I have seen some amazing setups on this forum. Even though this forum was (I think) dedicated to HP Media Smart Server, people like me who have twisted some server to act like MediaSmartServer learn a lot.

After reading the post from a member, Edge, (Thank you!) I am convinced it is worth the time to setup something like HP Media Smart. I ended up buying a HP Proliant ML110 G6 and I am in the process of setup WHS. I have a small library compared to Edge - 600 DVDs, 2000 or so Music CDs and years of photos all with coverarts and tags.

In past I was using a Windows XP MCE box as the media server. Hopefully, I will be able to convert my old setup to WHS with the help of forum members. Thank you!

Gaurav
Server - HP Proliant ML110 G6, Xeon Quad Core, 2 GB RAM 2x1.5TB
Client 1. AppleTV
Client 2. MacBookPro
Client 3. Windows 7 Home Premium HTPC
Cleitn 4. Windows 7 Professional Laptop

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MSS: HP EX495 (removed FireFly, Twonky; using full iTunes)
Client1: AppleTV
Client2: Win7 Home Premium (Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Azuntech X Meridian, Fusion 5RT Gold, 1TB)
Client3: Win7 Prof 32bit
Client4: MacBook Pro
Client5: Mac Mini

Here's my setup, safely ensconced in the "man cave" in the basement. My brother calls it NORAD because even when the lights are turned off, you can see the glow of lights on the EX490, as well as on all the other gear in there.



I decided to take my pictures now while my Christmas decorations and lights are up.

My EX490 with 10 hard drives!

Here's my MediaSmart EX490. I've upgraded the processor (the Celeron wasn't cuttin' it) to an E5300. The Server has 4 x 1 TB drives in it, and then there's an assortment of USB disks ranging in capacity from 160 GB to 1 TB. The little drive on top is an eSATA disk. Eventually I'd like to buy a port multiplier and put more TB drives in and get rid of all those USB drives! Below the Server is an AT&T U-verse 2WIRE 3800HGV-B Residential Gateway. Next to that is a D-Link DGS-2208 Gigabit Switch. 100 Mbps is just too slow...gigabit was mandatory!

A view of NORAD

Here's the "man cave" where a computer geek like me can get his work done! I'm a big fan of Terry Redlin, and you can see some of his art gracing NORAD's walls.

The Big Desk

Here I've got three desktops and a laptop. The desktop is an HP d5200t with a Q9600 quad core processor and 8 GB, and plenty of disk space (including the HP USB drive bays, both of which are filled). I work for HP, so gotta stump for the company.

Also visible is a Dell XPS 710 that the missus got me for my 30th birthday 3 years ago. (We were still EDS and not owned by HP yet.) Next to that is an even older Dell desktop. And lastly visible is an HP dv9910us multimedia laptop. The XPS is running Server 2008 R2, as well as SQL Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010. I recently upgraded it to a quad core. The HP laptop is running Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint 2010. Who runs SharePoint in their home? Geeks!

A Better View of the Desktops-turned-Servers

Here's a little better view of the two desktops that have been turned into servers, and the laptop that is now a server.

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler!

No home office is complete without Milton watching over it! Unfortunately Milton took a little tumble, hence the broken spectacles.

Work Laptop

When I work from home, I need to have a comfy workspace. A second monitor is mandatory, hence the 20" ViewSonic capable of 1600x1200 resolution. You probably can see some eSATA cables. Where do those go? Glad you asked...

Not one, or two, but THREE external eSATA drives!

My work-issued HP 8530w laptop has a built-in eSATA port. Then one day I was in Best Buy and they had Dynex 2-port eSATA controllers for the PC card slot on laptops. They were on clearance for $12.99 so I bought two...one for home and another to keep in the office. They have an SiI controller and they're awesome. Why use USB when you can use eSATA? As a Detroit Red Wings fan, the Red Wings Christmas decoration is prominently featured.

