It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:29 am

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]

Recent News:



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 410 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 ... 28  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:36 am 
Offline
2.0TB storage
2.0TB storage

Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 8:33 am
Posts: 195
Thanks: 17
Thanked: 10 times in 9 posts
robteboy wrote:
I have a ex490 (stock processor and ram). What would you recommend for WHS2011? Upgrade ex490 (let's say 4gb ram and e6600) and install 2011 or do a build your own box? Mostly use WHS for backups and Media Center storage and I really like the ex490's form factor.


I upgraded my 490 with 4GB of RAM and that same processor and I really like it.

What will determine my path for WHS2011 is which of the recently announced third party replacements for Drive Extender looks to be the best. At least one manufacturer has stated that initially they will only offer their solution through OEM's so that could be annoying if that one is clearly superior (for whatever reason). Otherwise between two otherwise similar products it will probably only be a differentiator that let's me keep my 490 :)


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  

Attention Guest: Remove this ad by Registering with the MediaSmartServer.net Forums. It's Free!
PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 2:17 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 6:31 am
Posts: 2
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
Hi Likebutter, here's my two cents worth,
From what I understand the heatsinks of the ex490 and ex495( x510) are different in as much as they are purpose made for the single core in the case of the ex490 cpu and dual core for the ex495(x510). Wether the single core heatsink would be ok for the E5200 it might be a good idea to keep an eye on the temp's if the server is going to be particularly busy. There are a number of people who have upgraded to the E5200 and higher sucessfully using the stock Celeron type heatsink but as to their servers intentsity of use they would have to verify. Both the 2.2GHz Celeron and the E5200 use 45nm lithography, the celeron is rated at TDP 35W and the E5200 65W.
Cheers. :)


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:46 am 
Offline
Founder
Founder
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:54 am
Posts: 10735
Location: Fort Collins, Colorado
Thanks: 630
Thanked: 931 times in 885 posts
eltell wrote:
From what I understand the heatsinks of the ex490 and ex495( x510) are different in as much as they are purpose made for the single core in the case of the ex490 cpu and dual core for the ex495(x510).


HP originally told me this when briefing me on the EX49x servers, however from what I've seen and heard there is no difference in the heatsinks.

_________________
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?


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:05 pm 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 6:44 pm
Posts: 7
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
This has been an extremely interesting thread to read. Waiting for my EX490 to get here and will be doing the upgrades too. Thanks for all the info.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:53 am 
Offline
.5TB storage
.5TB storage

Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:29 am
Posts: 20
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
With the whole Vail 2011 episode I will be keeping my ex490 for sometime to come and so I have decided to bite the bullet and do some upgrades to extend its life now its out of warranty anyway and getting full.

This topic has been invaluable research and I first of all what to thank you all for your contributions and insight.

So now to business... I have decided to go for the following:

e6800 CPU (as it seems to give a great bang for your buck)
4Gb RAM stick (not sure whether to go for Kingston pc2-6400 , Crucial pc2-5300 or Mushkin enhanced silverline pc2-6400)
samsung f3 ecogreen 2TB sata 3gbs 32mb cach 512 sector (thought i would choose this as its 2TB and wont need any jumpers or other complex settings as is 512 sectors...)

I'm Uk based so I was wondering if anyone had any opinions as to which site(s) to buy from would be great if there was one which was good value and service and did all of the above to make things nice an easy...

Ian

PS: where do people get there #00 philips screw driver and artic silver compound from???

_________________
Ian

HP EX490 with External VGA + Keyboard + Mouse Unit (still original Celeron 450 & 2Gb RAM for now!!)
Windows 8 Pro
House Has:
2 Dell Desktops
4 Dell Laptops
2 Samsung Smart TV's
Ps3
Xbox360


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:48 pm 
Offline
1TB storage
1TB storage
User avatar

Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:56 pm
Posts: 27
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 1 time in 1 post
ijudd wrote:
PS: where do people get there #00 philips screw driver and artic silver compound from???

I just used my Swiss Army Cybertool 34.

Image

Arctic Silver really isn't necessary. There's a lot of good thermal compounds for less money that will do an equal job. I believe I used Arctic Ceramique on mine.

Unless you're running heavy stuff on your Mediasmart, you don't need a ton of processing power. I went with a Pentium Dual Core E5300, because it was inexpensive, was Wolfdale-core (meaning 45nm process for cool running), and because it was the lowest I could confirm to have Intel VT hardware virtualization, in case I wanted to re-purpose my Mediasmart someday or run a virtual machine on it. It is rare if ever that I hit 100% CPU usage; having the second core just means that the virus scanner and such things can do their work more easily without weighing the operating system down.

