WHS Installation

The installation of WHS went as planned with no major hiccups. After WHS was installed I added the second hard drive and turned on the duplication feature so the files in my shared folders where duplicated in case one of my hard drives failed I would still have a backup copy. Now that I had WHS up and running  I added the connection software to my home PC’s.

 REMARK: Install the Home Server Connector Software from the server location  \\Server\Software\Home Server Connector this will guarantee that you have the latest version. When windows update kicks off on your server it will place the latest update in this location. The one that comes with the DVD is out of date.

Windows Server Console is the heart of Windows Home Server and where you will be doing all your administration and configuring.

Bios Setup 

There where a couple Bios tweaks that needed adjusting to maximize the health of my Server.

1. On the PC Health Status > Smart Fan Option screen change the CPU Smart Fan to 4 Pin (depending on how many pins your CPU fan has) and then press enter on the Smart Fan Calibration option to calibrate the fan.

2. On the PC Health Status screen set the Shutdown Temperature. I choose 60C (the minimum).

Software Additions

Hardware Monitor

This tool is useful for monitoring the speed of your CPU and System fan.

AMD Power Monitor Version and AMD Processor Driver

The AMD processer that I bought comes with AMD Cool’ n’ Quiet technology that helps the processer run more efficiently by running processer at a reduced clock speed and voltage, when not being used heavily. In order to enable this this technology and test that it is working you will need to install AMD Power Monitor Version 1.2.3 and AMD Processor Driver 1.3.2.0053 from AMD. You can download the utilities here.

After you install the utilities go into WHS Control Panel > Power Settings and change the Power scheme to “Server Balanced Processor Power and Performance”.

Add-Ins

Antivirus

Even though I have Antivirus on each of my home PC’s, I still wouldn’t want this Server to be without protection. If a virus slips past one of my other PC’s it’s nice to know my WHS is protected as well. I chose Avast Antivirus  mainly because it’s the only WHS antivirus solution I could find at a reasonable cost.

Windows Home Server Disk Management Add-In

This Add-in is useful because it gives you more detail about your WHS Hard Drives. You can learn more about it here.

Next… Part 4: Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Index: all posts in this series

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