Im still trying to decide if Im gonna take the plunge and install WHS 2011 on one of my MSS. Are there any advantages to switching or is it not really worth the hassle?

I want to be able to do all the normal thing like stream music and movies throughout my house. As well as serve files. I know that DE is gone so what would you do? How would you set up the drives?

I do have another box that backs up the one i wanna swap the os on but like i said i dont know if its worth it.

Any input would be appreciated....

Thanks

Personally I do not see any real benifit to installing WHS2011 onto an MSS. If your really inclinded to do so then I would suggest you install WHS2011 on different drives than what you have in there now. Doing that will save you a ton of work performing a server recovery.

If you do install WHS2011 on an MSS the first thing your going to miss is having the LEDs fully functional and to my knowledge no one has written anything to make them fully functional. I built a little test unit to play with then Vail and now WHS2011 and to be honest with you its nice, does stream certain media but I am not over joyed with it. Maybe my comfort level is with WHS v1 and so I am blinded by it but typically I am on who is willing to try new things and often get excited to do so but I can't say that WHS2011 has brought anything exciting to me. There are some nice things in it but for the momeent I do not see all that much to make me want to migrate to it.

I would if I were you take the time to read what others who have installed WHS2011 onto their MSS Units have to actually say about it. Obviously some will like it others will not and then you should be better able to determine if its right for you or not.

Good luck and please share what you decide to do.

_________________
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

Decided to bump this topic as I think the answer may be evolving as people are sharing experiences with WHS 2011, workarounds are found for specific MSS challenges (e.g. lights) or 3rd party DE replacements are nearing final release.

Still on the fence? Made the jump? Leaving your MSS static and going with a seperate WHS 2011 build? Dropping WHS all together?

Where are you at this point and why?

_________________
WS2012E R2
AMD Phenom II X4 905e 65W Quad-Core / ASUS Sabertooth 990FX MB / G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 Memory
120 GB Kingston HyperX SSD OS/Boot Drive / 6TB Storage

Recently I installed Stablebit Drive Pool software and Remote Potato into my WHS2011 test server and those two things encouraged me to start building a new build around a Norco 2420 enclosure, Gigabyte GA-990DXA-UD5,AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz processor, 3 Supermicro MV8's, and 8 GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) just to mention some of the build. Once complete I will post the build in the DIY Section with pics.

I am pleased with how Stablebit works and soon the new more refined integration release M3 will be out which I am hopeful will correct some of the performance issues but it beta and they are doing a fine job developing it. Just to be able to pull a drive and not hear WHS complain about it like in WHS v1 is a joy. To be able to reinsert the drive and continue without issue another joy. Remote Potato and its ability to stream media content online blew doors off anything I was doing previously.

I will continue to run WHS v1 for some tasks but am going forth with my build and will be installing the new release version of WHS2011 as I am now convinced that with just the two applications I have mentioned that along with the other components of WHS2011 that moving forward is the right thing to do. I will continue to run my WHS2011 test server to continue to test Stablebit as its still in beta which should provide me ample time to build my rack, mount both my servers in it and not look back.

_________________
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

Sounds like keeping both a legacy MSS v1 system and moving to a new WHS 2011 build gives you the best of both worlds! If I still had my MSS EX-470 (it died... RIP) I probably would have kept it with v1 and started a new WHS 2011 build like you. Not an option for me unfortunately.

The reasons for my choice of WHS 2011 were improved interaction with Win 7 PC's and Mac's, better home network integration and concerns over ongoing MS support for WHS v1. Probably the biggest factor was future driver availability for new tech hardware/peripherals.

Although DE was convenient it really was not an immediate critical loss for me since my system does not have that many drives. I will be focusing on drive pooling options at some point as my media storage needs grow. When I made the choice on WHS 2011 it was very much a leap of faith that anything would be happening with a 3rd party DE replacement. Glad to see that several options are close to being final. Stablebit will definately be on my list to consider.

A question on Stablebit? One of the things about DE in WHS v1 that I did not like was that you had no choice where to use it. Does Stablebit allow you the option of selecting the specific drives to be added to the pool? I'd like to use drive pooling for streaming media type shares (home movies. rips, tv recording, etc.) but exclude more static but often used shares that may be hosted on an SSD.

Any insight would be appreciated.

John

_________________
WS2012E R2
AMD Phenom II X4 905e 65W Quad-Core / ASUS Sabertooth 990FX MB / G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 Memory
120 GB Kingston HyperX SSD OS/Boot Drive / 6TB Storage

You can select which drives you would like to have Stablebit add to the drive pool. Its very easy to work with too and if you already have data on the drive you wish to add to the pool Stablebit will leave it. Pulling out drive and inserting them has no big impact with Stablebit. Yes it will let you know but not sound off a multitude of alarms. Personally I am liking it very much for its flexibility. However its beta and should not be entrusted on your primary machine. On my test unit I did notice a drop in performance in terms of how fast the files were being transfered but again its a beta and Stablebit is being developed at a nice pace correcting issues as the arise and continuing to develope, test and realease betas after they have estabilished confidence with the beta.

Soon the M3 will be released which as I understand it will be the version that will properly integrate Stablebit into WHS2011 and its then that I expect that the performance issues will be dealt with. Currently I do find it very stable but as with any beta it should be approached with caution. With this in mind I am running it on a Test Server but not on the build I am working on now. I am confident that Stablebit will make its way to my new build but should that not happen then I will be purchasing WD Black RE Enterprise Drives and pulling the Supermicro MV8's for a more robust card to run a RAID Solution. For now all I can say is the Stablebit Drive Pool Software appears to be a winner and I am hoping not to have to go with a RAID Solution because to do it correctly is expensive.

_________________
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

Sounds like it will be a very good option for my system. Thanks!

_________________
WS2012E R2
AMD Phenom II X4 905e 65W Quad-Core / ASUS Sabertooth 990FX MB / G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 Memory
120 GB Kingston HyperX SSD OS/Boot Drive / 6TB Storage