Manchester’s Tranquil PC this week announced the release of a new diskless edition of their Leo HS4 Home Server. According to the company, the move is a response to the dramatic rise in hard drive pricing seen across the market as a result of this year’s flooding in Thailand.

That event has seen constraints in supply, leading to significant price hikes – a spokesman from one company I spoke with this week suggested that a number of companies were taking advantage of the disaster to inflate pricing unfairly. However, the new diskless Leo HS4 edition will allow you to use hard drives you already own, rather than be forced to buy new. Hard drive supplies are expected to recover by Q1 2012.

The Leo HS4 SE is now available from £495 ex VAT (£594 inc VAT).

More: Tranquil PC

What is a USB Recovery Key?

• The USB Recovery Key is used to jump start your Client PC and point it to a backup stored on Windows Home Server.

What will you need?

• Windows Home Server 2011
• Client PC with WHS 2011 connector software installed
• 512MB USB Flash Drive

1. Log on to the Windows Home Server Dashboard and select the Computers and Backup tab.

   

2. Select the Additional Client Computer Backup Tasks link on the right side of the screen.

   

3. Select the Tools tab, then Select Create Key, and OK.

   
   

4. Insert a 512MB or bigger USB flash drive into the server and then click next to launch the Computer Recovery Key wizard.

   
   

5. Now select the USB flash drive and check the box – Note all the data on the flash drive will be erased and select Next.

   
   

6. It will take a few minutes to complete the USB Recovery key, so be patient.

   
   

Raxco Software today announced the immediate availability of the latest release of their Disk Defragmentation software, PerfectDisk 12.

As previously revealed here at WGS, the company have extended their support for Windows Home Server with separate releases for both WHS v1 and a 64-bit edition for Windows Home Server 2011 – both Home Server products are part of a vast array of platform releases, with versions including PerfectDisk 12 Home Premium, PerfectDisk 12 Home Server, PerfectDisk 12 Professional, PerfectDisk 12 Professional for Networks, PerfectDisk 12 Server, PerfectDisk12 Exchange, PerfectDisk 12 Hyper-V, PerfectDisk 12 vSphere, PerfectDisk 12 VMware Workstation, and PerfectDisk 12 Enterprise Console.

A variety of new and improved features ship with PD12, including:

• New OptiWrite™ technology prevents most fragmentation on your drive before it occurs by detecting when Windows is going to fragment files and intelligently redirects I/O so that most fragmentation does not occur. It is the only technology available today that can minimize free space fragmentation while preventing file fragmentation.
  
• Exclusive StealthPatrol™ tab is used to set automatic fragmentation prevention and optimize your system when it isn’t busy. Users can select the desired automation settings in one location and PerfectDisk 12 will run in the background to keep all drives optimized and running at peak performance.
• Improved SSD optimization that specifically focuses on free space consolidation without defragmentation of files to improve write performance.  SSD optimization is included free of charge in all editions of PerfectDisk 12.
• Enhanced capabilities to optimize virtualized environments through auto detection and configuration of PerfectDisk based on virtual hard drive type including thin provisioned drives, linked clones and non-persistent drives.
  
• New Short Stroke method improves optimization speed and support for thin provisioned drives.
• New Zero Fill Free Space capability to assist with migration from physical to virtual environments, shrinking virtual drives and the recovery of valuable disk space.
• Enhanced scheduling that provides the world’s most flexible scheduling options according to a user’s or businesses’ unique requirements.

PerfectDisk 12 Home Server is available from $39.99 for a single license ($19.99 upgrade), with a variety of client/server bundles also on offer. A free 30 day trial can also be downloaded from the company’s website.

Jim’s had the application on test this week, and will be sharing his thoughts with a full review. In the meantime, look out for a WGS competition later today in which we’ll be giving away FIVE copes of PerfectDisk 12 Home Server.

