All,

I was really looking forward to the next version of WHS (i.e. Vail). However with the announcement from Microsoft that DE will be removed from Vail i'm worried.

I'm wondering what impact this news will have on my HP EX490 Homeserver if i decide to upgrade. Will i be able to install Vail on my EX490? With DE removed, will there be any hardware conflicts during the installation process?

thanks
Harty01

You will be able to upgrade ONLY through a clean install.
For that, you would want to buy the monitor cable to see what you are doing and you will need a USB keyboad and mouse and a memory stick to put the OS on. Since there is no hardware support from HP anymore, some items (i.e. LED lights) may not work after the upgrade.

Regarding the hard drives, you will not have a large storage pool anymore, but rather a bunch of drive letters assigned to each drive depending on the size (WHS limit of 2GB per drive letter).
There is an option for you however, but it is by no means as easy to use and worry-free to configure as DE.

Make use of the library feature in Windows OS. That, however, requires that you remap all your folders to libraries (that you create, i.e. Videos, Music, etc) and point to them by default. Cumbersome to do but it works.

For me, this OS does not deliver anything new, actually less, because of the missing DE and the MAC connection is utterly buggy.
WHS v1 works well and I see no reason to change something that works like a charm.

Cheers,
Lars

_________________
HP Microserver, 8GB, 2x1.5TB, WHS2011
HP G42, Core i3, 4GB, Win7 64bit
13" MacBook Pro, 8GB, OSX 10.6.7
Apple Network infrastructure & 2 Apple TVs

Lars,

Thanks for the reply. On my current EX490 i've got two open bays with a plan to purchase two 2tb drives. Anyway, with all the excitement surrounding Vail (minus DE) and before i add the new drives to my WHS V1 configuration, i figured now be a good time to take Vail for a test drive.

It sounds as though Vail will install on the EX490. I'll have to pick up a monitor cable then figure out how to make a bootable thumb drive and add the Vail ISO/install files.

Harty01

Make sure you see the Guides we wrote in the Vail section.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/04 ... ash-drive/
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/04 ... rt-server/

_________________
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.

You do not necessarily need the debug cable but then you do everything blind which could get very frustrating if the installation stops halfway through waiting for a response from you.

I bought a ProLiant Microserver during Black Friday last year really cheap ($100 off list price) and upgraded the RAM to 4GB - which cost me a total of $300. I am currently using this machine as my testserver for WHS 2011 RC (see my experience post), but plan to eventually configure it as my primary WHS sometime after the final version is released. I do not have any overkill folders (>2TB, but I am planning to eventually have my video collection on one and my music and photo collection on another 2TB drive. That should serve me well for a very very long time. The ProLiant Microsever has 4 bays and I figured 4 x 2TB should certainly outlast this machine. I am currently using 2 x 1.5TB and they are not even full.

But at any rate, WHS 2011 RC installs just fine on the MSS and given that it is a 64bit OS, you can then take advantage of 4GB RAM should you choose to upgrade. I hope that some HP insiders will find a way to make the LEDs work ...

I am still planning to keep WHS v1 running on my Mediasmart as long as possible and eventually just turn off the remote access feature and continue to use it in some shape or form until the hardware dies.

Cheers,
Lars

_________________
HP Microserver, 8GB, 2x1.5TB, WHS2011
HP G42, Core i3, 4GB, Win7 64bit
13" MacBook Pro, 8GB, OSX 10.6.7
Apple Network infrastructure & 2 Apple TVs

Theres some talk about a third party company releasing a version of DE for 2011. Not much is known but WGS are interviewing the company this week.

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/ ... -for-sale/