It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 4:55 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]

Recent News:



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 2:13 pm 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am
Posts: 67
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
.. so far so good ! ! Lord knows I had some issues to deal with, and things to work around, but after a few days (and help and guidance from Comp), I had it set up and working just fine. I bought my EX470 back in 2008 and it has served me well, getting a RAM and CPU upgrade(s) along the way, starting with a 1640-LE and then on to an X2 3800+EE.

I then had several 3TB drives that I bought for an external enclosure to hook up to the MSS, as I had filled all of my internal bays and needed more storage. That 4.5TB sounded sooo unfillable a few years ago !! I found the 3TB drives in the ext. enclosure would cause my MSS to not boot, so I gave up on that plan. Jumping forward a few years, and I found my primary MSS drive to be failing, requiring a weekly repair and a full chkdsk scan from a batch file that I had on the server's desktop. It was now time to take the plunge !!

Luckily, I had ample drives available that I could remove all WHSv1 drives and drop in larger drives. In case of utter failure, I could revert back to where I was before undertaking this job. Another huge plus for me was adding a Gen3 VGA dongle that I eventually felt would eliminate any future issues that I might encounter. I fought off buying it for over a year until it became apparent it was too important to not have hooked up.

The install itself went smoothly, but one of my 3TB drives did not report the proper size. Both drives were formatted as GPT and were not a primary drive, so after adding Stablebit and rebooting the server, things were back to normal and showing the proper capacity. My next issue was the backups not completing. This was an easy one, and I should have known better, but of course Windows Updates needed to be installed, and of course a reboot needed to be done, so my backups were being interrupted by this !

Next issue to deal with was the external enclosure, which received some of the drives from the original MSS after I determined that WHS2011 was running fine and I had backups of all of the networked PCs. It was not being identified by the WHS at all. Again, this was an issue I had with the box waaay back when I first got it, and I had forgotten the trick to make things work - the enclosure had to be TURNED ON FIRST before the server was booted up. I never power off the server, or if I did, the enclosure was turned on after the fact. Again, an easy fix that I had knowledge of but forgot in my hour of need.

First impressions after getting WHS2011 up and running ... holy crap .. its slooow !! :( Well, I seem to have forgotten how slow WHSv1 was when it was freshly set up. There was a lot going on behind the scenes here (134 Window Updates later ... yea, you've been there too, I know it). After a day or two, the server calmed down a lot and the temps are reasonable for an x2 chip - 31-36c tops. After 3+ days of non-stop creation of full images, (including about 4TB of movies) I now had full backups of all networked PCs.

The Good:
64 bit native restores !!! No more searching for the 32 bit Vista drivers for a machine. I did manage to copy these from the WHSv1 to a thumb drive, simple because I have needed them in the past and knew enough to be prepared.
3TB+ drive support ! 2TB seemed like a lotta space ... until you needed a lot more space. :|

The Bad:
The WHSv1 interface seemed like a thing of beauty to me now. It was thorough, it offered a lot of detail, and add-ins were numerous. WHS2011 - wow. Its a barren landscape compared to the granularity of v1. I don't need much, but 2011 isn't offering much, so get used to it. I don't like change, so maybe the old way was just too much information, but it feels like it would be right at home on a Mac - hide the underbelly so the cluless home user can't see what is really going on.

The Ugly:
Unresolved - remember the ext. enclosure difficulties I had ?? Well, they are not actually all solved. WHS will simply not see the second drive in the enclosure plugged in via eSATA. Note that I have an eX470 that offers port replication, so I know I am OK there. I plugged the box into another PC that sees both drives JUST FINE ! Plug it back into the MSS - only one drive. Note that I pulled 2 drives out and plopped two larger drives into it - no jumpers needed changed internally !! I double-checked the manual, and like I said, it works fine in another PC. My workaround - plug it in via it's USB 3.0 port to my WHS (which only offers USB 2.0 - but it sees both drives).