More: PerfectDisk 12 Home Server

Diskeeper Corporation have announced the availability of their all-new disk defragmentation software, Diskeeper 2011 Home Server. According to the company, the software optimizes performance from streaming media and provides faster access to shared files and folders once drives have been defragmented. Diskeeper claim the product can extend the life of a home server by up to 3 years.

The latest edition of the application for Windows Home Server ships with a number of enhancements over last year’s release, including a new “just in time” instant defragmentation feature which is claimed to work within milliseconds of fragmentation occurring, improved automatic background processing, a new free space consolidation engine and more.

Diskeeper 2011 Home Server is shipping now for $59.95. A free 30 day trial edition is also available.

More: Diskeeper 2011 Home Server

Covecube continue to push out new beta releases of their forthcoming disk management add-in for Windows Home Server v1, Stablebit Scanner.

StableBit Scanner is an advanced hard drive scanning and monitoring tool for Windows Home Server v1. It monitors all hard drives in your home server looking for damage then analyses and retrieves files from the damaged sectors of the disk.

StableBit Scanner reads and monitors the on-disk Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology data in order to predict disk failure. StableBit Scanner tries very hard to get at the S.M.A.R.T. data, it asks the Operating System, it asks the disk directly by issuing commands to it, and it talks to USB bridge chips in order to get direct access to drives behind USB enclosures. If S.M.A.R.T. detects disk failure, you are notified immediately.

StableBit Scanner is designed not to interfere with any other disk access. If another application starts accessing the disk, or if you start copying a file over the network that is coming from the disk being scanned, StableBit Scanner will suspend the current scan operation and wait for the disk to become free.

Features:

• Hard Drive Monitoring
• File Aware Scanner
• Scan throttling
• Disk overheat protection
• Reading and analysis of SMART data
• Perpetual, scheduled and manual scanning available

Since the first release earlier this month, the developers have released a number of updates to improve stability of the add-in and zap emerging bugs.

Changes are as follows:

v1.0.0.2472

• Fixed a bug where if you opened the StableBit Scanner settings before opening the main tab it would appear as if your license was not found.

v1.0.0.2467

• Remove service dependency on WHS Backup Service.
• Corrected a problem with service not starting properly if it can’t retrieve all the USB hardware IDs.
• Added more detailed error reporting for Paul’s bug.

v1.0.0.2462

• A corrupt user config file would prevent the client from connecting to the service.
• Any corruption to the user config file will not prevent the console from connecting to the service. Note that this is not the file that stores user settings, but an internal file used to store connection state information.

v1.0.0.2443

• In Settings, hours are now formatted 00-23 for places without AM/PM designators.

v1.0.0.2439

• Fixed service connection issues for non-english systems.
• Fixed performance graph drawing artifact.

v1.0.0.2416

• Tweaked internal error reporting structures.
• Fixed a bug where if while scanning, you made a change to the settings, that would need to stop the current scan, the scanner would freeze momentarily and abort all the current scans, loosing the progress it had made.

Download: Stablebit Scanner | Rate this add-in

Experience Level: Medium

StableBit Scanner is an advanced hard drive scanning and monitoring tool for Windows Home Server v1, Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. It monitors all hard drives in your home server looking for damage then analyses and retrieves files from the damaged sectors of the disk.

StableBit Scanner reads and monitors the on-disk Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology data in order to predict disk failure. StableBit Scanner tries very hard to get at the S.M.A.R.T. data, it asks the Operating System, it asks the disk directly by issuing commands to it, and it talks to USB bridge chips in order to get direct access to drives behind USB enclosures. If S.M.A.R.T. detects disk failure, you are notified immediately.

StableBit Scanner is designed not to interfere with any other disk access. If another application starts accessing the disk, or if you start copying a file over the network that is coming from the disk being scanned, StableBit Scanner will suspend the current scan operation and wait for the disk to become free.

Features:

• Hard Drive Monitoring
• File Aware Scanner
• Scan throttling
• Disk overheat protection
• Reading and analysis of SMART data
• Perpetual, scheduled and manual scanning available

Developer: Covecube Inc.

