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ok i cant seem to find this registry file everything is there except the msachi edit.

looks like ill have to find another way.

I was wondering if anybody knows whats the limit of hard drives on the EX495 on a USB port. Can i put a 8 HDD enclosure on a single USB port? Would there be some performance problems when it comes to coping and streaming media?
Also is there a way to monitor the temperature of USB hard drives attached to the MSS?

You can attach as many TR8Us as you have USB ports, but WHS can only deal with 32 drives in the storage pool. Any drives over 32 will have to be non-storage pool lettered drives.

Yes, you can put an 8 drive enclosure on a single USB port. Copying to and from USB attached drives will be much slower than sata, but there is no problem streaming media from USB attached drives. The only way to monitor temps of USB attached HDDs is manually with an IR thermometer

Andromeda is complete as originally intended (40 TB media storage server) with all data duplicated. I now have all 20 drive bays populated with 2TB LP, Geen and Ecogreen drives, and all 1.5 TB drives removed. Server storage indicates 36.5TB with 9.46 TB free and Disk Management indicates 37379 GB with 9690 GB free. I had a problem with one of the Samsung drives. It kept dropping out of the storage pool as missing, but running chkdsk /r on it didn't show any problems. So I RMA'd it and will keep the replacement as a backup. In order to remove the 1.5 TB drives and keep the storage balanced, I added a Sans Digital TR4M and installed the little card with two (2) esata ports. So now, I also have a 4 bay Sans Digital TR4M attached which will allow me to add another 8 TB of storage space if I need it. The transfer speeds between the TR4M and the internal drives was very fast. PP3 did a good job of balancing the storage between all of the drives. Below are a few shots of Disk Management and an internal shot showing the new card and the 120mm fans.

Author:	Killerbones [ Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:34 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
The Mobo ports are running in IDE mode, tried to change it to AHCI but it crashed when trying to boot into the OS, no more pcie slots on mobo for another mv8.

Author:	iceboi714 [ Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Well u can't really just change from IDE to AHCI. It runs on different drives which you can change without reinstalling windows. There is a way to do it. GOOGLE sir.

Author:	walkabt [ Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
@killerbones - this may or may not be an option for you, it works on the Gigabyte board I have: http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-U ... ae200d74ba

Author:	erail [ Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:52 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Actually, I have done it a number of times, works fine. Use regedit and change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci from 3 to 0 and then restart the machine and go into bios and change the bios from ide to ahci on those drives. It should boot normally and come up as AHCI drives.

Author:	Killerbones [ Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
ok i cant seem to find this registry file everything is there except the msachi edit. looks like ill have to find another way.

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Andromeda http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4816	Page 17 of 22

Author:	erail [ Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Killerbones wrote: ok i cant seem to find this registry file everything is there except the msachi edit. looks like ill have to find another way. Ok, I would suspect you have not loaded the drivers for AHCI for you board. Find the drivers for AHCI/Raid and install them and then check to see if you can find the entry. You will probably have to reboot so don't change anything untill you find the entry

Author:	Killerbones [ Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
alright i've installed the drivers but it still does not show up in the registry. is all this really neccesary as i thought ahci is for hot swapping drives???? thanks for the help by the way..

Author:	Killerbones [ Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Ok fixed the problem not sure what really fixed it but replacing the router may have been the major culprit, why it happened not sure but replacing the router adding the achi drivers and updating the lan drivers on the mobo seemed to have cured the issue now im back to streaming blu ray rips to 3 clients with no stutter or pauses. 2 hours and running strong.

Author:	cubanblood [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
I was wondering if anybody knows whats the limit of hard drives on the EX495 on a USB port. Can i put a 8 HDD enclosure on a single USB port? Would there be some performance problems when it comes to coping and streaming media? Also is there a way to monitor the temperature of USB hard drives attached to the MSS?

Author:	cavediver [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
cubanblood wrote: I was wondering if anybody knows whats the limit of hard drives on the EX495 on a USB port. Can i put a 8 HDD enclosure on a single USB port? Would there be some performance problems when it comes to coping and streaming media? Also is there a way to monitor the temperature of USB hard drives attached to the MSS? You can attach as many TR8Us as you have USB ports, but WHS can only deal with 32 drives in the storage pool. Any drives over 32 will have to be non-storage pool lettered drives. Yes, you can put an 8 drive enclosure on a single USB port. Copying to and from USB attached drives will be much slower than sata, but there is no problem streaming media from USB attached drives. The only way to monitor temps of USB attached HDDs is manually with an IR thermometer.

