Whats are Pro and Cons connecting a external hardisk to wireless router

[htismaqe]

I am not "advocating" anything.

I am stating a known fact about current Windows Operating Systems.

Not my fault that Microsoft made their software like that.

Microsoft's software has the ability extend the 30-day grace period to 120 days by design.

Circumventing that and using an evaluation copy beyond that 120-day window is a violation of the MS EULA and probably shouldn't be discussed anymore here because it's illegal.

 

[speedingcheetah]

Microsoft's software has the ability extend the 30-day grace period to 120 days by design.

Circumventing that and using an evaluation copy beyond that 120-day window is a violation of the MS EULA and probably shouldn't be discussed anymore here because it's illegal.

I never said anything about circumventing anything.

Regardless of what the EULA says, (no one, especially average consumers, ever reads those long and jargon filled things anyway) The product still works. If Microsoft was serious about it, they would then have their software disable itself after trial expires....just like many other software does.

Legally, as far as EULA and use past grace period....it is a gray area, when it comes to actual prosecution in a court of law . It falls on the user as they are the ones to see the messages about activation etc. They may have a licensed copy, but lost the key and or disk, done a system refresh...etc..

Even legally owned and licensed copies of Windows will sometimes require re-activation and may fail. The average user may not care, they just see that their Word and email or what ever works and thats all they care about. I have gotten several machines where I work where the user never bothered to activate/re-activate or had no idea about it....and they have been using it for years. Some people see those messages and think its a virus...lol.

Average people don't know or often even care about drivers and activation and how the computer actually works....the just want it to work.

(You can still drive a car without a license...but is it a good idea...or legal to do so....no...of course not)

Now, yes, it is 100% illegal to circumvent activation by using an activator or extender as that modifies the software. That is completely different and I am not referring to such activities at all, nor should any implication of such activities be implied.

If Microsoft used security technologies like what is in Adobe products(and some others), their would be a huge decrease in illegal/pirated...etc versions of Windows. But MS have openly said they won't do that because it can cause user more issues. They had many folks who were completely legit and ordinary users locked out of thier computer thanks to XP's lock out feature.

So, they purposely made it so that their OS is functional after the trial expires. They just made it...less customizable. I was actually surprised at how useable Win 8 is....only Metro(Modern UI) is affected....and lots of people hate that UI and don't use it anyway.

There is nothing stopping average people from just installing the os, setting a file share, then forgetting about the system for a long time....to them, it just works. They may not even have a monitor connected to it if they are using it as a simple file server.

Again, I am not advocating or saying people should use software past the trial. I am just stating known and accepted facts about the matter and design of the software from my experience over the years from both work and personal use, and from my discussions with officials during company training. That is not illegal in any way for me to state or discuss.
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Regardless, enough on that off topic detour... back to the topic of NAS, Open Source and Linux based solutions are often better/cheaper way to go. I love my FreeNAS system. Never had a single issue with it.

As far as router based NAS goes, the Linkys WRT1900AC router is the only consumer router that comes close to dedicated NAS based transfer speeds.

I still, from a security standpoint, do not like the idea of a hard drive connected to a router 24/7, as that is the main and first gateway in and out for internet connectivity. Consumer networking equipment is not as hardened as corporate/enterprise level equipment is.

 

[remixedcat]

re-arm is officially documented and supported by Microsoft, as it's required for syspreps. OEMs use it.

 

[htismaqe]

re-arm is officially documented and supported by Microsoft, as it's required for syspreps. OEMs use it.

For an additional 120 days. Re-arming more than 3 times violates the MS EULA.

At any rate, it's not worth discussing anymore. You guys are just proving stevech's point.

 

[azazel1024]

Its completely seperate from the original discussio now, but I'd like to point out that violating a EULA is NOT illegal. It is a question of contract law/civil law.

Oh, sure, MS could sue you and they might win. It is NOT a criminal matter at all. Therefore != illegal. It is not circumventing DRM, copyright or anything like that. There is nothing in criminal law that violating a EULA is a criminal action.

Compare it to speeding versus driving without a license. Speeding is a civil matter where you can be fined. Driving without a license is specifically illegal and a criminal matter (in most/all states).

Using Windows past the trial period, IE violating the EULA, in this case would be the equivelent to speeding. Stripping the DRM from an adobe product, or using a KMS activator on windows (outside of licensing) would be the equivelent to driving without a license, an actual criminal matter (IE violating DMCA).

Just wanted to pick nits here.

 

[RMerlin]

One alternative that was IMHO killed too early is Windows Home Server. This was MS's answer to people looking for a home server. Sadly, it got neutered too quickly - just like Media Center, which was another really good idea from Microsoft.

WHS was only available to OEMs, which meant MS had to rely on their partners such as HP into pushing products to their customers. There was only a half-hearted attempt at it, so down it went.

(Personally, I would use a real NAS over a PC + WHS any day, however I do see the benefits of WHS for certain type of users.)