In the end - I'm a happy camper. I now have 10TB of space and a 3TB archive of the shared folders. That more than doubles my space from WHSv1, and allows me to use those 3TB drives and also re-purpose the old 1-1.5 TB drives from the old v1. Again, many thanks to Comp for helping me out through this ordeal. He truly is a wizard when it comes to WHS hardware/software. I really do miss my drive lights, but I am not tossing in the towel on that yet .. I will find something to mimic the lights. I see a lot of guys rolling their own DIY servers these days, but I am content to let my MSS continue to do its nightly backups. I don't use it for streaming - I have an HTPC for that, but what it does it does well, and I'm glad I bought it many years ago. It has saved my bacon at least once a year since I have owned it. Here's to many more years of 24/7 operation from my tiny WHS.
:sanjuan:


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  

Attention Guest: Remove this ad by Registering with the MediaSmartServer.net Forums. It's Free!
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:22 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Good to see you got things sorted out but your external enclosure is troublesome to me in the way it has to start up. I think Gardian who has a LianLi External Enclosure has the same issue but on his build its a WS2012E. Correct me if I am wrong but you have a MediaSonic Probox correct?

I will send you a PM about another External Enclosure to try out and trust me the price will be right too.

I have 2 EX470's here one fully functional the other with a failed LAN Port but otherwise functions well. I have said this in the past but keep getting side tracked but I think I would like to install WHS2011 on one of them to see what if anything can be done with the LED's. I know many years ago there was some posts about getting them to work in a Linux environment so maybe that's a good place to start but then again I am uncertain how successful that turned out but maybe a bit of reverse engineering is in order.

I know my schedule is tight until the end of the year but I have 6 days off coming and if I do not travel then I will have plenty of time to work on the EX470 to see what I might be able to do with it.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:38 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Oh I have to recommend setting up an OS Backup Drive for WHS2011 be it internal or external. Do this and you can recover your server from an OS Backup: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=13989

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:05 am 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am
Posts: 67
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
Comp, I appreciate the offer !! Yes, I am using that 2 bay Mediasonic box - it works OK and I would have preferred the 4 bay ProBox but due to space constraints I couldn't fit the 4 bay aside of the MSS. I have the 2 bay sitting on top of the MSS as it is.

My personal preference is any external drives do not become part of the pool - they become archival or backups of the internal drives. I have 10TB internal and the ext box has 3TB, so I need to figure out how to create a backup of my primary drive. I've been through two failing primary drives since 2008, so I am definitely a candidate for creating a full backup of that drive. I'm not crazy about having my ext. box backing up through the USB 2.0 interface, but with the small amount of data I add to my shares over a months time, USB 2.0 is most assuredly fine for that purpose. Would I be stressing the 470s PSU at all by adding a 4 port enclosure, or does its own power supply handle all of its power needs ?

Do you need a USB to LAN adapter for your EX470 with the dead NIC port ?? I have a Trendnet GB unit that was recommended on here years ago for just such an emergency, and I thought I'd offer it to you if you have need of it.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:56 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Connecting the 4 bay Enclosure will not cause any stress issues with the EX470 because it has its own PSU and the only connection would be the eSATA cable.

Once the backup drive is configured it works much like the client backups in that the first backup takes the longest and the future backups are just incremental so once its done with the first backup the future backups do not take all that long and the server will perform this backup twice a day. You can also perform a manual backup to a location of your choosing which is ideal if you wanted to connect an external drive and just back up the OS here and there when you know the server is running well or if your about to do something that your not quite sure of.

I will also tell you unlike WHSv1 you can image the System Drive to another drive, pop in the new drive and run the server off it without issue. I know this because when I changed from a mechanical drive to an SSD that's all I did and it was painless. So for the backups, recovering from a backup image and imaging a system drive WHS2011 is way more flexible then WHSv1 ever was so you can take comfort in knowing that.

Now in my most recent post where I had to perform a recovery on the WHS2011 server I have at work it was because of an Unauthorized Change to the OS and the OS had to be reinstalled. This bothered me because only two of us have access to the server and I didn't make any changes and the other person he just does not fool with things so I started looking at the event logs particularly the Security Events and low and behold I had tons of failed logon attempts from China, Russia, Netherlands, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and a few locations in the US. I started blocking IP Ranges but they continued hitting the server like the plaque so I shut down port 80 then Remote Access and they were still hitting the server so I shut down my RDP port and changed the RDP Security and things were quite. Today I got brave and opened up the RDP Port and it ran all day without issue but I shut it down for the weekend as I have an alternate way to access the server if needed.

