According to UPS my new EX495 shows up tomorrow. I'm going to retire (sell) my Ex470 since I do a lot of video serving/processing and look forward to the horsepower under the hood of the EX495. I have approx 4 TB of music/movies on 8 hard drives that I'd like to move to the new unit. The files are stored in the usual Music/Video shares with folder duplication enabled.

Is there a relatively painless (less painful) way of moving these hard drives over to the EX495? If I simply plug them in (and connect them) and then perform a server restore on the unit - will it recognize the shared folders and incorporate them into the new system?

Thanks,

Keith

Wow! EX495 coming tomorrow? Just curious, where did you order it from?? The HP site still shows them as being non-available although the site allowed me to order mine today. I got EPP pricing which saved me 10%, then added the 'savings30' code and got another $30 off which pretty much covered the sales tax - $646 delivered is not a bad deal.

Your method should work. Alex first proposed it after the EX48x series showed up, then he actually confirmed it a few weeks back (see blog for his description and disclaimer. Perhaps he can chime in, but I think teh process should go something like:

1) Do initial set-up/configure unit to make sure it runs.
2) Power down, insert old drives.
3) Restart with Server Restore option.
4) Customize with software installs.
5) Configure PC back-ups, etc.
6) Enjoy

_________________
X510 w/7 TB (100% WD Green EARS)
Stock Processor, 4 GB Memory Upgrade

Hi Keith,

FIrst off, welcome to MSS.net

I woudl get the EX495 set up, let it run for about a week or so to make sure everything is working properly. Once everything looks good then you should be able to move the drives over from your EX470 and do a server recovery.

I am actually in the process of doinga server recovery as we speak (moving my drives from my EX470 to a DIY WHS build), unfortunately it is not going 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

Amazon has had them available all week, i ordered my EX495 yesterday and received it today, of course i paid through the nose for next day shipping.

Details on my experience upgrading my EX475 to EX487 are located here.

_________________
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.

Cool. My order was placed last night around 8:00. I was astonished to learn this morning that it also shipped last night from Memphis and is due on my doorstep on Saturday! Note I did this without any shipping upgrades, just the standard free 5-7 shipping option.



Damian,

This does not sound good. Let us know how it works out.

_________________
X510 w/7 TB (100% WD Green EARS)
Stock Processor, 4 GB Memory Upgrade

I just went ahead and disconnected my ex470 then connected the ex495 and set it up. After that I connected the ex470 and started transferring files from it to the 495. It took the better part of sat. and sunday but its basically done now. I was expecting more issues running both at once but before I set the ex495 up I deleted all the Hp server software from my main PC and then set up the ex495 from from scratch. After that was done I turned the ex470 back on and it just showed up, basically like a NAS.

I am sure transferring files in this way is not the most efficient but it works and I encountered no issues. It also allowed me to leave old stuff on the ex470 for later sifting. I am not sure about you but I keep alot of stuff that I really don't need to store, ie downloads and such, and this allows me to clean things up.

I haven't read about the media collector feature but I see everyone using it. I put all my media directly onto the whs so I am not sure what it would be collecting. Anyone care to give me some insight on the benefit of the meda collector?

I think Media Collector is used if you have multiple pcs on your network and you want the MSS to collect all the media from the pcs to the MSS. I copy my media directly to the MSS same as you so I never use this tool

_________________
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

The Media Collector is intense. For those of us who cut our teeth on the EX47x series, it is a new experience. I turned it on and my first thought was Whoa!! I too have done what you and Damian have done - manually copy files I want over. The operative words here are files I want. The Media Collector starting pulling things down right and left from seemingly everywhere - pdfs, sample pics, sample movies, etc. I later learned that you can drill down to the specific PC to tell it where to pull stuff from, but it seemed a bit intense to suddenly see that stuff flying over. In the end, I just turned it off. Maybe someday I'll reactivate it, but for now I really like the system I have.

_________________
X510 w/7 TB (100% WD Green EARS)
Stock Processor, 4 GB Memory Upgrade

Hey guys - thanks for the info/ideas.

I'm up and working on the EX495. BTW: Purchased through Amazon w/ "Prime" free 2-day shipping. I received it Friday.

After much nail biting I settled on the following:

1 - Fill up remainder of "D:" drive on original EX470 to make sure none of the data from my shared folders resided on the main 500GB system drive. There was a script file posted that generated 5GB garbage files. This step may not have been needed, but as the server re-adjusted the data I had stored - more of the D: drive became available. I did this over half a day and eventually I could not add more junk files and my folders seemed stable (and contained exclusively on my external, and extra internal drives).

2 - Gracefully shut down all streaming programs and shut down anything that was accessing my media files (iTunes, etc).

3 - Fired up the EX495. Had MANY issues trying to execute a server recovery - until I did some digging and found 1 post indicating that external drives (and even the "extra" interal drives) can get in the way of a server recovery. Finally, I brought up the server "normally" with only the main system drive. Then, I executed a server recovery and - after the unit was discovered and ready for file recovery - plugged in my remaining internal drives, USB external drive, and my TR5M. The MSS recovered all of the shared folders and files without any issue. Whee!

I'm still playing around with the new software - very happy with things so far.

THanks all,

Keith