Maximum PC

So MS is dropping drive extender support from WHS!!!! Why because they want to market the product to small business. Why are you trying to turn a Home product into a business product, and in the process taking away a feature? Sell them SBS (Small Business Server) and leave WHS (Windows Home Server) to the home crowd.

Link

Yeah, I'm not too happy about that, either.
I had planned on possibly replacing my existing DC (running Server 2k8 R2) and my current WHS v1 box with a single Aurora box. I would have got a better WHS, and lower power usage (the current WHS is rather old hardware....) It would have been worth rebuilding my wee little domain.
But, now? What's the point? If I want duplication, I need to run a RAID array? DE is/was so simple to manage.....

If it was a problem running applications from it, then recommend what was recommended before (with WHS v1): install apps to a separate, non-pool drive. Not hard.

I'll post it here, so that more can vote on it:
https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHo ... ck-to-vail
(note: you'll need to sign in with a Windows Live ID, and may need to join the WHS Vail Connect program - not hard - to vote & post.)

Yeah apparently the folks over at Anand and other sites are flabbergasted. I found this tidbit over on Fudzilla. It appears that MS had this to say about their reasoning:


One wonders who they are polling?

I thought drive extender was only in WHS and not the other products. I think it is perfect for the home market. I don't think they are listening to their users, they must have polled the team that didn't like the feature I guess.

^ ^ ^ Essentialy correct - but, with a few gotchas (of course.)
Most WHS users are (and always have been) happy with DE, even as implemented in v1 ('file conflicts' when files are open bug notwithstanding.) There is a small, small minority of current WHS users who are not happy with how DE works (those users have multi-terabyte storage pools (usually >10TB), that require an incredible amount of available free space in order to replace a failing drive.) Small user pool, yes - but, they're quite vocal.

Gotcha #2: the Server team decided that Vail, Aurora (SBS 2011 Essentials), and Storage Server 2011 would all be built off of Server 2k8R2 (which makes sense), and would all be, basically, three variations of the same theme; as such, all would have the same core featureset (which includes DE.) From what the team has (publicly) said, the SMB market (which doesn't even really exist yet - these are entirely new product lines; their 'market' has benn running but a beta release) didn't like DE (has issues with running, say, shared & database apps from the storage pool, among other SMB-specific issues.) Of course, one could always run said apps from a non-Pool drive....
So, because that was an issue, and they're all the same base code, DE was removed. So they say. I can't say that I agree with it; definitely not happy about it. Really wanted to upgrade to Vail (if not migrate everything at home to a 'new' Aurora-controlled domain.)

As of this post, there are 3,171 'up' votes at Connect to put DE back in, and only 39 'down' votes. And, I have yet to see a single post there praising the removal of DE.
Hopefully,the powers-that-0be actually listen to the Voice of the People on this.