Brian's Brain

May 15 2008 9:06AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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My Via-powered Windows Home Server NAS may have lasted a week with its noisy system fan disconnected (and in fact, it ran much longer than this), but as I suspected upfront, the lack of forced airflow through the system would shorten its lifetime. And, as I also suspected, the HDD array was the Achilles' Heel. I awoke this morning to find a 'critical health' error message awaiting me from the Windows Home Server Connector software installed on my MacBook. Last night's auto-backup attempt was unsuccessful due to a write error on one of the mirrored system HDDs.

I rebooted the NAS (which strangely came up fine) and re-attempted a (manual) backup, which failed partway through with the same error. Sigh. As the saying goes, 'that's all she (he?) wrote'. I'll be retiring this system, at least until I stick it in a power plug-equipped closet, tethered to my router over HomePlug AV, wherein a closed door will mask the din of its constant-high-RPM system fan. Intel's also sent me a WHS-based NAS review unit, which I plan to fire up after Microsoft releases the Power Pack 1 WHS patch. Stay tuned to see if Intel's box has temperature sensor-modulated system fan control. I certainly hope so ;-)