FolderShare + Windows Home Server = Coolness

[Jason Dunn]

I did something kind of fun the other day: Foldershare (http://www.foldershare.com) can be installed, and works fine, on the forthcoming Windows Home Server (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx) (WHS) product. Why is this cool? Because the Windows Home Server product is designed to be always on and Internet connected, meaning it's always connected to FolderShare and ready to accept incoming file changes from a remote client.

Since it can be configured with multiple drives to hold duplicate content of all data, you end up with a great repository for your data, with an included backup beyond just each FolderShare client machine. The only somewhat non-intuitive thing you have to do to get FolderShare to sync is specify the location of the virtual folders - and in most cases that will be D:\shares\Photos (or whatever you select).

I had been thinking of Windows Home Server as being a one-trick pony, as in offering only what they wanted it to offer, but since it's really Windows Server 2003 under the hood, there's a lot more you can do it with. I'm still hoping that there will be WHS-specific software adds ons for things such as FTP, and even remote backup services. Build a cool platform, and developers will come.

[gdoerr56]

Jason,

Be careful where you tell FolderShare to reference the files. There are pretty clear warnings in the WHS documentation about writing directly to the file system that appear to deal with the way Microsoft implemented file replication.

The recommended solution is to always reference the share name (\\computername\Photos) instead of the actual folder location on the drive. I've never used FolderShare so I don't know if this will work but it would be bad to think all your files were replicated only to find out at the wrong time that they weren't. :oops:

[Jason Dunn]

Be careful where you tell FolderShare to reference the files. There are pretty clear warnings in the WHS documentation about writing directly to the file system that appear to deal with the way Microsoft implemented file replication.

Ohhhh....my. That does sound a tad bit grim! There was a lot of documentation with WHS and I certainly didn't read it all...

The recommended solution is to always reference the share name (\\computername\Photos) instead of the actual folder location on the drive.

Unfortunately, that's not possible with FolderShare - you have to use a Web-based configuration tool and then reference a drive letter and a folder.

[hallihan]

I've been using foldershare with Windows Home Server since I first installed the Beta back in February, and I have yet to see any problems that I can attribute to it. As an alternative, maybe you could map a drive letter to the shared folder, and then point Foldershare to the shared drive....{trying it now}..... Nope doesn't work. Foldershare won't let you select the network drive...

Some other things to keep in mind: Foldershare runs as a user app, so unless you're logged into the server (locally or remote desktop) your files won't sync.

Also, related to the last point, I have noticed some wierdness if I am logged in at the console and also log in via remote desktop.