Taryn & Joshua

Attached to the big HP desktop is a pair of 23" Hanns-G widescreen 1080p monitors. It would not be fair to my children, Taryn and Josh, not to get featured. And so they proudly grace the two monitors. Also visible beneath the monitors is a 5-port Netgear GS605 gigabit switch. After all, 8 ports on the D-Link switch just wasn't enough. Oh, and then there's a 5-port D-Link DGS-2205 Gigabit Switch on and end table in our living room upstairs! Why? Because the missus and I have our personal laptops up there. Our laptops have 54g wireless adapters, but why go with 54 Mbps when you can go with 1 Gbps?

Armchair Station

And here's my laptop upstairs on a laptop cart in the living room. Complete with media card reader and external hard drive...need room to store those HD downloads from iTunes! The Christmas tree and kids toys applenty are visible in the background.

Hope you enjoyed my little tour of virtual geekdom!

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Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Great tour of your space, thanks Matt!

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins? If so, be sure to Rate them at WeGotServed.

My setup:

HP MSS with an E8400 upgraded CPU (still need to do the RAM)
22.5TB of storage with 20 dedicated to the pool, important stuff is backed up to the other 1 and 1.5TB drives - really important stuff is backed up to "the cloud" via Asus Webstorage (highly recommend it)

Primary usage is storing movies and music, feeding the HTPC (not pictured, behind the wall) that drives the TV and backing up the 4 Windows 7 machines in the house along with long term storage of the recorded content created from the ATI DCT in the HTPC. Thinking about going with the Ceton tuner, but don't know if I watch enough TV to justify the cost.

Nice, how's the noise from all that, does it interfere with TV watching?

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins? If so, be sure to Rate them at WeGotServed.

It's nearly silent, much quieter than the HTPC which I put a lot of time and effort into making quiet only to become disgusted with the whole thing and move it into the adjacent room .

Only noise it puts off is a slight rattle from the fan in the lower drive enclosure, which I 'spose I could fix if I was so inclined, but it's hardly noticable so I haven't gotten around to it.

It's all the wires that are the most annoying

I'm over 46TB now! I'm hoping to add another Mediasonic enclosure and use four of these 1.5TB drives I replaced. To bring me up to the max 32 drives.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID

Woo Hoo!! I'm at 52TB now. I just wish I could get it to take drive 32. I'm stuck at 31 drives.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID

OMG!!!! so you pretty much adding one hard drive a month to your server. I love it.

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Freedom is not only to do what you love, but to love what you do.

You have over 20TB of free space and you are worried about adding a 32nd drive???

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

With Duplication enabled I close to 2TB of space in the last week with a bunch of BD rips.

I just don't like having an open bay that I can't use. My WHS will not have enough space for all my HD content. I'm going to take my old 1.5TB drives, an old PC, and some old enclosures and use UnRAID to use for storage of my HD DVD rips in the MKV format.

Unless I try using my old EX470 for that task.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID

It can get used pretty quickly.

Three weeks ago when I hit 52TB of total storage I had 22.04TB of free space.
Now I'm down to only 15.15TB of free space. And I've only ripped a half dozen titles this week. Nothing like the previous two weeks.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID

What are you going to do when you cant add any more storage to you server? It looks like that will happen very soon.

_________________
Freedom is not only to do what you love, but to love what you do.

I'm going to set up an unRAID server with all the 1.5TB drives I removed. I'll start off with 12 of them in the unRAID and go from there. I plan on having my HD DVD MKV rips located there. And mainly my BD ISO rips in my WHS.

I'm up to 54TB in my WHS with my recent Seagate 2TB LP green drive replacements of my WD 1.5TB green drive. At only $68 from Amazon they were too inexpensive to pass up. The rest should show up next week and then I will have 30 drives that are 2TB and the one system drive still 1.5TB.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID

I'm finally at a capacity of 56TB now(well really 55.95TB but close enough to call it 56TB).
I have thirty 2TB drives and then the OS drive is a 1.5TB. Ten WD green drives and twenty one Seagate LP drives.

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56TB MSS EX490(upgraded CPU-E6300(2.8Ghz dual core Pentium)),
4GB memory, MediaSonic 4 Bay eSATA, 6x MediaSonic 4 Bay USB
32TB unRAID -- 29TB unRAID