Features comparison across Windows Home Server 2011, Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

[tinkererguy]

I find this table from early March 2011 helpful, to compare features:

http://www.sbsfaq.com/?tag=windows-home-server-2011

anybody found any better and/or newer table?

Edited April 5, 2011 by tinkererguy

[timekills]

I find this table from early March 2011 helpful, to compare features:

http://www.sbsfaq.com/?tag=windows-home-server-2011

anybody found any better and/or newer table?

 

Hyper-V Guest: SBS 2011 Essentials - Yes, WHS 2011 - Not supported

 

Ehh?

[edamiga1]

So what is the downside of going to SBS instead of WHS? Is there anything that WHS has that SBS does not?

[pcdoc]

I believe media streaming

[Guest no-control]

This chart contains all kinds of wrong

 

1. SBS2011e is a standalone product
2. WHS2011 can be a member server in a domain > I stand corrected it cannot
3. Both SBS & WHS have additional roles that can be installed. (says not supported, but come on really?)
4. WHS2011 Hyper-v Guest not supported....really? Many of us ran it without issue

While I can debate on media sharing actually being useful or not in WHS2011 (really limited).

 

I will say I prefer the users folder in SBS2011e over the more exploded (my docs, music, blah blah blah) of WHS2011.

 

The downside (depending if you're an SA or not) to SBS2011e is the mandatory Domain Controller & Active Directory

Edited May 15, 2011 by no-control

[wddn]

If you run a multimedia network in your home (like me), and you would like to share multimedia data within seperate Windows Media Center HTPCs, then you have two basic options, which are dependent on your server.

 

WHS2011 integration within a multimedia network is realized with Homegroups, whereas SBSE2011 is integrated in a multimedia environment with folder redirection via GPO.

 

I currently use SBS2008 with folder redirection and it runs quite smooth, that means the content of the video folder on the server shows up within the video folder in my media center PC's, as well as music, pictures, ...

 

But I will probably switch to WHS2011! Why? Within a server/client setup, the server must be running. If it's down - Shit. Also I'm not 100% happy with response times via LAN, due to the fact that everything is routed via my server.

 

I'm only running Windows 7 clients and I do not necessarily need the additional value of GPOs - therefore WHS2011 seems to be the right option. If you are going to manage your network via GPOs with probably W7, Vista, XP, SBSE should be the right choice.

[tinkererguy]

I find this table from early March 2011 helpful, to compare features:

http://www.sbsfaq.com/?tag=windows-home-server-2011

anybody found any better and/or newer table?

 

So, the wrongness of this table has been revealed, this is good!

Has anybody located a better one yet?

[Guest no-control]

I stand corrected you cannot add WHS to a Domain.

[Andne]

Looking at that chart, I wonder if you could maybe get the best of both worlds by using SBS-E and WSS-E together. The chart claims that Storage Server has media streaming (though I doubt it has homegroups, least not when domain joined), so maybe I could use SBS to manage the majority of my computers, and then use storage server to manage a media collection and host the media streaming functionality that WHS normal has. I don't care about media streaming through remote web access, since I don't have a fast enough internet connection to make use of that anyways. Since I want the domain controls, my solution so far has been to host SBS-E on my microserver, and then have a media center that provides streaming and homegroup functionality to the computers that I don't care as much about (media center, xbox, netbook). Unfortunately, the computers that are part of the domain don't get very good access to the shares on the media center when doing this, so it hasn't really worked so well. They can see the media center, but authentication has proven to be a slight challenge. Also, I found out that a computer can't be both joined to a domain controller on a network and access homegroup functions on that same network. Now if I could just figure out how to get a copy of Storage Server Essentials... Unfortunately it looks like it's not going to be available on technet.

[Guest no-control]

IMO after looking at both packages (whs2011 and sbs2011) I wouldn't use either one if I needed media functionality and active directory. I would just use WS2008R2 and be done it'll work as both a DC and media server. especially if you have technet.

 

They really screwed both of these 1 is restricted completely to workgroups. Which is a total pain in the ass to admin. The lack of roaming profiles is what really hurts the most. The other one forces itself to be the a DC and from what I can tell it HAS to be the parent. I'm not even sure if you add a child DC if the GPOs will propagate like they would in a normal single forest setup. On the surface SBSe looks like it wants to be the only authoritive server on the network.