Comments on: Combine Live Mesh, Windows Home Server for a Personal Cloud

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:22:06 +0000

So I have decided that I need to use a different solution since I don’t want to corrupt my data. Anyone know of an automatic sync solution that works with WHS?

By: Rogerio Altmeyer

Rogerio Altmeyer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:11:31 +0000

Live Mesh cannot sync with a network drive!
Right, this limitation is (“I THINK”) because it use NTFS flags to control the sync.

Rogerio.

By: Rogerio Altmeyer

Rogerio Altmeyer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:07:54 +0000

Greg,

I already tried Mesh using a UNC, but it doesnt work…

You told: “but all of the folders in the D drive are the same size as the shares directory”.. Look my case:

I have a WHServer with 4 500Gb disks, On the WHS Console, Server Storage tab, the pie show me this:

Total Size: 1.82Tb
Free Space: 410Gb

when I click on properties of D partition on windows explorer, it show my this:

Used Space: 35Gb
Free Space: 410Gb
Capacity: 445Gb (capatity of D partition)

Capacity is for the D partition, and it is right, but free space is fake, changed by Drive Extended.

If I try to see the properties of D:share folder, windows explorer will show me the total occupied for all drives.

So, the files (or thumbstones) of D drive show the exact same size of real files, but it is fake.

Rogerio.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:32:11 +0000

Lame, live mesh cannot sync to a network drive.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:28:45 +0000

Does anyone know why you couldn’t just map a network drive to the UNC path, then sync mesh to that mapped drive? That seems like it may work since it would be using the path then right?

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:25:42 +0000

So just to be safe I turned off the mesh on the server until I can make sure it isn’t going to corrupt stuff.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:07:05 +0000

Yeah I remember reading about how you are supposed to access files using the shares area, but all of the folders in the D drive are the same size as the shares directory. Might need to look into this a bit more. Seems to be working though thus far.

By: Rogerio Altmeyer

Rogerio Altmeyer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:29:44 +0000

Helo again,

When you have a WHS machine with more than one HardDrive, Drive Extender service will create tombstones for your files on D: partition that points to real file on other fisical HardDrives.

The problem is: Mesh cant follow these tombstones (on D: partition) to the real files, and your sync files on Mesh Live Folder and other machines will be lost/corrupted over the time.

The only secure way to access the files on a WHServer, even local, is using UNC (\serversharedFolder). This will acess the files using WHS Drive Extender to follow the tombstones.

Windows Home Server Technical Brief for Drive Extender document:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=40C6C9CC-B85F-45FE-8C5C-F103C894A5E2&displaylang=en

Last year, the Microsoft guys made a technical previa for WHS and Live Mesh working together, but I cound´t find a public beta yet:
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/10/30/windows-home-server-and-live-mesh-technology-demonstration.aspx

Im using a personal cloud using “super flexible file sincronizer”, if someone want to try I can explain how to do.

Rogerio

By: Aung

Aung — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:42:43 +0000

Just an idea. I use WHS and MS Groove together. All my WIP files goes under the Groove folder on my WHS. Groove syncs up to 2GB of data across different computers. For me, that’s my laptop, office desktop and WHS. All my home computers have access to WHS, since they are on the same network. For non-WIP files, I use the WHS web access. This setup works well for me most of the time with some issues. The laptop doesn’t sync too well because, I shut it off after I use it. And Groove doesn’t work with 64-bit stuff.

By: Rogerio

Rogerio — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:44:21 +0000

Don´t try this on a Home Server with more than one harddrive, your files will corrupt because WHS only supports access to the shared folders via network, like \whsservermusic, never try to use d:sharemusic

I tried Mesh using shared folder, but the actual version does’nt work with.