It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 4:06 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]

Recent News:



Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 12 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 8:38 pm 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:17 pm
Posts: 1140
Location: Roseville, California
Thanks: 10
Thanked: 24 times in 22 posts
So Vail has been out for a little while now. Do you like it more or less then you did when you first downloaded it?

If you still dont care for it will great hardware change your mind?


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  

Attention Guest: Remove this ad by Registering with the MediaSmartServer.net Forums. It's Free!
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:54 pm 
Offline
2.0TB storage
2.0TB storage

Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:43 am
Posts: 143
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 10 times in 8 posts
Love it, just wish some Add-ins would show up. Kinda boring with no Add-ins. Works great and very stable.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:01 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:17 pm
Posts: 1140
Location: Roseville, California
Thanks: 10
Thanked: 24 times in 22 posts
Very nice. Do you like it more then the current OS? Without many add-in's probably hard to tell right?


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:23 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:14 am
Posts: 1540
Thanks: 3
Thanked: 117 times in 100 posts
So far I like it. But like the other posters have mentioned, without any add-ins and with only basic functionality, it's pretty boring. I've only had one major problem so far. It wasn't with Vail itself, but with the connector on my laptop. I installed a new version of Sprint's Smartview software when I got a new 4g modem. After installing the Smartview software, the connector stopped working and Vail was showing the laptop as offline, and wasn't backing up the laptop. The laptop could still see and access the shares on the Vail server, but was showing as offline. The only way I could fix it was to uninstall and re-install the connector on the laptop. Once I re-installed the connector, backups started working again.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:02 am 
Offline
1TB storage
1TB storage

Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:22 pm
Posts: 42
Thanks: 3
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
Having never used WHS prior to Vail, I have a newbie opinion on Vail so far. It seems extremely easy to use, with no prior experience I had the server up and running and connected with little to no issues. Impressive for an early beta. Like others have mentioned I'm intrigued to see what kind of added functionality will come with add-ons. Right now I'm only making use of media streaming, remote access, subsonic music server, utorrent remote access, and of course shares. So really only the basics...


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:31 pm 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:17 pm
Posts: 1140
Location: Roseville, California
Thanks: 10
Thanked: 24 times in 22 posts
So does vail offer enough reasons to upgrade from WHS1 to WHS2? For me it will allow me to upgrade to latest version of iTunes for the appleTV, But is this really a reason to upgrade from WHS1? probably not.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:24 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:17 pm
Posts: 1140
Location: Roseville, California
Thanks: 10
Thanked: 24 times in 22 posts
so.. How is the beta testing going? Can you see this product being released this year? or do you see huge issues? or nothing much cause no real add-ins. Im wondering what HP has up their sleaves with this version. will there be a Vail iStream? will they find another solution for twonky? Its getting later and later in the product life of the ex495 Im excited to see something new.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:11 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:17 pm
Posts: 1140
Location: Roseville, California
Thanks: 10
Thanked: 24 times in 22 posts
So its been a few onths with vail. Does anyone feel this will be a substantial replacement for WHS v1 or its ok no real need?

Id like to hear some info about it


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:51 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:14 am
Posts: 1540
Thanks: 3
Thanked: 117 times in 100 posts
T-Bone wrote:
So its been a few onths with vail. Does anyone feel this will be a substantial replacement for WHS v1 or its ok no real need?

Id like to hear some info about it


I think ultimately it will but it's still too early to tell too much about it. There's not very many add-ins yet and it's still uncertain just what the final DE will look like or how many drives Vail will support. As a base for a home streaming server, Vail is great, but I've had issues with the very restrictive firewall built into Server 2008 R2. I've been able to figure them out and get what I want working, but unless something is made easier, I think it's going to cause problems for the general home user who tries to install anything out of the ordinary. Overall, so far I like Vail. And, I already accidentally discovered the ease of adding an existing Vail storage pool to a new Vail install.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:56 am 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:32 am
Posts: 1027
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 84 times in 76 posts
cavediver wrote:
I already accidentally discovered the ease of adding an existing Vail storage pool to a new Vail install.


What did you find? I've done a couple of reinstalls and it usually puts the old pool on vail as a separate pool from the current install drive pool.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:14 pm 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:37 pm
Posts: 76
Thanks: 0
Thanked: 12 times in 10 posts
I'm looking forward to it. Here's why:

- Hoping that media streaming, especially as it relates to ZunePass DRMed content, works better under Vail. As it is, I'm running WMP11 and Zune software both hacked to install under WHSv1. It works, but it was ugly to setup -- and I've had to do it twice (had to do server restore once). I think similar hacks will be required to get the Zune software to run under Vail (at least the hacks are still required under beta refresh). In Vail the codec situation is a bit of a mess right now, as I had to install Haali media splitter (and would expect on final version) as well as ffdshow (video and audio) to even get mpeg streaming to work. Supposedly this is supposed to be improved for the final version, and I would expect the built-in support to be better than WHSv1. Still, I expect to install some 3rd party software to get my Blu-ray and HD-DVD rips in MKV format to stream correctly from MyMovies.

- It will be nice to get rid of what is, basically, the only XP-based system on my home network. Better to have everything based on the Win7 codebase... for me anyways...

- I like the ideas behind the new drive extender in Vail, assuming they provide some sort of utility to read the drives outside of a setup Vail environment. I guess that is a big assumption. The file system format is definitely strange (FAT32 with nothing visible). In my WHSv1 setup, I've had to set certain shares as just plain-old shares on the main D:\ partition because of problems with accessing the shares directly (media sharing through WMP11 doesn't like UNC path names or the security behind the WHSv1 shares). You don't really lose anything by doing so, provided the shares will fit on a single drive given that duplication is not a backup strategy. Vail seems to solve this problem by providing direct local access to the drive extender shares because the DE tech is done at a lower level (WHSv1 seems to do the mapping in the network layer -- scary stuff...)

- I think having the drive extender duplication happen in real-time will be better for performance. I see file I/O performance vary greatly between 8MB/s and 100MB/s on my Gb network and I think this is directly attributable to DEmigrator kicking in at the wrong time. Whether this affects my ability to stream from my MSS, I don't really know at this point, because my HTPC project is on hold waiting for the Ceton card to arrive at my doorstep...

- I'd like to see HP provide an upgrade path for my MSS ex495, but if not, I'm more than happy to build a new machine to run it on.

- I would guess that the PC Restore will be more up-to-date with regard to drivers. I've used full PC restore several times on a number of different PCs with WHSv1 and I always end up having to chase down network drivers for (gasp!) Vista to place on the flash drive I use for restore.

- Minor issue, but I like how the default pictures share is \\server\Pictures instead of \\server\Photos (not sure how they let that mistake slip by in WHSv1...)

// Dean


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:59 pm 
Offline
Max Contributor
Max Contributor

Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:14 am
Posts: 1540
Thanks: 3
Thanked: 117 times in 100 posts
erail wrote:
cavediver wrote:
I already accidentally discovered the ease of adding an existing Vail storage pool to a new Vail install.


What did you find? I've done a couple of reinstalls and it usually puts the old pool on vail as a separate pool from the current install drive pool.


Exactly that. I installed the new beta refresh and put the old storage pool drives in the MSS thinking I would have to re-add them to the new storage pool. However, they immediately showed up as Storage Pool 1 (not the default storage pool), and all shares and data were visible and available. I was quite surprised and impressed.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 12 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 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