Go with the least expensive brand-name memory that has a lifetime warranty and supports the frontside bus of the processor you're using. Latency isn't going to matter. Just don't buy overclocker's RAM, which might be designed to run at higher voltages, or come with fancy heatsinks that won't fit in the system. I think I either used Patriot or A-Data in mine, it has been just fine.

_________________
Everyone gets everything he wants. Me, I wanted to be a sysadmin. And for my sins --they made me one.
HP EX490, 4GB, Pentium DC E5300, 1x 1TB(Seagate), 3x 2TB(Samsung), 1 x 2TB eSATA (Hitachi)


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 3:11 pm 
Offline
2.0TB storage
2.0TB storage

Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:53 pm
Posts: 170
Location: ontario Canada
Thanks: 20
Thanked: 1 time in 1 post
I'm still debating between the quad-core processor and the E8400.

I do streaming to my ps3, but I wouldn't mind getting the best processor to throw in there safely just because I can but the cost of it is hard to justify.

_________________
EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 11:31 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:42 pm
Posts: 2
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
mr.rhtuner wrote:
I'm still debating between the quad-core processor and the E8400.

I do streaming to my ps3, but I wouldn't mind getting the best processor to throw in there safely just because I can but the cost of it is hard to justify.


I had a similar dilemma, expect I wanted to do live conversion of 1080p with AirVideo Server and I didn't think an E8400 would do the job. Instead I'll be upgrading to the *costly* 2.83Ghz Q9550S.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2011 11:40 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 11:31 am
Posts: 2
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
Hi,

I happened to have a spare E6800 so installed it in my EX490. However, it's running very hot. It's idling around 55 degrees C and under heavy load going as high as 79 degrees C although has remained stable. The thermal paste I used was Thermalright which I used for my i7 920 (OC to 3.7 ghz with no issues) Is anyone running a 3.33ghz proc in their EX490 and getting low temps?

Thanks


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2011 4:23 pm 
Offline
.5TB storage
.5TB storage
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 3:03 pm
Posts: 10
Location: Sweden
Thanks: 6
Thanked: 1 time in 1 post
mr.rhtuner wrote:
I'm still debating between the quad-core processor and the E8400.

I do streaming to my ps3, but I wouldn't mind getting the best processor to throw in there safely just because I can but the cost of it is hard to justify.



I had both a Duo E8500 3,2GHz and a Quad E6600 2,4GHz and I used the E8500 since it cooler even if the clock speed was higher.
The box is so tight so it is difficult to add a fan to the CPU heat sink.
My E8500 idles at just above 40C and peaks up to 80C under heavy load. I happy with that.

_________________
Upgraded HP MediaSmart Server EX490
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 mounted with Arctic Silver 5 and simple fan cooling
Mem: Kingston 4GB DDR2 800MHz Value (KVR800D2N6/4G) Black Revoltec RAM Cooler Aluminium


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:19 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:00 am
Posts: 1
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
I went through a couple of CPU switches with my EX490. My first upgrade was to an E7200 (2.53 Ghz). This is very close to the e5200 (a whole 30 Mhz faster!!) Idle temps were in the mid to low 30s and load was about 62. The stock CPU was idling at ~43. So I gained a core and raw clock speed and lowered temps. I'm very glad I decided to swap CPUs.

My primary reason for doing to upgrade was that I was starting to get random buffering when streaming Blu-Ray rips to my Boxee Box. The CPU swap fixed the issue.

After a couple weeks I decided to upgrade again. This time to a Xeon 3110 (basically an 8400) and 4GB of RAM. Temps were a little higher than I'd like with this CPU (43 idle, 74-75 under Orthos). My plan was to eventually repurpose this machine and try and put Hyper-V on it, but I've decided to go in another direction.

I'm really happy with the E7200. I think I'm going to sell my Mushkin SIlverline 4GB DDR2 stick though. I am not going to use my MSS for anything but serving up files and the extra RAM just goes to waste.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:11 am 
Offline
1TB storage
1TB storage
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 1:32 am
Posts: 48
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 3 times in 3 posts
I'm enjoying WHS 2011 on my EX495. It's time to upgrade the CPU and RAM though. Can we drop in the CPU, and 2011 will still boot up? (no re-install needed I hope)

I've read page after page on multiple threads, but I can't decide on which CPU. I want enough speed that I can stream Blu-Ray ISO's stutter free, and trans-code other 1080P videos or possibly re-encode/repair other large files etc. I'd like to be able to remote access into the WHS, and not have the screen freeze slow down/delays as it does under load now. I'll have either Vuze or uTorrent running as well. (and other streaming apps/services I'm sure, iPhone stuff)

So the question is, which CPU will give me enough extra horsepower, with out worrying about heat and possible fan speed noise increases while under load?