Author:	cubanblood [ Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Quote: You can attach as many TR8Us as you have USB ports, but WHS can only deal with 32 drives in the storage pool. Any drives over 32 will have to be non-storage pool lettered drives. Yes, you can put an 8 drive enclosure on a single USB port. Copying to and from USB attached drives will be much slower than sata, but there is no problem streaming media from USB attached drives. The only way to monitor temps of USB attached HDDs is manually with an IR thermometer The reason i am asking is because i was looking to build a 8 HDD enclosure but it would cost more than to buy the Norco 4220 and add a power supply. I think the Norco has 5 backplanes of 4 (or something like that). I wan to have one of the 5 as eSata to my MSS and the rest as USBs. I would need card that goes sata-esata and sata-usb. I think the MSS can handle all that. My only concern is temperature. I need a way monitor that. Either way none of the external enclosures support temperature monitoring. I have one of the Sans Digital and i can't see the temperature but i am not worry because is only 4 HDD, but if i have 20 of them i would be worry about the temp.

Author:	cavediver [ Wed Mar 03, 2010 7:06 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
The Norco's backplanes are SAS/SATA. The connectors on the Norco's backplane are SAS SFF-8087 connectors. If you want USB attached enclosures, the best are the Sans Digital TR8Us.

Author:	Coma [ Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:28 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Regarding the temp issue. Very similar setup to you. I had a similar problem as walkabt's. Initially only saw temps for 1st card and mobo system drive. No temp for 2nd saslp! Originally had all mobo sata as IDE and smart disabled. Went through the ahci swap and enabled smart. This required switching the sata cables to allow IDE on mobo sata 4,5 and ahci on 0,1,2,3. Anyway this lost temp on sysdrive. Now looked like all I could get was temps on saslp 1 Tried some problem solving. Swapped cards (including cables as is) between the pci slots. This did not change the result and meant that the cards were not faulty and that the norco back plane was probably faulty. Started doing some fiddling. Found that hot swapping drives between controller 1 and 2 sometimes resulted in temp data for a drive that didnt have it before swapping - interesting. Eventually was able to get temp data for all drives using this approach. Have not figured out exactly why - but I have a feeling that it is something to do with the model of drive and that perhaps the cards need the first drive to work before it will supply temp data for others in the chain. At this point I had temps for all SASLP drives ( across 2 cards) but no temp for sysdrive. Switched bios back to IDE and switched off smart - reboot. Still no temp for sysdrive and also lost temps for a couple of saslps. Used the hot swap shuffle to get saslp temps back. Finally swapped cable for mobo sata back to sysdrive and dvd on 4,5. Now have temps for all drives (only 4 + sys) spread over both saslp. I know this is a ramble - but it might give someone an idea. Coma

Author:	cavediver [ Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:42 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
Interesting about the SASLPs. On an AMD system, you will never get temp data from the mobo drives set to AHCI because AMD's AHCI drivers are built into their RAID driver and won't allow any SMART data to pass. My mobo drives are set to AHCI and aren't recognized at all by Speedfan.

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Author:	stelvio [ Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:44 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Andromeda
cavediver wrote: Andromeda is complete as originally intended (40 TB media storage server) with all data duplicated. I now have all 20 drive bays populated with 2TB LP, Geen and Ecogreen drives, and all 1.5 TB drives removed. Server storage indicates 36.5TB with 9.46 TB free and Disk Management indicates 37379 GB with 9690 GB free. I had a problem with one of the Samsung drives. It kept dropping out of the storage pool as missing, but running chkdsk /r on it didn't show any problems. So I RMA'd it and will keep the replacement as a backup. In order to remove the 1.5 TB drives and keep the storage balanced, I added a Sans Digital TR4M and installed the little card with two (2) esata ports. So now, I also have a 4 bay Sans Digital TR4M attached which will allow me to add another 8 TB of storage space if I need it. The transfer speeds between the TR4M and the internal drives was very fast. PP3 did a good job of balancing the storage between all of the drives. Below are a few shots of Disk Management and an internal shot showing the new card and the 120mm fans. cavediver- How did you get PP3 to balance your data pool as shown? I read in your 120mm fan thread you did not use the drive balancer app. Is there a command or hack to get WHS to balance so nicely? Thanks, this thread has been a great resource for many DIYers.