I would urge you to spend sometime each day reviewing the event logs particularly the Security Logs for Failed logon attempts. Typically you may see a couple here and there from the server or client but its typically just 2 but when you see many you will know someone is trying to hack into your server and they can be vicious when that happens. WHSv1 had an ADD-IN called Remote Alert the help you prevent these things and after like 3 failed logon attempts Remote Alert would just shut down Remote Access for like 30 minutes. So I am looking for a similar solution for WHS2011 but felt the need to advise you.

As for the 4 bay enclosure I don't need any funds I will be more then happy just to ship it to you next week. I have long and short eSATA Cables some say its best to use the shortest possible cable but I went through trying different cables with WHSv1 and I do not think the issue with the drop outs was cable related but lean more towards an MS Update but can't prove it. Anyway its the primary reason why I built Highlander to run WHS2011 and when I down sized my WHSv1 server I retired the Port Multipliers and built a small mITX System to run WHSv1.

Just send me the shipping info and I will send it out when I ship out the computers I am working on now.

Stephen

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 6:50 pm 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am
Posts: 67
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
Comp1962 wrote:
the server will perform this backup twice a day.

Ahh, yes, I have indeed done this !!! I wasn't sure but that matches exactly what I ran through when I set it up. I will say that I changed the time that my primary drive backup runs - I changed it from the midnight startup time it defaults to, to 1:00 PM (so that it didn't interfere with my nightly backups of my 4 boxes) and I also changed it from twice a day to once a day. I saw no point in adding to the servers workload when a daily backup was sufficient.

I also have the first drive in my 2 bay external (named Archive1) which backs up the shares from the server. The second drive is named Archive2 and it is responsible for backing up the primary OS. That seems to be an easy to manage setup for my particular hardware config here at home.

Quote:
so I started looking at the event logs particularly the Security Events and low and behold I had tons of failed logon attempts from China, Russia, Netherlands, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and a few locations in the US. I started blocking IP Ranges but they continued hitting the server like the plaque so I shut down port 80 then Remote Access and they were still hitting the server so I shut down my RDP port and changed the RDP Security and things were quite.

Now this freaks me out !! Back in the Win98/Win2K days I bought a network intrusion software product named 'Black Ice', and it was amazing to see the multiple pokes, prods and probes from all over the world that would take a shot at my machine. I even had an attack come in from a local Saturn dealers garage !! I use the remote access maybe 2 times a month, and I thought it was amazingly cool to remote into my machine, but I think I need to harden the target before I become yet another victim.

Quote:
I would urge you to spend sometime each day reviewing the event logs particularly the Security Logs for Failed logon attempts. WHSv1 had an ADD-IN called Remote Alert the help you prevent these things and after like 3 failed logon attempts Remote Alert would just shut down Remote Access for like 30 minutes. So I am looking for a similar solution for WHS2011 but felt the need to advise you.

Let me know if you find anything, as I am always interested in shutting down the hackers before they even get a chance to screw around. I have already noted that the add-ins for WHS2011 are very scarce, and lacking in any security add-ins that will most assuredly come in handy.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:54 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
You and I have been going back and forth in PM's with the EX470 and the port multiplier which after loading a device driver for the Marvell Controller allowed the eSATA Port to function normally. I did install WHS2011 on an EX470 with a stock processor and 2gb RAM and its horrible for sure. I will install the ADD3800 as I have a few of them on the shelf left over as well as BE2300 so I will have to mod the BIOS.

I know the ADD3800 will run WHS2011 comfortably but the RAM utilization is on the heavy side for 2gb so I will look for a 4gb stick then I think an SSD is in order to provide an additional performance boost which will make the EX470 run WHS2011 comfortably. I think the fans also need to be changed out or modified so they run at full speed to help keep things cool in the EX470.

Now I really do not have a need to run another server in the house god only knows I have enough running now but the EX470 is an old friend so its of interest to me to see how far it can be pushed. I do have 2 of them but the one I am using was initially left with the original CPU as part of my collection but that CPU gets wacked way to hard.

I am also curious about using a drive larger then 2TB so I will have to test that out next time I purchase a large drive but not to actually run in the EX470 just to see if the EX470 can see the drive properly and then can the 4 bay Sans Digital Port Multiplier do the same. I am also curious if the new 64bit Marvel Driver will support a 5 bay enclosure or not or is it still going to be 4 bays. That remains to be seen.

I will look into the LED's but that one is going to be the hardest damn thing of all to get working unlike the EX48x, EX49x and x510.

