So I have a little story to share that happened to me on Thanksgiving.  My aunt needed some help figuring out how to email a very large file and I helped her out.  However, being the good Microsoft employee I am, I noticed that she had SQL Server on her computer which baffled me since there is no reason for her to have that on there.  My aunt isn't exactly a power user.  But seeing that icon in the task tray could have saved her a great deal of heart ache.

I noticed an icon that when hovered over said "RAID DISK FAILURE" and then I realized she was running a RAID 0 setup and one of her disks is throwing errors.

I have 2 Windows Home Servers (WHS) getting delivered to me.  One for myself, one for my parents.  Me being the wonderful nephew I am will route my WHS to my aunt so she can have the WHS backup all her data, have her replace the HD, then run the recovery tool so her computer is back up without her even knowing what may have happened if WHS technology wasn't around.

SO what is this horrible thing that may have occurred?  First let me explain RAID.  RAID 0 disk setups have 2 or more hard drives that run basically act as one hard drive.  You have increased performance, what appears to be a larger HD disk but have zero fault tolerance.  If one hard drive fails, basically you lose the data on all your hard drives on that RAID.  And as I mentioned, one of her hard drives is about to die.  It isn't dead dead yet, just throwing errors now.  I know from when my old PC died, she'll have a bit before she is in serious trouble.

With a WHS, with multiple hard drives in the system, you'll be able to have fault tolerance and a central location to store everything.  If a computer or something bad happens, roll it back.  A hard drive failure is no longer a month long affair to recoup from.  It is more of a "lets watch House" while WHS does its magic bringing your system back online.  Accidentally deleted some files?  Backtrack and BAM, they are undeleted.  It is like Time Machine (Apple OS 10.5) but if you hose your computer, the backed up data isn't hosed too.  My aunt won't have to reinstall windows, all her applications and pictures / files since WHS has a full, current back up.

Another day in the life of Clint, nerd herd employee #1337.