E6500
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Pentium-Pro ... pd_sim_e_4

E6800
http://www.amazon.com/Processor-Intel-P ... 643&sr=8-1

E7500
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-E7500-Proce ... 807&sr=1-1

E8500
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-C ... 776&sr=1-1

Or.... ?XXX

I wouldnt mind having VT so I could run other Virtual OS's to test out etc.

I'd like 4GB too, and I see Mushkin thrown around a lot. So far I'm only seeing the 4G kit for sale which is really 2x 2GB sticks.

Mushkin 240 pin PC2-6400 4GB ? (where is the single chip for sale at?)
I think standard memory in this this is 800Mhz, but the motherboard supports XX00Mhz memory too right? (which is ??)

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind having the VGA Adapter too if anyone knows a cheap place to pick one up.

I'm happy that someone wrote drivers to get the LED Drive lights, and Health light working in WHS 2011!
http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/ ... -whs-2011/
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=596fc984 ... wsignin1.0

I'm happy using StableBit Drive Pool so far as well.

_________________
WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:00 pm 
Offline
2.0TB storage
2.0TB storage

Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 8:33 am
Posts: 195
Thanks: 17
Thanked: 10 times in 9 posts
JazJon wrote:
I'd like to be able to remote access into the WHS, and not have the screen freeze slow down/delays as it does under load now. I'll have either Vuze or uTorrent running as well. (and other streaming apps/services I'm sure, iPhone stuff)


Try the 4GB of RAM first. I'll bet you are more RAM constrained than CPU.

Indeed, open the resource monitor and pay attention to the CPU vs. disk activity. If you expand the Disk section and click on the Total column to sort the most active total disk activity at the top of the list and you see your page file anywhere in the top five to ten lines, bingo - that's your problem. I never see the page file in my disk activity list with 4GB of RAM. It's there if you scroll down enough, but it's hardly ever is used so it's way at the bottom of the list (where it belongs!).

Another good way to get a feel is in the Task Manager on the Performance Tab. Click on the View menu and make sure "Show Kernel Times" is checked. 90% of the time Kernel activity is disk activity. If you aren't doing file transfers or a software install, it's more than likely page file activity. Again, resource monitor will point out which files are the most active and pagefile.sys is not a good one to be active :)

For what it's worth, I also upgraded to the E6600 @ 3.06 GHz, but I now think that was unnecessary. I think my big problem was WHS v1 and 2 GB of memory. 4 GB didn't fix WHS v1, but WHS 2011 took care of my issues! Sure, transcoding would take longer but it's a server. Mine is on 7x24 so if it chugged away a little longer it probably wouldn't have been a big deal.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:53 pm 
Offline
1TB storage
1TB storage
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 1:32 am
Posts: 48
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 3 times in 3 posts
I went ALL OUT on the Q9550S. ($340 on Amazon, after you click the fine print link below the $382.99 one found via search)

I got the Mushkin Silverline 4GB 240-Pin DDR2 800 from Directron.com (newegg is out of stock)

More details here:
http://homeservershow.com/forums/index. ... -whs-2011/

They are both on order, next I'll get the VGA/PS2 add on as well. (bottom of post above)

_________________
WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 4:51 pm 
Offline
2.0TB storage
2.0TB storage
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:22 pm
Posts: 188
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 4 times in 4 posts
I went with the Q9550S 2.83GHz Quad-core. It idles at 43-44º with the fans at their minimum of 1,231 RPM. After disabling "Override Fan speed settings" in the HP section of the BIOS I changed the fan speed settings so the fans start ramping up at 45º and hit max by 66º. For my Initial testing phase I set the Temperature Range setting to 10º because I wanted to see how cool the fans could keep it and the Arctic silver isn't broken in. As a result it actually reaches max fan at 55º at the moment. I'll probably change that to 20º.

I ran Orthos overnight with no problems. Orthos only maxes two of the 4 cores. The temp under that load maxed at 61º-62º with 75º intake air measured in front of the server. (Note my fans reached their 3052 max RPM at 55º due to my current temperature range setting of 10º) I ran prime95 small FFT briefly and it runs all 4 cores and takes the temp up into the low 70ºs and still no problems so I'm certain it will be fine in normal use. I'll run the blended test for a while then put it in service.

I'm using the G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) F2-6400CL5S-4GBPQ 5-5-5-15 timing. I manually set the 5-5-5-15 timing in the BIOS. I'm very happy with the these upgrades.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 410 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 ... 28  Next

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group