Since the announcement of the 49x series of HP's MediaSmart Server line a few months back, I have spent many hours trying to find reason(s) NOT to buy the faster, more powerful machine with the new, slick user interface. Well, last week, afetr a complete and utter inability to find a solid reason, I pulled the trigger and purchased a new EX495. With anticipation and trepidation, I awaited it's arrived - which, thankfully, was very quick (4 days from order to receipt) - so HP has gotten this shipping thing down to science.... The problem now becomes: How do I migrate 8 TB's of data from my 475 + eSATA enclosure to my new EX495.

I wollowed and waded through several choices, each with their own specific set of drawbacks and attack plans. If I did the pedestrian drive map and copy process, it would require a very coordinated effort of drive movement via strategic dismounts, reinstalls and copies, in order to ensure that the new machine had enough storage to accept the copied data. I didn't have enough internal storage available and free to allow a complete dismount of the external enclosure, so this was my last choice. It was also the slowest method...Even across the network, the 8TB's could take over 48 hours based upon my initial testing. Also, my personal favorite reason for it's position on my list was it just was NO fun at all...

So, after reading a number of posts about the restore process, I decided to give this a shot. Alex provided some tips and tricks, pointed me to a few posts and I figured there was nothing to lose starting here. I could always fall back to the copy method, if all else failed... and believe me, almost everything did, in fact, fail.


I I began by shutting off my beloved 475 and carefully removing all the installed, internal drives. I marked the sytem drive and the order of each of the other drives to ensure proper replacement in the 495. As it stands, the 495 ships with a 1.5TB system drive, but I was not going to use this because it would be more difficult to restore my shares. I planned to actually move each drive, from the 475 in the same order to the 495 and use the new 1.5TB drive as an additional data drive.

(see part #2)

This is where is becomes interesting. The recover process for the new 495 is very different from prior products in almost every way. Let's start by describing the prior restore processes , in line with the new, to highlight the differences. The older machines could restore across a network while the 495 series requires a direct, ethernet connection. The older machines could be restored on many different windows machines without many issues, while the new process is very finnicky - if the Windows Firewall is disabled, it will fail with an error. Without a comparison point, if the process fails, Windows XP machines will fail at a different pont in the process than Vista machines and the errors offer no advice or indication of what caused the error - it is trial and error to correct it. The 475 series used a Bios based recovery process, whereas the new 495 machines use a network, cd based recovery to put the machine in a "recovery state."

Now that we've highlighted the differences, let's talk about all the ways to cause the restoral process to fail. For example, I learned that in order for the restore to succeed, nothing except the system drive should be connected to the server...N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Nada...Zip....Zero....zilch...Even a USB drive, UPS, etc., may cause it to fail. I assume the driver issues may cause a problem in the limited, network initiated restoral process which are not recoverable.

See part #3 for a summary of tips and tricks!

Summary of tips and tricks:

1) Connect must be direct, not via switch, router or other Level 2 or 3 connection devices.
2) All devices must be disconnected (USB, eSATA enclosures, etc.)
3) If you have a firewall that is NOT Microsoft or the MS F/W disabled, re-enable it until the restore is complete
4) Do not re-install any devices until the host unit prompts you for a choice of install new O/S or Reset to Factory defaults
5) Make sure you have 60-120 minutes as the process is NOT quick
6) If you restore between versions of the MSS, make sure you have a record of your users and settings as they will be lost!
7) Make sure you move drives between machines in the EXACT order they were removed, but start ONLY with the system drive (even if you are NOT moving between machines, use only the system drive until prompted for choices)

Hope this helps... it also may help to have HP's number handy. I spent 4.5 hours on the phone with a very helpful technician who even called back today to ensure things are still working to spec.

Lee

sry for the nub question but did you essentially do a restore of the new 495 over your 475's OS partition? in which your data isn't touched at all?

Yup, I talk about it in this blog post with the EX48x series, the process is the same with the EX49x series or a DIY server.

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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?

I'm facing a similar upgrade since I currently have an EX485 but I have an EX495 on order.

It won't be a huge loss to me if I lose PC backup data since I am now just backing up my Macs with Time Machine to the MSS.

So, here's my question. Is there any advantage to doing a server restore using the existing 1.5TB system drive in the EX495 and my existing data drives over just copying all of my shares from the old Media smart to the new one?

I should be able to do a safe drive removal of a 1TB disk on my existing box, then back up all shares to that and then restore them to the new box. Is there any reason this wouldn't work or is there an easier way I am missing to do migrate my data.

An aside, Mac related question, if I do things this way will my time machine sparsebundle images make it over okay and continue to work if I load the new client onto my Mac boxes?

Thanks.

Given the hit or miss success associated with a Server Restore, I would, for the time being, NOT recommend trying to do a restore with the existing EX485 drives. My opinion is that right now it is MUCH safer to simply copy the files over from one server to another. While it may seem tedious in terms of time, I can assure you that a troublesome Server Restore is a major headache and you could easily find yourself investing far more time than you would if you did a manual copy.

If you have sufficient space on the 1.5 TB unit, I'd copy the files over to that, then add the 1 TB and then manually turn on Folder Duplication.

