Now I'm glad I bit on the EX470. No eSATA on the EX48(X) servers? Weaksauce.....

There's an esata port. It's just won't support a multi drive box.

I just don't understand what benefit did HP see in removing this feature?

_________________
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

My faux pas. I did MEAN multi-drive box, but you're right. That's not what I said. I'm curious why they aren't enabling/supporting multi-drives on the eSATA.

It's not HP's fault, The Intel ICH9R does not support port multipliers because it already uses one within the chip. Now, you may question HP's move to Intel!!

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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

Well, I cannot keep quiet on this topic....

As for maximum capacity, remember that there are external USB enclosures with up to 8x slots/bays multiplexed (Sans Digital). So, with 4 internal drive slots, 4 eSATA slots, and 16 (4x4) USB slots we have a total of 24 drive slots/bays available. (And I still wonder about the 4x eSATA limitation with the Sans Digital units when the limitation is supposed to be 5x. We still have not seen and resolution or explanation for that!) With Encore that is reduced to 21, but the high-performance ones are reduced from 8 to 5.

Still, for me, the lack of eSATA multiplexing is a show-stopper to an MSS upgrade. Granted, I would not be using it in the next 6 months, but I do anticipate needing additional storage beyond what I have today. And I would very much prefer it to have the higher speeds of eSATA.

But... Does the performance limitation of the USB connection REALLY make a difference? Obviously not for backup of the MSS. Since we cannot control what goes on which drive in a pool, would USB connectivity impact the highest bandwidth application? We could probably live with a limitation when saving data, but can the USB port keep up with serving video, especially Hi-Def (1080) video? Anyong tried that?

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....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

I will second Aaron on that. I have a 5 bay eSATA tower now, two of the bays have drives and work fine, except when I try to add the third drive in the tower and thats a whole other story. My EX-470 has 4 bays populated, BTW. I have been talking to HP MSS server support in Canada and I don;t like where I see this support issue heading either. It looks to me like they are defintiely moving away for ANY support now or in the future for Port Multiplier support via the eSATA connection on the back of ANY MSS including the EX-470. I am really furious about the direction. This will definitely influence my decision when I get ready to replace my existing EX-470. I will only consider WHS server alternatives that support Port Multipliers via the much faster (than USB) eSATA connection. So goodbye to HP unless they change their official position on the Port Multiplier isue.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle - Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

Hi John,
I wrote a detail explination of my confguration and offered to help test what you suggeted. However, I lost the post

After thinking about the test to stream video from a USB, I realized I did not see how to make sure the video was being streamed from the USB (even if I could make DE move a movie to the USB drive in the pool in the first place, which I could not). If you can think of how I would test, I would be willing to try. Right now, all my movies are on a "NOT ADDED" USB drive and I cannot access them except to copy them somewhere else. I also have other limitations (SD not HD quality movies and cat5 10GB ethernet, not 100GB, etc.). If these limitation do not bother you, do you think of a way we could be sure we are streaming video from the pool that definitely is coming from the USB drive? I realizing turning Duplication Off would help but not completely solve the problem.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle - Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

In another thread, the question was also asked if USB 2.0 can handle HD streaming video. In theory, it should. HD video requires about 15-20 Mbps of bandwidth. USB 2.0 is rated at 480 Mbps with real-world performance around 40 Mbps.

An extract of my response in this thread was:

I don't believe that throughput will be a problem with the USB 2.0 ports that the MSS has. Theoretical maximums of USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps with real-world about 40 Mbps which should be good enough for streaming. Reference: http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm (point 4)

However, I do notice a real-world speed difference between USB and SATA drives that, if drives are configured correctly, can support up to 3 Gbps or 1.5 Gbps at a minimum. You can add USB drives to the pool with SATA drives but it's been my experience that it slows the whole pool down. The streaming would still be adequate but you will suffer a performance hit.

I don't think USB drives will be a bottleneck for HD streaming. If anything, it could be something else like real-world network througput over Fast Ethernet with WHS disk balancing or something (just a wild example).

That doesn't mean that I'm in support of the lack of esata multi-disk support in the new mediasmarts being released (ex485/ex487). Quite the contrary. If I pursue a future WHS upgrade beyond my EX470, it will likely be DIY or something else to have complete flexibility which ultimately means non-HP.

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Richard

My gadget blog: http://www.gadgetinsane.com

Same for me. I was excited to read about the new EX48x series, but this oversight is just too much as it severely limits the storage upgrade ability (unless you are willing to live with reduced transfer speeds). USB2 makes no difference if your MSS is on a standard 100Mbps network, but it does cripple a Gigabit network quite a bit.

After reading Alex's review, I ordered a Sans Digital TR4M-B for my EX470 instead, and it will have to do until the next version of WHS.

In my view the EX48x series is a downgrade from the EX47x, at a much higher price point to boot. The software upgrades are nice, but are nothing revolutionary and easily applicable to the original MSS...

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Ben.

HP EX470 w/PP3, 8.0TB (2x500GB, 5x1TB+1x2TB WD Green Drives, 2GB RAM), TR4M-B
PC1: Desktop, Windows 7 Ultimate (x64)
PC2: Media Center, Windows 7 Home Premium (x32)
PC3: Desktop, Windows XP Pro SP3 (x32)
PC4: EeePC, Windows 7 Home Premium (x32)

What's funny is I did the same thing. Right after Alex's review, I ordered the Sans Digital TR4M-B for my EX470 this past Monday and received it this past Wednesday after learning about the new "features" or lack thereof of the EX485/7.

I'm sure there was a spike in sales for the TR4M-B after several people read the reviews for the EX485/487.

As far as I'm concerned, I have the better hardware unit in the EX470 for my storage needs. I would encourage those to think about their needs and make a conscious decision for the lower priced EX470/5 or the higher priced EX485/7 keeping in mind that the EX470/5 may get some of the software enhancements that the folks with the EX485/7 are getting.

_________________
Richard

My gadget blog: http://www.gadgetinsane.com

Haha, same here, just got my TR4M as well!!!

_________________
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

BIG BUMMER for loss of eSATA Multiplier Port capability

I almost returned my EX 470...I still have 1wk left for return...but I've already upgraded the cpu to AMD LE1640 and GSkill 2GB RAM...it is much faster/better than the specs of the 485, but the possibility of using a Core2Duo seemed tempting. All in all I'm glad I'm not returning it due to this esata issue.

Does anyone think HP will update the EX470/75 with a new bios to support Power management/ cpu support?
I realize HP will not have "Media Collector" as part of the update to EX470/75 owners and remote media streaming; I wish they did as it seems like good addins. Is it possible to hack this and bring the ability to us using their own addin or is there better addins that address these features better? I hope HP updates the GUI for us, I like the new look compared to the original.

I'm hoping my EX470 lasts a couple more years. By 2010 we should hopefully have new Mediasmart servers and drive enclosures supporting USB 3.0. USB 3.0 will have throughput of 5 Gbps.

That'll be great and I won't be complaining but your bottleneck will still be your network throughput at gigabit (1 Gbps) speeds. High definition streaming shouldn't be hindered on any wired network (fast ethernet, gigabit) which requires approximately 15-20 Mbps of bandwidth.

If this can happen by then (doubtful IMO), perhaps our commentary about the esata port on the EX485/7 might become moot.

_________________
Richard

My gadget blog: http://www.gadgetinsane.com