 

[stevech]

I think WHS failed becuause MS had to ensure it didn't erode the low end of SMB server licenses.

Then too, the kind of consumer that saw merit in a family file server were very far and few between. That niche is too small, in that if someone understands networked file sharing and how to get kids to use it and all that, then they get frustrated at fiddling with it. Home NAS users don't get frustrated because it's a hobby/geek thing to do instead of going to the bar.

Media Center has/had some similarities. Mostly troubled by apathy at MS on promoting it to make money, against Roku et al. I think hindsight will say that Media Center was simply ahead of its time.

MS dumped MS Money too. A good and popular program, with virtually no support costs. Quicken is the only choice now, unless you do it on-line and put full faith in that provider in protecting your passwords for all your banks and brokers. Me: Not.

 

[Asmodian]

I think Home Server might have been ahead of its time too but we will have to see how well the cloud replaces the need. Big business seems to think the cloud is the future but they might be in it for the data. Also one can run a decent small server type thing on desktop Windows. Geeks should use Linux for server needs.

 

[RMerlin]

MS dumped MS Money too. A good and popular program, with virtually no support costs. Quicken is the only choice now, unless you do it on-line and put full faith in that provider in protecting your passwords for all your banks and brokers. Me: Not.

Call me hardcore, but I mostly use Gnucash personally Has some learning curve associated to it, but it gave me an occasion to learn about some basic financial concepts I didn't have before.

Media Center was definitely ahead of its time. Plex and XBMC mostly replaced it these days (if you don't take into account embedded devices such as WDTV or Roku, or the fact that even QNap's NAS now have an HDMI output and can run XBMC).

 

[stevech]

I think Home Server might have been ahead of its time too but we will have to see how well the cloud replaces the need. Big business seems to think the cloud is the future but they might be in it for the data. Also one can run a decent small server type thing on desktop Windows. Geeks should use Linux for server needs.

My Fortune 500 ex-employer would not trust any of its internal info, much less project / customer info, on a cloud server. Some might put HR info there since they outsource HR/benefits and have little control on what they do with that employee info. But core business info? Not.

MS Media Center: I used Sage TV for many years. Better than YourCableCo box, better than Tivo. Alas, Google acquired Sage and stirred it into the M&A soup.

Also one can run a decent small server type thing on desktop Windows.

I know no one in my family and all but 1 or 2 friends that could do so. They aren't stupid; just want computers to be like toasters. MS HomeServer tried.

 

[htismaqe]

My Fortune 500 ex-employer would not trust any of its internal info, much less project / customer info, on a cloud server. Some might put HR info there since they outsource HR/benefits and have little control on what they do with that employee info. But core business info? Not.

Public cloud, certainly. However, there are many Fortune 100 companies out there using private cloud services. The focus is largely on QA/dev since those are servers that often need to be spun up and down quickly. However, more and more companies are putting ERP, CRM, and similar packages into private cloud services.

 

[azazel1024]

My Fortune 500 ex-employer would not trust any of its internal info, much less project / customer info, on a cloud server. Some might put HR info there since they outsource HR/benefits and have little control on what they do with that employee info. But core business info? Not.

MS Media Center: I used Sage TV for many years. Better than YourCableCo box, better than Tivo. Alas, Google acquired Sage and stirred it into the M&A soup.

I know no one in my family and all but 1 or 2 friends that could do so. They aren't stupid; just want computers to be like toasters. MS HomeServer tried.

Agreed. Well except the family part. My brother runs a large number of Ubuntu and other flavors of Linux boxes, including dedicated PFSense box, his own NPT time server (Raspberry Pi) and a couple of file servers. My father runs OSX Server on a Mac Mini. In large part because it was very easy to setup.

All my other friends and family members either rely on the three of us...or in general, they want an appliance. A very, very easy to use appliance. I have faith that my kids will grow up building their own servers. Or at least I can hope.

I do like the fact the 8.1 (and 8) did end up inheriting a few things from WHS, like storage spaces...which granted, isn't perfect and I don't currently use it, but it is a nice to have if you don't have hardware that supports it (and want to be in a windows environment, so you aren't using things like Linux Soft RAID solutions. A non-native Windows soft RAID solution has kind of been lacking).

It would be nice if MS could add in a few things like device management and maybe even very basic domain and domain management in to stock windows, or bring back WHS in some form with that sort of thing. I don't necessarily NEED to have it, but it would be a nice to have. Especially with the slow proliferation of Windows tablets and also Windows phone, a built in method of central management of these devices (back-ups, access controls, updates, etc) would be very nice. I mean, crap, Apple has it with OSX server.

 

[htismaqe]

I have faith that my kids will grow up building their own servers. Or at least I can hope.

Hehe, my kids watch my DIY efforts, whether it's routers, fish tanks, lawn mowers, or the various other things I tinker with around here.

Hopefully they're smart enough to know that they should PAY someone who knows what they're doing rather than try to cobble something together on their own.