So it looks like I have a new project on my hands with the EX470 running WHS2011 and to see what can be done and how well it actually runs it with a proper configuration. Personally my recommendation would be to build a more robust server but for those who already have an HP MSS and what to use it for WHS2011 then maybe what we do here will help. I will mention that I do have WHS2011 running on an EX48x with an Intel E5200 and 2GB of RAM and its not the fastest thing but it holds its own quite well but a RAM upgrade from 2 to 4 GB may boost its performance as well and an SSD for the OS.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:57 am 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am
Posts: 67
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
Agreed on the DIY server for most parties interested in getting the most out of their servers, but in my case I do not do any streaming from the server. I use it primarily for its backups of my rigs, and occasionally pull files or folders from backups. The 3800+ X2 EE chip runs well enough for my needs, although I did contemplate going with one 4GB stick (but dear God ...the price !!) and the temps seem OK so far - 31c and 36c per core using CoreTemp to monitor it.

I actually have a friend who has an EX485 that I could acquire for a song and a dance, but I would refer to stick with my 470 for now - even if I can't show off my Christmas chaser lights on the front panel anymore.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:53 am 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Well you could just pop in a drive and setup WHSv1 and keep that drive safe just for Christmas. Actually if its a fully functional server and the price was right you could use it for spare parts for the EX470. Or use it for your Christmas lights display for the holidays.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:48 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
I just installed Home Server SMART 2013 (HHS 2013) on the EX470 which did not report SMART DATA from the drives the last time I had WHS2011 installed. I will mention that the last time I had it installed I did not have a port multiplier connected to the server where as this time I do.

I only have 1 drive in the server and I popped in a couple drives into the port multiplier to test a driver load to make sure more than 1 drive would show up and the driver worked like a charm.

This time running HHS 2013 the drives in the Port Multiplier reported the SMART DATA but the drive in the EX470 did not. I will also mention that these are all older Seagate Drives with 2 being identical so its not a drive compatibility issue but possibly an issue within the EX470 hardware but to confirm this I will need to install additional drives.

I do know that when Matt updated the WHSv1 version that there was an issue with reading the drives in the EX470 which he was kind enough to resolve. I am not sure if the same issue is present in HHS2013 or if there is a driver issue in the EX470 hardware but if someone else running WHS2011 on an EX470 can install HHS2013 and report their results maybe we can get this thing sorted without having to bother Matt with the issue.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:57 am 
Offline
1.5TB storage
1.5TB storage

Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am
Posts: 67
Thanks: 2
Thanked: 2 times in 2 posts
Update on my WHS 2011 - its been a while since I posted here, but around November I started to get errors on my nightly backups. Last time this happened, I had one of my drives failing, so this time I was smart enough to know where to look first. I invested in the Stablebit Scanner which found 2 bad sectors on my boot drive (of course, it's ALWAYS the boot drive !!).

I also was keeping an eye out for some large drives for cheap, and found that Best Buy was offering WD Easystore 8TB enclosures for only $159, so I picked up 2. These enclosures have WD Red drives in them, and altho they are not the WD Red Pro 7200 rpm drives, they are NAS drives that fit the bill for my needs. Shucking the drives from the enclosures was easy as can be - it took me 2 minutes per drive.

So I backup up my important data and began the install. I chose to go with a small SSD for my boot drive, and eventually got it to work (Vail requires a 160GB drive for its boot partition, but I created a custom cfg.ini file to bypass the size check when I started the install). I then added one of the new WD 8TBs and an existing Seagate 5TB and Seagate 4TB NAS drive to fill the bays up. The SSD does help the OS get going a bit faster, so I feel it was a worthwhile upgrade.

Now that the server is back up, I will need to add each of my client PCs back into the pool and go through a full backup again. I had removed them back when the server was having issues, but going without backups for over 2 months was starting to stress me out. I have definitely kept this EX470 going longer than I anticipated when I bought it almost a decade ago.

Last item now on my to-do list: I want to revisit my issues I had with the Sans Digital external 4 bay box that gave up working on me last year as well. I have enough spare drives now to increase my storage, but to be honest I don't need any more storage than the 17TB that I now have in the 470. Amazingly, the 2 500GB Seagate drives that came with my MSS when I bought it in 2009 are STILL working 24/7 with no issues at all.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 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