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Single Share? RRS feed

  • Question

  • Right now, I am doing the obvious: different shares for different functional areas.

     

    e.g.

     

    • Photos
    • Dev
    • Music
    • RecordedTV
    • DVDs

     

    and so-on....

    But when I want to validate my backups against my backup server, the comparison utility I use has to be run once for each share.

    I'm thinking just one share: "Data" and within that share folders with the same functional names as above.

    That way, the compare utility can be pointed at the single share and validate the whole enchilada quickly and easily.

    OTOH, linking to those folders from other PCs would be just about as easy - just an extra level in the heirarchy.

    e.g. Instead of \\WshBox\Dev, we would have \\WshBox\Data\Dev

    But shares are there for a reason, and it seems like I am fighting Mother Nature by doing this.

    Does anybody see a fallacy in this approach?

    • Edited by PeteCress Friday, December 10, 2010 4:21 PM
    Friday, December 10, 2010 12:23 AM

Answers

  • Pete, for information on how storage locations will affect your "TIVO-on-steroids" tool, please consult the ISV, as we don't support that application here (whatever it is, I don't recall if you've ever named it and it doesn't really matter) and really can't answer that question.

    Streaming: There's a decent article on streaming media on Wikipedia. It gets a little technical, but nothing you shouldn't be able to puzzle through. The core difference between streaming and simply reading a file from a file share, though, is that in a streaming scenario, the client and server negotiate a mutually agreeable protocol (which could be the native codec of the file on the server, or could involve some sort of transcoding, normally on the server), then data is sent from the server and rendered in real time by the client possibly with some (usually fairly small) amount of buffering to avoid an underrun if momentary network congestion pops up. The file, however, is never accessed directly by the client; all it gets is the media "stream".

    In a scenario where the client is reading a file from a network location, the client does directly access the file on the network share, requesting the file and moderating the data transfer itself.

    Another way of looking at it is as "push" vs. "pull". Media streaming is a "push" application: data is sent from the server to the client with the server in overall control ("Here's another packet of that data you said you wanted, and another, and another"). Standard file reads are a "pull" application, where the client is in overall control ("Give me the next block of data! More! More!").

    An example of streaming is Youtube, or Netflix on demand (both are "on demand" or "progressive" streaming, which involves client buffering), or broadcast TV ("live" streaming, even though the content is prerecorded for the most part). An example of a standard file read is Windows Media Center with a network share on a basic NAS included in a media library.


    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Marked as answer by PeteCress Monday, January 3, 2011 6:26 PM
    Friday, December 10, 2010 5:31 PM
    Moderator

All replies

  • Streaming only works from the three default shares, unless you're using a third party streaming server installed on top of Windows Home Server. And security is maintained at the share level, so you might as well turn on the Guest account with full access. :)
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Friday, December 10, 2010 1:17 AM
    Moderator
  • Technically speaking, what is "Streaming"?

    From other contexts, it seems tb something to do with reading a file whose format is one of the audio or video formats (.WMV, .MPEG...)

    But I can't figure out what is different about that process from any other where bits get pulled out of the WSH box and into a client app on another machine.

    FWIW, I use a sort of Tivo-on-steroids application that records TV shows and plays back ripped DVDs.   Runs as a service on the WSH box and feeds hardware/software clients throughout the house.   Seems to work, and "RecordedTV" AFIK is not a default share.... and neither are any of the three DVD shares I have set up.


    -- PeteCresswell
    Friday, December 10, 2010 4:26 PM
  • Pete, for information on how storage locations will affect your "TIVO-on-steroids" tool, please consult the ISV, as we don't support that application here (whatever it is, I don't recall if you've ever named it and it doesn't really matter) and really can't answer that question.

    Streaming: There's a decent article on streaming media on Wikipedia. It gets a little technical, but nothing you shouldn't be able to puzzle through. The core difference between streaming and simply reading a file from a file share, though, is that in a streaming scenario, the client and server negotiate a mutually agreeable protocol (which could be the native codec of the file on the server, or could involve some sort of transcoding, normally on the server), then data is sent from the server and rendered in real time by the client possibly with some (usually fairly small) amount of buffering to avoid an underrun if momentary network congestion pops up. The file, however, is never accessed directly by the client; all it gets is the media "stream".

    In a scenario where the client is reading a file from a network location, the client does directly access the file on the network share, requesting the file and moderating the data transfer itself.

    Another way of looking at it is as "push" vs. "pull". Media streaming is a "push" application: data is sent from the server to the client with the server in overall control ("Here's another packet of that data you said you wanted, and another, and another"). Standard file reads are a "pull" application, where the client is in overall control ("Give me the next block of data! More! More!").

    An example of streaming is Youtube, or Netflix on demand (both are "on demand" or "progressive" streaming, which involves client buffering), or broadcast TV ("live" streaming, even though the content is prerecorded for the most part). An example of a standard file read is Windows Media Center with a network share on a basic NAS included in a media library.


    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Marked as answer by PeteCress Monday, January 3, 2011 6:26 PM
    Friday, December 10, 2010 5:31 PM
    Moderator
  • Ken:
     
    Thanks for a great explanation!
     
    I personally will not miss DE (because I use a single disk system on RAID 1), and the streaming system in Vail could be the thing that causes me to upgrade.
     

    David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP
    Saturday, December 11, 2010 12:06 PM