 

[RMerlin]

It would be nice if MS could add in a few things like device management and maybe even very basic domain and domain management in to stock windows

I remember there was some work done by MS toward this during the Longhorn development, and it turned into the Homegroup concept. It doesn't help with centralized user management, but it did simplify resource sharing at least.

 

[htismaqe]

I remember there was some work done by MS toward this during the Longhorn development, and it turned into the Homegroup concept. It doesn't help with centralized user management, but it did simplify resource sharing at least.

For peer to peer sharing between Windows machines maybe. Homegroup doesn't do anything for any of us trying to do centralized sharing and organization in a mixed OS environment. In fact, unless you're making sure to buy the correct licenses, MS is neutering the ability to do things with non-Windows network sharing.

 

[RMerlin]

For peer to peer sharing between Windows machines maybe. Homegroup doesn't do anything for any of us trying to do centralized sharing and organization in a mixed OS environment. In fact, unless you're making sure to buy the correct licenses, MS is neutering the ability to do things with non-Windows network sharing.

What will be interesting to see is if NAS manufacturers will start taking advantage of the improved domain functionality introduced with Samba 4. When properly leveraged, this could allow for a cheaper (license-wise) alternative to a Windows server.

I guess that the first step would be for Samba devs to stop making Samba into such a huge behemoth that it's no longer realistically usable in embedded devices, unless you stick with much older versions.

 

[htismaqe]

One of the reasons I prefer appliance-based NAS is the support for protocols other than Samba.

While I certainly think Samba 4 could improve things, it's still for all intents and purposes centering us on Windows networking, which for many of us isn't completely desirable.

Of course, I could also point the finger at Apple. It's their fault SMB2 on OS X Mavericks is so broken.

 

[stevech]

Homegroup doesn't do anything for any of us trying to do centralized sharing and organization in a mixed OS environment. In fact, unless you're making sure to buy the correct licenses, MS is neutering the ability to do things with non-Windows network sharing.

In my home, there is an iPad, Android HTC one smart phone, Two win 7 PCs, windows XP laptops, Synology 2 bay NAS.
On windows, I by-passed homegroup - just use ordinary SMB. MS did not make it obvious how to do this.
The devices above can all access the NAS shares. The iPad can print through the NAS' Bon Jour server for a non-Airprint printer. The Epson printer is LAN based and usable by all directly. The iPAD has a Synology app to do slide shows from the photos on the NAS. Same for music to iPad and Android and PCs.

I also tried Win 8.1, same homegroup disable. Works just like WIn 7.

So I don't fault Microsoft in this networking area. I do fault them for prohibiting sales of Win 7 retail.

So it's all pretty good. But I'm the geek here. No one in my family could do all this. Mostly because the time needed to learn or duplicate others' work is far more than these non-geeks think is prudent. I agree.

 

[azazel1024]

One of the reasons I prefer appliance-based NAS is the support for protocols other than Samba.

While I certainly think Samba 4 could improve things, it's still for all intents and purposes centering us on Windows networking, which for many of us isn't completely desirable.

Of course, I could also point the finger at Apple. It's their fault SMB2 on OS X Mavericks is so broken.

Just a correction, that is SMB, not Samba. SMB is the actual protocol (Server Message Block). Samba is a Linux utility/server module for enabling SMB on linux, not the protocol itself.

Its also sometimes called CIFS, though rarely these days. Latest and greatest version is 3.01 (win8.1/server 2013).

At least IMHO, it was easy to setup a network share in windows without home groups. You simply go in to network properties, advanced sharing settings, enable network discovery and file/print sharing. Then right click on a folder/drive you want to share, properties, sharing, advanced sharing and click the box to share the drive/folder. Done.

You connect using the profiles of the machine it is setup on.

I realize this might not necessarily be intuitive to someone who has never done it, but it is a simple google search and 10 minutes to plod through it if you've never done it before.

 

[htismaqe]

At least IMHO, it was easy to setup a network share in windows without home groups. You simply go in to network properties, advanced sharing settings, enable network discovery and file/print sharing. Then right click on a folder/drive you want to share, properties, sharing, advanced sharing and click the box to share the drive/folder. Done.

You connect using the profiles of the machine it is setup on.

I realize this might not necessarily be intuitive to someone who has never done it, but it is a simple google search and 10 minutes to plod through it if you've never done it before.

It's not that difficult to setup Windows workgroups for sharing, no. It's not really that difficult to set them up to use in a mixed OS environment, either.

It's also not necessarily going to work, whether it's a limitation of the protocol, the client OS, or whatever. There's not even networking feature parity between different Windows CALs so things like mapping drives using unique user credentials may or may not work the same (or at all) depending on what version of Windows you are using.

Again, I use OS X Mavericks in my environment. There are multiple issues with SMB on Mavericks, so using a Windows-only NAS would kill me in terms of functionality. I have to have a NAS that supports AFP, at least for right now until Apple fixes these issues.