Download: Stablebit Scanner (WHS 2011) | Stablebit Scanner (WHS v1)

Release History

v2.0.0.1261 BETA

• Added per-disk settings. These settings are stored in the Scanner’s store and are associated with a particular disk. They are not stored on the disk itself.
• Give your disks a custom name.
• Disable SMART.
• Disable Direct I/O.
• Added option to “ignore” SMART warnings. Ignore is intelligent, where it will re-issue the warning if any of the problem attributes change. There is also the option to permanently ignore all SMART warnings on a per-disk basis. To access this feature, a new button will become available on the SMART dialog when you have SMART warnings issued for a disk.

v2.0.0.1020 Beta

• Added disk control dialog.
• Automatic acoustic management (AAM).
• Added SCT support.
• Current temperature.
• Life maximum / minimum.
• Manufacturer recommended maximum / minumum limit.
• Temperature sample history, as recorded by drive.
• User can change sample interval (this is on the drive itself).

v2.0.0.939 Beta

• Support for Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
• Automatic updating uses the built-in WSS add-in update mechanism.
• Supports all the features from 1.0, except file recovery (coming soon).
• The WSS Dashboard interface was written from scratch using WPF.
• The entire back-end was ported from 1.0 to work on Windows Server 2008 R2.
• First public BETA.

v1.0.4.2590

• Added confing option for maximum number of trace lines to log on error report
• Fixed rare access violation in native code handler.
• Fixed insane bytes per sector value on one particular USB enclosure (based on auto error report).
• Fixed omni-store tree node delete.

v1.0.2.2542

• Fixed issue with sector map not re-drawing.
• Updated SMART attribute formats / warnings to bring it in sync with the latest BitFlock.com (Cloud).
• Fixed deadlock that could potentially lock up the service in some rare cases (and by proxy the console if user tries to interact with the service).

v1.0.1.2530

• On fresh install, cloud integration dialog should be shown right after licensing.
• Keep at most 20 error reports saved at all times.
• Only show UI error dialog if the error actually came from us.
• Prior to this, the StableBit Scanner would show the error dialog no matter which add-in crashed the console. This will reduce false positives.
• Errors from client-service synchronization will not crash the console. This had the potential of crashing the console while disk removal was in progress.
• WHS Missing disks will be reported as missing.

v1.0.0.2490

• Archive disks running low on space will no longer be reported as damaged. WHS APIs return “FAILING” in this case.

v1.0.0.2488

• Activation ID will update instantly.
• Trial extension will be offered for beta trial -> release trial.

Diskeeper Corporation are at CES this week talking about their plans for the forthcoming Diskeeeper 2011, which is due in the first quarter of this year.

Not a lot is known about the release, but the company are teasing a new feature called Instant Defrag, a new defragmentation engine that will “immediately eliminate defragmentation”. In an announcement today, the company said:

Diskeeper 2011 intelligently monitors newly created fragments and then runs Instant Defrag to remove the fragmentation that is degrading system performance. Rather than waiting for fragmentation to build up, Instant Defrag provides uninterrupted peak system performance and reliability.

We’re hoping to chat more with Diskeeeper tomorrow evening about what’s coming in the latest version of their application. As soon as we know, so will you.

We can expect to see a lot of new streaming media devices here at CES this week, and whilst the headlines may well go to the consumer electronics brands bringing these devices to market, the storage manufacturers are themselves gearing up for this year’s push into the lounge.

Hitachi yesterday announced two new hard drives specifically designed for set top box form factors in the shape of the 3.5-inch CinemaStar 5K2000 and 2.5-inch CinemaStar C5K750 families. The desktop model ships in 2TB and 1.5TB capacities, with the smaller model available in 750GB, 640GB, and 500GB configurations.

Both drives feature low power consumption, and boast proprietary media features which optimise streaming of music and video whilst minimising drive noise. You can expect to see both drives popping up in media receivers and set top boxes near you in 2011.

More: Hitachi