Hi all,

I just got gifted an HP EX470. I've no idea what this thing can do for me.....help!

Well, it's not that I don't know what it can do, I just don't know how to best use it. I'd say I'm in the top 10% of computer users, only because I think that 90% of people are slightly retarded when it comes to computers

My setup at home is as follows:

TV: HDTV, PS3, OTA signal (just cut cable), Netflix and a tower with a Core 2 6600 @ 2.40GHz, 4GHz, ASUS HD5450 silent video card (does HD bitstream audio output), Windows Vista (32 bit) and Ubuntu 12.04 (32 bit)

Computer: In the same room as the tv above, a Pentium D with 2x2.8GHz (4 gig ram, older geforce video card), Windows Xp and Ubuntu 12.04 (64 bit)

TV2: HDTV, OTA, maybe an XBOX360 and a crappy old laptop

Server: EX470 with ~2gig of storage, upgraded to 2 gig of memory, stock cpu.

I have lots of dvd's/bluerays that I was hoping to backup to storage and stream to the computers at the tv's.

I also have to small kids that I take lots of pics/videos of and would like redundant copies of the files.

My question is pretty basic: how should I set this up?

Thanks for your expertise

David

My thoughts:
I would get a 1 or 2 tb harddrive and add it to the server as a ( non-pooled) drive and backup all your shares.
I use serviio software instead of twonky to stream to all the pc's and my samsung 55 tv.
I do not use the backup feature but save base clones of all my pc's in the house and everybody better keep all their file on the server.
I use ( lights out / Smart 2012 / Port forwarding) for addins.

I have an extra power supply and lots of extra 2 TB drives for down the road. I'm running the x510 but have a ex470 as a backup.

Someday I will build a DIY server, but I'm waiting for something 64 bit.

P.S. I swapped out my system drive with a 2 TB drive right off the bat so I would have plenty of room.
Goodluck

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[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

I recommend looking into the Plex Media Server for serving your rips. You'll need media players to attach to your TVs and for that I recommend the Roku series or an Apple TV. You will have to jail break the ATV to install the Plex client. There is a native Plex client for the Roku.

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

Hi newguy1 welcome to the forums and the WHS family of end users!

I currently have 2 EX470's and other DIY Built servers. Like many others I use them to backup and restore clients, share files which I can access withing my intranet and remotely via the internet. One of my favorite things I do is to stream content within the home and online to other computers, tablets and smart phones.

The Site Search here is your best friend. Right after the EX470/5 was released this site was created so its been there from the beginning so anything you can think of that is EX470 related has been written about here. If you spend any amount of time in the forums you will learn what not to do with your server as well. One of the first things EX470 users started doing was upgrading various CPU's to improve server performance but there are only a handful of processors known to work well with the EX470 but will only work after you modify the actual BIOS. The other thing others have done is add VIDEO to their server. Some built custom cables while others purchased DEBUG Boards and I highly recommend to anyone with a headless server to install a DEBUG Board as it will pay for itself in troubleshooting and resolving issues. The very first forum topic I ever read here was about a forum member accidently disabling their Servers Network Port which in the early days was a nightmare but today a solution exists in the sites WIKI which is your next best friend on the site.

It appears you want to store your media on your server and depending on the video format you choose for your movies will determine just how much storage capacity you will need to store all your content. Your server does have an eSATA Port and you can add a 4 bay PortMultipier to that port which will give you a total of 16 TB of storage capacity before you need to add additional storage capcity using the USB Ports. I do recommend you play with the various video formats to determine what works best for you before dedicating which format to go with because ripping DVD's is a time consuming task.

I recommend you take sometime to become familiar with how to properly use ADVANCED FORMAT Drives with your server as some require Alignment and Jumpers to work properly with your server. Thing is these newer drives will always start off working great with the server but if not prepared properly they will begin to act up after a short period of time because of the sector size difference between 512b vs 4kb sector sizes and WHS v1 is a legacy OS based on a modified Server 2003 OS.

I also recommend you protect your server with a UPS and install software written for WHS so that when you encounter a power failure the UPS will instruct the server to shut down otherwise you run the risk of hard drive corruption when power is lost if the hard drives are being written to at the time of power loss.

Knowing the actual condition of your hard drive is important and while WHS will report your hard drives as being healthy this may not be true and the ADD-IN HomeServerSMART will read the SMART information on the drives and show you the actual health status of your drives. You can download this ADD-IN from: http://www.dojonorthsoftware.net/

If your client backups is important to you then you may also want to back those up. Now WHS does a great job backing up your Data if you set that up but makes no provision to backup the client data. Fortunatly there is an ADD-IN which does just this calledBDBB: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/add-ins/#WHSBDBB

The EX470 as you can see has very cool LED's to help you with many things. The hard drives have LEDs as well but once you expand outside the box then it can be confusing figuring out which of the drives is having an issues and so the ADD-IN DISK MANAGEMENT helps you better identify the location of where your hard drives are located. http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/product ... management

Guardian has already mentioned SERVIIO as replacement for Twonky or PVConnect and you can read about it from the following link: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/06 ... -released/

Other ADD-IN which may be of interest are FAN SPEED CONTROL and REMOTE NOTIFICATION also available from the ADD-INs TAB on this site. Fan Speed allows you to control the fan speeds to better help you keep the processor and drives cool and Remote Notification when setup properly will send you email and text messages when something goes wrong with your server.

There is also software which was not written specifically for your server but can be installed and will work fine. I use SubSonic and Remote Potato for online media streaming. While both will stream Music and Video I actually prefer SubSonic for streaming my music and Remote Potato for Movies. For more information on SubSonic: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp For More information on Remote Potato: http://www.remotepotato.com/

Everything I have mentioned has also been written about by others on the site so please use the site search to see what others have written about items which may have peeked your interest.

Here are some forum threads which may be of interest to you:

Gen3 Debug Board: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/05 ... available/

EX470 CPU Upgrades & BIOS Mod: http://mediasmartserver.net/forums/view ... f=2&t=1102

Advanced Format Drives: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/12 ... me-server/ & http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/02 ... mat-drive/

Again your 2 best tools for obtaining information on this site is the Site Search and WIKI. I hope you find what I have written to be helpful and that it points you in the direction you would like to go. Should you have questions or concerns please feel free to share them and once again welcome to the site its good to have you on board.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8