http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbrown/archive/tags/Home+Server/default.aspxTags: Home Serveren-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP1 (Build: 61025.2)http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbrown/archive/2008/10/23/added-a-backup-drive-to-my-home-server.aspxThu, 23 Oct 2008 09:45:00 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9012593RobertBrown2http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbrown/comments/9012593.aspxhttp://blogs.msdn.com/robertbrown/commentrss.aspx?PostID=9012593http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbrown/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=9012593<P>Adding a hard drive to Home Server is relatively easy to do.&nbsp; I followed the simple instructions over at <A class="" href="http://www.homeserverhacks.com/2007/12/add-500-gb-hard-drive-to-your-home.html" target=_blank mce_href="http://www.homeserverhacks.com/2007/12/add-500-gb-hard-drive-to-your-home.html">Home Server Hacks</A>&nbsp;(a great site, BTW).</P> <P>This works fine if you want to add more storage to your server.&nbsp; But I already have plenty of storage (hey, the box comes with half a terabyte, which is more than I'll need for photo and music files for a very long time).&nbsp; What I really wanted to do was to use the second drive as a backup drive.&nbsp; When I selected this option in the wizard, it gave me an error telling me the drive hadn't been partitioned and that I should partition it and reboot the home server.&nbsp; Weird.&nbsp; So I ignored that advice.&nbsp; Instead I added it as a regular storage drive, and Home Server went ahead and partitioned and formatted it automatically.&nbsp; Then I clicked the "remove" option on the menu, and re-added it as a backup drive.&nbsp; This time no error.&nbsp; I guess I didn't need to reboot after all.&nbsp; No smoke coming from the back of the machine yet...</P> <P>I also switched on compression on the backup drive.&nbsp; Maybe the backups are already compressed?&nbsp; I don't know.&nbsp; I'll wait and see whether this was a good idea or not.</P> <P>The main reason I wanted a backup drive within the server is that from now on I won't be storing my files on my PCs.&nbsp; They'll be centralized on the server, so I can get them from anywhere.&nbsp; Hence the server needs to be backing itself up.</P> <P>To make it easier to use the central file server, I moved my "my documents" folder to the server.&nbsp; To do this, just right-click on your "my documents" icon and open the properties.&nbsp; Then set the target folder to be an appropriate folder on your home server (in my case <A href="file://home-server/Users/Robert">\\home-server\Users\Robert</A>).&nbsp; Windows then migrates all the files over to the new location.</P> <P>My next home server project is to use the built-in Windows VPN functionality to access the server from anywhere.&nbsp; That project's on hold since my router doesn't support VPN pass-through (so I've ordered a new one from NewEgg, since I was just looking for an excuse to get a WiFi router with better range anyway...)</P><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9012593" width="1" height="1">Home Server