I recently gave in and bought a Windows Home Server. Specifically, I bought the HP EX485 MediaSmart Server from newegg.com.  Overall, I have been nothing but satisfied.  Although it was cheaper to buy a second 750GB hard drive instead of the other HP MediaSmart Server (the only difference was the number of hard drives).  Newegg also provided free shipping, which definitely helped because the server weighed 16 lbs.  Anyway, I decided to finally implement a backup solution beyond my hope and a prayer.

First, I copied all my files, which included an external hard drive with music and my laptop.  I now had everything on 1 hard drive in the media server.  The media server then performs folder duplication to the other hard drive, so now I have a sudo-raid-1.  In addition, my server can wake the laptops overnight and backup the hard drives (haven't started that piece yet).  But now that I have everything protected in my apartment, there is just two more steps: backup to USB hard drives then sneakernet to an off-site location.

I found a website that described exactly what I wanted.  I liked everything except I am using USB hard drives, which were my previous backup solution.  So I had to do some modifications, but basically I did the following:

Preparation Steps

1. Download TrueCrypt, Robocopy via Windows Resource Tools Kit, and my scripts OR my zip file with everything
2. Open up a remote desktop connection to your WHS server

My Everything Zip File

1. If you downloaded my zip file with everything, extract it to C:\
2. You will then have the following folder structure: C:\Backup, C:\Backup\TrueCrypt
3. Now follow the Create Encrypted Volume and Configure My Scripts sections

Install Robocopy via Windows Resource Tools Kit

1. Run the Windows Resource Tools Kit, which install everything in a directory like C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Tools Kit\Tools\
2. Copy robocopy.exe from the tools kit directory to C:\Backup

Install TrueCrypt

1. Create the following directory: C:\Backup and C:\Backup\TrueCrypt
2. Run the TrueCrypt installer and extract it to C:\Backup\TrueCrypt

Create Encrypted Volume

1. Navigate to C:\Backup\TrueCrypt
2. Plug-in your external USB hard drive
3. If you haven't already, format the external USB hard drive
4. Double-click on TrueCrypt.exe
5. Click Create Volume
6. Make sure the Create an Encrypted File Container is selected then click Next
7. Make sure Standard TrueCrypt Volume is selected then click Next
8. Click Select File
9. Browse to your USB External Hard Drive.  Mine is the E:\
10. Enter Backup.raw or any filename will do, but you will have to change that in your scripts if you don't use Backup.raw
11. Click Save
12. Leave all the defaults and click Next
13. You can leave the defaults for the encryption, but I set mine to AES encryption algorithm and SHA-512 hash algorithm
14. Enter the size of your file container (this is the permanent size and it cannot be bigger than the external hard drive disk size)
15. Click Next
16. Enter the password for the encryption (you will need to change this in the scripts) and click Next
17. Click Yes if it asks you about the password being to short
18. Click Yes if you are going to have file sizes larger than 4 GB and click Next
19. Move your mouse around a bit (see the dialog box's instructions)
20. Click Format and you might have to wait awhile depending on the container size (111GB = 60 minutes for me)
21. After it is finished, click OK on the prompt and then click Exit

Configure My Scripts

1. If you did not use my everything zip file, then download my scripts and extract them to C:\Backup
2. Edit the BackupShares.bat in Notepad
3. Change the volume variable to the absolute path of the encrypted volume you created in the Create Encrypted Volume section step 10
4. Change the destDriveLetter variable to another letter if T is already in use
5. Change the password variable to the password of the encrypted volume you created in the Create Encrypted Volume section step 17
6. Everything should be set
7. Before you run the BackupShares.bat, make sure you have another backup of your shares or you have tested your modified scripts on another server. (I am not responsible of any data loss or damages.  Use at your own risk!)
8. After you've verified and completed step 7, run the BackupShares.bat, which should take a good bit of time depending on how much data you have.  However, after you run the scripts the first time, subsequent backups will be quicker.

I will have more adventures later, so stay tuned.  Thanks again to Home Automation Direct for their great how-to.

I haven't disappeared.  I have just been really, really busy.  I have also been working on another portion of my website (a small little playground).  Hence, my previous post about stopping the inheritance of web.config's.  Anyway, I will have an update once work slows down a bit.  Developing all day definitely takes a lot out of you.

Creating my own theme was going pretty well, but I am not much of a designer.  I am more of a programmer; therefore, I stopped and choose my favorite theme  in the recently released Theme Pack.  So in the recent weeks expect new programming items and modifications to this theme.  First, I need to remove that flower in the upper-left.

After about 6 hours, I have a very nice looking website.  I still have some more updates before I can submit the theme, but it is getting there.  Most of my time was spent debugging my issues with the Syntax Highlighter.  Most of the errors were my own fault, but BlogEngine.Net and  jQuery sometimes doesn't play nice together especially with paths.  In addition, I added faviconizing script, but I do not know how much of a fan I am of it.  Either way, this is a great start.  In addition, my old website has been replaced because I was confident in this update and path issues.

I added some minor updates to some images (opml and rss icons).  In addition, I have added some people to my blogroll: Bill and Scott.  In addition, I have added some styling to the recent posts and comments widgets.  However, I do not have those widgets displayed.  Once I am complete with the theme (aka skin everything), I plan on posting it to BlogEngine.Net and hopefully get it included in the theme pack.  Then I will heavily modify the code behind because there are a number of annoyances:

• RecentComments and RecentPosts - both need a space
• Change the output of some of the widgets
• Move the rss links around

Until next time.