In the aftermath that is HP's announcement that they will not void the warranty for those who choose to upgrade the amount system memory in the HP MediaSmart Server,  the fine folks at the Home Server Show podcast have put together a video detailing the process for doing so.

Most reports indicate that upgrading the amount of RAM to 1 GB is typically enough to ensure better performance from their home servers, most are opting to put in 2 based on the relatively cheap cost of memory upgrade modules. 

Head over to the Home Server Show, subscribe, and give them a bit of thanks for putting together a nice video. 

It wasn't all that long ago that Microsoft unviled Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server, which among many improvements, fixed an important data corruption issue. Microsoft today released another important patch for Windows Home Server owners, putting behind them what will hopefully be the last of problems associated to data storage and management on the Home Server OS.

As described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 950193, unpatched users running PP1 could cause files in duplicated folders to become unrecoverable if a hard drive goes unexpectedly missing or fails. The severity of the issue is unknown, or how likely you are to experience any data loss as a result of these events, as the typical user doesn't usually yank drives from the Home Server without removing it properly through the OS. Drive failures are a fact of life in disk based storage, but are hardly an everyday occurance for users. The short time between PP1's release and the patch today means that few users would have seen this problem. 

Regardless, any issue that can affect your precious data shouldn't be overlooked. Take the time to run Windows Update on your Home Server today and obtain the patch. If you're unfamiliar with how to do this, follow these instructions:

Microsoft today unveiled the final release version of PowerPack 1 (PP1) for Windows Home Server, bringing the nearly 6 week public beta to a close.

Power Pack 1 provides a range of improvements. These include the following:

• Support for home computers that are running Windows Vista x64 editions
• Backup of Home Server shared folders
• Improvements to remote access
• More efficient power consumption
• Improved performance
• Additionally, this update resolves the data corruption issue that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article 946676: When certain programs are used to edit or transfer files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive, the files may become corrupted. 

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 will be available through Windows Update in several weeks. The update will be automatically downloaded to your Windows Home Server computer through Windows Update if the Automatic Updates feature is enabled on your home server. Or, you can click Update Now on the Settings tab of the Windows Home Server Console.

If you want to install Power Pack 1 before it is available through Windows Update, download the update package, and then manually apply it.

Discuss Microsoft PP1 in the MediaSmart Home Forums