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

Fair enough. That does make sense and it should not be a problem. It will just require juggling of some disks and remembering that you can't re-use drives from one MSS into another one without doing a full format on them.

The underlying mechanism of replacing the WHS has not changed in this new server, the change is that instead of onboard flash containing the recovery boot image, it is not delivered via network connection (PXE boot) from the client PC via direct network connection. The fundamental concept of upgrading is the same as discussed in the two articles I've linked above.

I do see people have had some issues with the new process, but I've been doing recoveries and resets every night for the past few days and believe that with a proper tutorial we can increase the success rate. I hope to share details of an upgrade of my 485 to my 495 soon.

With that said, there's nothing wrong (and less risk) with manually copying your files over.

_________________
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?

Thanks Alex.

After reading your previous posts on the subject I'm a bit confused about the "dirty drive" thing with WHS. Is it only the installation of a "dirty" system drive that can cause the system fits or is the insertion of ANY drive that previously was part of a storage pool that can cause a problem?

Thanks.

My understanding is that a 'dirty drive' is a drive that had a previous installation of the WHS operating system. Pool drives and regular back-up (non-pool) drives are not considered 'dirty.'

Oddly enough, I'm of the thought that this 'dirty drive' thing may indeed be an issue with some of our recovery problems. In my case, on at least two occasions the recovery process seemed as though if failed to partition the 1.5 TB system drive correctly. I say seemed because the back-up service would not start. Based on some of the log entries that others saw, you could conclude that in some cases there is no "d:" partition after the recovery, or at least not a functional one. With no functioning "d:" partition, there is no where for the back-up service to back-up to and it'll shut down immediately. Server Joins will be dead in the water and the Recovery is in essence a failure. Now some folks have not seen this error, but a few of us have and the signs/symptoms look very similar to what was reported with reusing dirty drives. Mind you, I never dug deep into this matter, I simply threw in the towel and returned the server to HP and ordered a new one. Until the bugs are worked out of the process, I'm going to avoid any kind of Server Recovery/Factory Reset like the plague.

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

System drives.

_________________
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?

Thanks!

I won't bother to re-format my data drives then when I move them from the old MSS to the new one.

Just thought I would post my Server recovery nightmare here rather than start a new thread.
Yesterday I think I did 10 unsuccessful server recovery attempts. Unlike most who are posting here, I am using DieHard's USB stick method and have no routing problems doing the actual restore and server reboot. I get it to the point where all the health and drive lights are "breathing" light and dark blue. Where my failure occurs is in the installing the connector software during the Home Server Setup. It "downloads" the software from the Home server, installs and I choose the server name and password, select use recommended settings. During the next step where it says it's installing updates, I always get an error and it stops. Clicking back for further attempts eventually reboots the server and it comes up with flashing drive lights, not breathing any more. Further attempts with the setup are futile, as it will never configure the home server backup or let me set up user accounts or access the console.

I did a successful server recovery in July. Have no idea why I can't now.

My Setup is:
Ex-495 (3 drives: 1.5gb/2GB/2GB)
Sans Digital TR5M-B eSATA enclosure (5 drives x 2GB)
MediaSonic HF2-SU2S2 USB enclosure (3 drives x 2GB)
Total 21.5TB

I also have the Gen3 board to use a monitor, keyboard, mouse.

When using a monitor and inspecting things, I see when I open my computer there are 11 separate drives appearing, instead of only the C: and D: you would normally see. Because there is no d:, the backup service cannot be started. Can't seem to get past this part.

Is there anything I can do here from the "real" desktop?

I have tried server recovery on several different hard drives for the system drive, but always the same. I finally tried a Factory Reset on only the system drive installed, and that worked. (Maybe I should sell it now?) But I am trying to avoid having to copy my 21.5TB of data back drive by drive back to the server.

As I type this I am trying to restore a complete disk image made with Acronis onto the "original" system drive and see what happens. It was back before I added more drives by USB, so if it works would have only 3 drives to copy back.

I must say this is a little disheartening due to the fact: what if my system drive failed completely (it didn't) and you have all these drives attached to the Mediasmart server? It appears you have only 1 choice: Factory reset and spend days copying data back. If this is so, I can't see running this setup much longer.

Am I hitting the limitations of WHS v1 or the EX495 running many extra drives? Would WHS 2011 be better in the future once the 3rd party DE replacements mature? or a DIY build?

Reading many posts here I was under the assumption that the EX495 would handle this. There are a couple of users running over 30 drives. (I don't think they ever tried server recovery?)

Running lots of drives is great until something happens and you try to recover easily!

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Lenovo TS-440| 8GB| |13 int HD's| 2xSans Digital TR5M-B (10 HD's) | WHS 2011 | |Stablebit Drivepool |Stablebit Scanner| |FlexRAID 2.0|

I have the same issue and am in need of help.

My Setup is:
Ex-490 upgraded CPU (4 drives: 640MB/1.5GB/2GB/2GB)
Sans Digital TR4M-B eSATA enclosure (4 drives x 2GB)

I replaced the failed 1GB system drive with a WD Blue drive I was not using and did a system recovery.



Do I have to do a factory reset to get my setup running? Or would I be better off migrating to WHS 2011?

I would just prefer to get the system recovery working. Any ideas, I am at a loss.