I am sure by now that many have upgraded the original size of their hard drives on the EX485. I have read a number of threads on various sites but for the most part no one has said that their systems were 100% functional.

So here's the questions, what is the maximum size of hard drive and in how many slots.

I currently run 4 x 1TB drives without any issues but that's no big deal, what I am looking for is the person with 4 x 2TB or above.

Dan

I run 1 2TB WD Black drive as system drive and 3 3TB Hatachi's GPT formated drives in my EX485 with WHS 2011. I wouldn't try that with WHS V1. I have run 4 2TB drives with WHS V1 and it works just fine.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

Hi Nomad welcome to the forums!

You can go with 4 4TB Drives if you like. Some have been experimenting with drives larger than 2TB requiring them to partition the drives. I am not certain about other uses for the larger than 2TB Drives because I have not followed it much so maybe someone else with better knowledge than I will comment on that subject.

The one thing you need to be aware of is the newer Advanced Format Drives some will require running an Alignment utility, others jumpers and some will work right out of the box. If your just going to stick with the 4 drives in your EX485 then you might want to maximise the storage capacity with larger drives. If your planning on one day expanding outside the box then I would not bother to change out the system drive since its the last drive WHS will use to store files on. If your storage space gets tight and WHS will not allow you to remove a drive then you will need to add a drive to the storage pool to remove one. The way around this is to install another drive first externally then remove an existing drive, shut the server down and swap out the drives.

Keep in mind that you can add USB multibay enclosures upto 10 drives in capacity. Your eSATA Port will only support 1 drive which is another option for you to keep in mind. WHS will support upto 32 Drives.

Hope this helps you out and good luck with expanding your storage capacity. Oh one other thing to keep in mind. Currently there is a shortage of hard drives on the market so the prices have risen. Once manufacturing resumes and the shortage is no more then the prices should drop. You may find some drives still priced reasonable on sale here and there but don't jump because of the price unless you have an immediate need. Chose your drives wisely and if you read through the forums you will get a good idea on which drives work well.

_________________
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

For the most part this all sounds like very good news. I'd like to put larger HDDs in my EX487 once prices return from the stars back down to earth, although given the state of floodwaters in Thailand, I'm not holding my breath on that occurring any time in the next couple of months. Six months, maybe more, is probably more realistic.

The one comment caught my eye -- about the eSATA port supporting only one drive. I though the eSATA ports on the EX4xx servers supported port multipliers. Several folks seem to be running them. Do these not work on the EX48x servers? My wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her the Rosewill port multiplier Newegg had in their black Friday ad (I forget the exact model number, but several folks on this site have had great success with it).

Although, I suppose, since I won't be putting any new drives in that enclosure until prices drop, I can always attach that to my EX490 and move the USB drives over to the EX487. The big project for 2012 for me is to rebuild my EX490 to WHS 2011 and probably rebuild the EX487 as well, with one running as a dedicated backup server and the other serving as the family file share repository and media streamer. I'll probably set the backup box to back up the file share/streamer as well so the most important files have multiple redundancy.

_________________
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

You mentioned you were running WHS2011 without issue, did you try to run HP's WHS Ver 3? I am curious if the folder duplication feature works with the larger drives. What I would like to do is run the v3 upgrade with 4 3TB drives and use it to store my complete DVD Video collection to stream over my network to various TV's. Perhaps this might be a bit much for the EX485. Trying to do some homework, don't want to drop a wad of cash on a bunch of drives just to find out they wont work!

Regards,
Dan

No, I haven't run anything larger than 2 TB drives on WHS V1.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

Can you run a port multiplier off the EX48x servers? An earlier post seems to suggest not. I see plenty of folks running them off of EX47x and EX49x, so why wouldn't the EX48x work?

_________________
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

@ msawyer91,

The EX47x supports 4 bay eSATA Portmultipliers although the chip set was suppose to be able to support 5 bay eSATA Portmultipliers. The EX48x only supports 1 eSATA Device, I guess this was intentional on HP's part. The EX49x can support 5 bay eSATA Portmultipliers and I am assuming th same is true for the DataVaults.

The Rosewill RSV Portmultipliers are the same as the Sans Digital. The actual case enclosures may differ but the internals are an exact match. I own both but the LED's on the 5 bay enclosures are not present on the Rosewill Unit as they use the LED's reflected through the drive trays which you can not see when you close the door. The units are all made by CFI in Tiawan. I have purchased the backplanes and converted a couple EX470's I pickup up for salvage value to be converted to MSS Portmultipliers which is a fun project but not cheap but very cool.

_________________
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

If you connect an eSATA Portmultipler to an EX48x it will only see one port redering the other ports unusable.

_________________
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

Bummer, oh well. Not a big deal. My 2012 rebuild project will just include putting the RSV on the EX490 and moving the 6 x USB disks to the 487. I have an enclosure on the 487 that was intended as a temporary item but will now be a permanent fixture.

And while hard drive prices continue mingling up among the stars, back on earth I'll have plenty o' time to plan and do some more planning about how I want to lay out my disks between the two servers. And when I'm done planning, I can plan some more because based on the announcement on WDC's page about how long they expect it'll be before they're really up and running again, my guess is that prices won't start coming back into earth's orbit until spring at best, and it probably won't be until summer before they're back on earth again.

And I really don't want to spend north of $300 for a 3 TB drive when if I wait a few months I can probably get one for under $200. And I'd want 4 to fill the RSV, and 2 more to replace the 640 GB drives in the EX487. That would be in the $2000 range for 6 hard drives.

Now if you or erail know where I can find reliable drives at a price that doesn't require me to take on another job or take out a second mortgage...

_________________
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