As for the restore issue, WHS backup is cluster based. So if the highest level cluster is past the size of that SSD, it won't be able to restore to it.

IPBoard is awesome, WGS has gotten a lot less spam since the 3.x upgrade, so if you do upgrade, I recommend that package (pricy though)

And yes, I can confirm that Frys has a MSS.

A good number of people do have problems with the DEMigragor.exe and Disk IO going through the roof and lagging out streaming. No idea what triggers it.

Microsoft Security Essentials *will not* install on WHS.

As for calander sharing, Outlook supports publishing calanders to WebDAV folders … or more specifically WebFolders4WHS folders! Or I think sharepoint can…

As for A/V… is your computer connected to the internet in any way? Directly or indirectly? If yes, you should *always* install an A/V program. Period. Even if you transfer files to a disk and then to another computer, that's still a risk. Again, you should *always* use A/V on *all* computers.

Oh, it's possible for a image to be modified mid transfer (man-in-middle attacks).

CPU – Sempron 140 (Unlocked 2nd core) overclocked to 3.7ghz

Mobo – Biostar TA790GX

Drives – (6) 1.5TB Samsung Spinpoint 5400 (9tb total)

RAM – 2GB Crucial DDR 1066

With everything on idle kill-a-watt reads 60 watts, and 85 watts when in normal use.

I am pretty happy with the results from the build, and at that speed with a 2nd core the server is extremely snappy.

I thought the slow drives would also mean slow performance, but on my gigabit network, I am getting averages of 90-110MB transfer speeds with large files.

Quite impressed with WHS at the moment.

I plugged my Silent Slimmy into a Kill-A-Watt, and here are the numbers:

Amps: 1.48

Watts: 157

VA: 170

These are quick numbers, and I don't have the KWH yet. Seems like it's only using the power of two or three light bulbs (running 24/7)!

The rig is running 11 hard drives right now.

Here's the main components that I used for my build.

CPU – Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2.8GhZ

Mobo – EVGA 113-YW-E115-TR LGA 755

Power Supply – PC Power and Cooling Silencer 910W

Ram – OCZ Platinum Edition, 8GB

Raid Card – Highpoint RocketRAID 2340

I know most of the parts aren't the greatest, and some may be overkill, but I was not particular about the RAM or the Motherboard. The CPU was on sale and the Power supply was one of the best in it's class (and powering 20 hard drives requires a GOOD power supply).

DVDs: 2.9 TB (Childrens and regular movies)

Music: 769 GB

Photos: 50 GB

Software: 18 GB

Yes, I'm a digital pack rat!

Total space is 11.37 TB, 3.9 TB used and duplicated, and 3.5 TB free.

You guys were right, my hard drives are a collection of different sizes (which WHS is great for). Here's a breakdown of my hard drives: OS drive is a 500 GB. Data drives include (1) 500GB, (2) 750GB, (2) 1TB, (4) 1.5 TB, and (1) 2TB. I try to buy the hard drives when they are on sale, and I like to get the deals that equate to about 8 cents per gb.

I've come up with a name for the beast. I'm calling it the Silent Slimmy (slim-e). The name is a two parter. The first part (silent) was from when I first powered on the machine, without the massive array of fans running, it was nearly silent. The only noise was from the power supply, and it was really quiet. The second part of the name comes from you guys, and the comment about the massive case with a slim DVD ROM drive.

Has anyone actually built a WHS with a flash drive for the OS drive? I have some concerns with that. The first is the WHS is performing a lot of reads and writes to the OS drive for different things, and the flash drives defintely do have a life span with regards to that. I was wondering if a year or two down the road if it would start to degrade? Secondly, after PP1, I believe that the OS drive is no longer the dump spot for files, and that files go directly to the drive needed. I was just wondering how much actual benefit would come from this drive.

Also, Contrary to popular belief, I'm not made of money and this server was an attempt at getting a long term solution that was the most cost effective. Come on, 300 bucks for a case like that is cheap. Some gaming cases cost near that much. I'd been saving for this beast for a little over a year, and my other home build server (using old parts and old drives) was starting to die. Looking back, I probably spent more than I wanted to mainly due to my inexperience and the dang RAID Card to get that many ports. Next build will defintely include a cheaper solution. The old machine had 15 drives hooked up to it, most of them IDE 200 GB drives, and like I said, it was starting to die, just because the hard drives were old. I wanted a box that I could expand easily when hard drives got bigger and cheaper. Like I said, I have 10 open bays, ready for more drives.

My second one will be in a friend's house (he'll be paying for most of that one), and it will utilize the next version of WHS along with Live Mesh. Rumor has it that the new version will have an add-in for live mesh, and allow syncing (using P2P i believe) without using CrashPlan.