3 week old EX475. After some initial setup difficulties which were eventually resolved (thanks to HP tech support & all the kind folks here!), I've been having reliable backups overnight. I put about 10 GB of photos on the server for the family (but I'm not setting up webshare). After backing up all the family computers, there appears to be 71% free space left on the EX475's hard disks.

So, I decided to install an add-in (specifically, hard disk management). Boy, slow console turned into pathetically slow console! I promptly uninstalled the add-in, and I've just ordered a Kingston 240-pin 2gb pc2-5300 SDRAM (free shipping from amazon).

Wish me luck! I will be attempting to install over the holidays!

Good luck with the upgrade. It's pretty easy to do if you follow the instructions at
http://www.myhomeserver.com/?p=12 and there is a video of step by step instructions at http://homeservershow.com/page/3

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neil

In addition to those 2 links, I found this one particularly helpful: http://www.homeserverhacks.com/2007/12/ ... ex470.html

Thanks for the pointers, guys!

So, I gave myself a 2GB memory stick from amazon.com (Kingston brand, about $20 shipped free with amazon prime).

I went and installed the memory this morning. Took about 1 hr (including time to shut down the server, and to find small screwdrivers).

I'm attaching a photograph with 3 philips screwdrivers. The far left screwdriver is the one I used for the motherboard screws (silver screws). A slightly larger screwdriver would have worked fine. The middle screwdriver is the one that I initially intended for the tiny grille screws. It's my smallest philips-head in my "jeweler's screwdrivers" set. It was still too large! Luckily, I had an eyeglasses repair screwdriver kit (pictured on the right). That one fit perfectly. I've put the photo next to a ruler, so you can get an idea of the scale. (cm/mm scale on top, inch on bottom)

Anyway, hardware install was successful. I then "remote desktop'ed" into the server to change the virtual memory (page file) size per recommendation (3072, 6144). Behavior is much zippier. (Still slow, but I'm not waiting 10-20 seconds to change screens!)

Thank you all, and have a great holiday!

hdt

So you're ready for the CPU upgrade, right?

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