I have always wanted to build or buy a windows home server since it came out.  I had participated in the beta for a very short time but was in no big hurry to get one, especially since the pre-built ones where so expensive.  I finally took the plunge when I purchased a refurbished 500GB HP Media Smart EX470 Server at a very good price.  I had shopped around for awhile before choosing the EX470, there where definitely bigger, faster, and newer home servers out but the EX470 had many good reviews and was just what I wanted.  My requirements where pretty simple, must have multiple drive slots, needed to have a small energy foot print, at least 3 USB connections, and a gig network adapter.

So in May my adventure with my home server began. It started off bad, my refurbished server was apparently not very well refurbished, it looked great but the drive that was in it was not reset, it still had someone else password and appeared to still have content on it.  After doing a format and a reinstall I was finally up and running the next day.  After many updates I had it hooked into my home network and all 3 pc’s connected, which included my Windows 7 main pc, windows XP laptop, and other Windows XP PC. I then began tweaking/customizing the server to my needs.  This went well for a day or so then I messed something up, couldn’t figure out exactly what I did wrong but permissions started to break.  I began randomly losing access to files and folders.  I think it must have been one of the add-ons I installed and then removed, but I never figured out how I broke it.  After a day of trying to figure it out, I decide to just reformat and reinstall again, but this time I decided not to play as much with testing a lot of add-ons.  This time around things went much better.  Installed 4 add-ons ( FTP, Download Manager, and two others ), customized some IIS settings, and installed some other software on the server to make life easier. 

After this second setup thing went well for about 3 weeks, but I did have some performance issues.  So I opted for some upgrades.  I ended up upgrading from the 512mb of ram to 2 GB of ram.  An article out on Home Server Hacks made the process easy.  I also upgraded my CPU at the same time, removing the 1.8GHz AMD Sempron 3400+ and add replacing it with an 2.6GHz AMD LE-1640 Orleans, again with the help of an article at Home Server Hacks .  Both upgrades had no issues and there was a noticeable improvement to performance.  At the same time I added a 2 more 500GB HD’s, one to mirror the 500GB HD that the system came with and the other for server backups.

After almost 4 months of use I would have to say I am very satisfied with my HP EX470 Window Home Server.  There are only a few things I would do differently, first I would either build or get a Windows Home Server with onboard video, rdp is fine but sometime when you want to change network settings on the device it would be nice to be able to hook a monitor, keyboard and mouse up to it, just incase.  I would also prefer an additional USB in front, one just isn’t enough.  Overall I am very happy with my Windows Home Server and would recommend one to anyone need a home network storage system.

 

 

Over the last few weeks I have been looking for new Antivirus + Antispyware Software.  I was previously using ESET Security which included a software firewall.  Recently I started having issues with the firewall portion of ESET.  Tried for awhile to work with support to address the issue but kept getting canned responses, and since my subscription to update for ESET was expiring, it was time to move on.

What am I looking for in a Antivirus + Antispyware software? 

1. It needs to not effect my normal pc performance when playing wow or running other apps. 
2. Needs to actually remove what is finds. Had issue with ESET finding some malware and it quarantined it but wouldn't remove it. 
3. Needs to have good licensing options, plan to put it on my 2 home pc's and my 1 laptop. 

Trend Micro Antivirus + Antispyware 2009

First tried trend micro since we are moving to them at work, figured I would give it a try.  Install went fine and setup was easy, but the first initial scan took almost 3 hours.  The user interface was nicely laid out well, and was easy to understand and find setting.  Ran Trend for 4 days, it never alerted about finding anything.  Full scans where slow but I never had any issues with slow downs while running other apps.  Other than the slow full scans, it all worked well.  Licensing is an issue thou, would have to just buy 3 separate licenses at $40 a pc, no discounts for multiple licenses.

VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware 2009

Vipre seemed to have many good reviews, even thou I had issue using Sunbelt Antispyware at work,  I figured I would give it a try.  Install went smoothly and it found the left over's of my malware ESET has detected.  It was able to remove the malware, which was a nice surprise. The interface was nice looking but not functional, and was very slow even if it worked.  A full scan took about 50 minutes, which was similar to ESET.  But I soon started to have many issues with Vipre.  First when I tried to right click the tray icon and open the Vipre interface, it took forever to load the interface, 2-3 minutes of the splash screen just sitting there.  Many times it would never come up and the tray icon would disappear.  Vipre was still running in the background, just the tray part was dead.  Even after restarting sometimes the tray icon was just plain missing.  Noticed a few slow downs when loading large apps, outlook, wow, etc..  Vipre has the best licensing option of all the antivirus + Antispyware I tried, $30 and you can install it on up to 10 PCs.  But after 2 days of issue I removed it, to many issues.

BitDefender Antivirus 2009

BitDefender was a long install, and after the initial install I had to do a repair to get it to work.  Not sure what the issue was but was fixed pretty quick with a repair.  BitDefender has some unique options other didn’t, a game mode and family network protection (which basically allows you to manage multiple pc’s BitDefender settings, scans, etc.. via one pc. Bit defender has a great interface, although some of the options had little to no explanation as to what exactly they did, and many option seemed to be turned off by default.  Full scan took about 45 minutes, found nothing. The game mode appears to turn off active scanning and disable alerts from popping up.  Not sure if I would really want to turn off active scanning, even while playing a game.  But I tried game mode and had nothing but problems.  Every hour is would pop me out of the game, it wouldn’t show any pop up but the update times corresponded to my game minimizing.  Tried it with game mode turned off and it ran fine. So game mode didn’t help any.  didn’t try the family network protection, since I didn’t want this on more than one pc to test.  Licensing was a good price 3 pc’s for $30, but game mode not adding any value, I figured I would try others.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2009

Didn’t try Panda, it comes with personal firewall and I have opted to avoid a personal firewall this time. 

Norton Antivirus 2009 and McAfee Virus Scan Plus 2009

Didn’t even try Norton or McAfee, have used Norton and McAfee many times over the years, have never been a pleasant experience

CA Anti-Virus 2009

Didn’t try, read no good reviews, was always at the bottom of the list.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009

Kaspersky was quick install, had no issues.  The first full scan took about 1 hour but I found out that Kaspersky has a really cool feature that other don’t.  It looks for security vulnerabilities in out of date and non-patch software.  It only found a few issues, flash out of date, Firefox out of date, and  a few others but this was a very welcome surprise.  The interface is pretty straight forward and some of the logging and reporting is full of information but can be a little tricky to navigate.  Everything seems to work quickly thou and the overall user interface could be a little prettier, but a working interface is good.  Licensing is higher then others but still cheaper than buy 3 copies of other software.  Licensing for 3 pc’s is $70. 

Winner: Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009

If there are any other Antivirus + Antispyware Software you think I should try please leave a comment and I may give it a try.

 

I put almost everything on my amazon.com wish list and updated it every few weeks, things come and go but some items have been on there for years.