TR Forums

Before I install WHS, I thought I should ask which would be the better Small Office/Home Office OS. I can always return the WHS as I haven't opened it yet.

If you guys don't mind, would you give a reason for your choice.

Thanks.

Lex.

PS: As I have put in my previous topic, this will be used for hosting CAD files, backups and access from outside locations for continuous working.

Win HomeServer is optimized for hosting files for SOHO, whereas Win7 is really optimized as a desktop OS. In this age of highly customizable O/S and software, you could probably make either OS do what you want, though HomeServer would probably be better "out of the box"

Another option is FreeNAS (which is based on FreeBSD, a unix flavor) which has some great features with a great price (free)

FreeNas or my preference is Ubuntu+webmin headless. To me its much more stable, not constantly updating and can run on much less hardware and it costs nothing except a little bit of bandwidth to download the ISO's.

**Just saw the update with the CAD files. Go WHS not Windows 7. How many clients computers are you connecting to because WHS because WHS has a limit of 10.

3 clients in total.

A desktop and two laptops - but only one laptop connecting through remote access.

AutoCAD is installed on all 3 machines separately already, so this is really a centralization of files and making the accessible by a network instead of swapping between machines using USB sticks.

check out openfiler its a free linux distro with a lot of options. but if you go that route you'd have to configure remote access through your firewall

Given: Use WHS or Win7 to facilitate file shares and nightly/daily backups, possible remote access and other needs as they occur.

If that is the problem's set of constraints, then I vote WHS.
My vote is informed by use of WHS 2008 or v1 or whatever they are calling the "original" Windows Home Server. I played with and discarded the WHS 2011 beta because I am in love with drive extender.

Given a wider range of options, I would ask if there are other considerations. For example, are you a competent Linux admin? If you are, then a broader range of products might appeal. If you are a Windows guy, then I say go with WHS and don't look back.