So, I had already upgraded my CPU and RAM to 4GB - I was planning on setting kmttg loose on my Tivo's to download and transcode automatically and figured the extra CPU and memory would be of benefit. Even after the upgrades, the WHS1 software with HP add-ons was just slow and prone to interface lockups when logged in remotely. I tracked most of it down to firefly and twonky - but even with those off it would still be overly glitchy. The icing on the cake was the system drive started to go bad, throwing SMART errors and occasionally refusing to boot.

I took it as an omen and picked up an OEM copy of WHS 2011. Used a 650GB drive I had for a system drive. I tried the whole make a bootable USB flash drive with a config.ini - never did get anywhere with it. I then saw someone mention they did the install on another PC and after they got the install done to the point where you are no longer prompted for input, just transferred the drive to the EX-490 - but I couldn't get the Microsoft WHS DVD to boot off of a Dell desktop I had. I searched around, couldn't find anything about special requirement for the OEM version so on a whim I popped the hard drives out of my Mac Pro, put my soon to be new WHS system drive in, put the WHS 2011 DVD in, held down the option key and lo and behold, the WHS 2011 DVD booted just fine on my Mac Pro! Dunno why it didn't work on the Dell but in the end it didn't matter. Went through the whole install process (only downside to using the Mac? Had to be there to hold down the option key and pick the WHS hard drive to boot for the multiple reboots that happen during the install process - even with it being the only drive in the computer!). When I was all done, I just slapped the hard drive in my EX-490, powered it up, gave it a few minutes and then was able to RDP right into it! BTW - I dunno if it was necessary or not, but I didn't activate my WHS 2011 until after I had transferred the drive to the EX-490 and had rebooted a couple of times.

Woot! A fresh install!

I added in a couple of 3TB drives I got onsale from NewEgg and they came right up. I found a driver for the hard drive lights, so the health system and hard drive lights work like they did with the HP WHS1 software. WHS 2011 FLIES on this machine now. No interface lockups or long pauses. KMTTG is working perfectly, along with my HomeSeer Pro home automation software. I'll probably add something like DriveBender eventually to get brain-dead-easy drive-extender like disk management again. In the mean time I'm plugging in my old hard drives one by one and manually copying files out of the hidden DE folder. So far so good - two drives left to go. I'll see about getting warranty replacement for the original Hitachi drive that was flaking out as well as a 2TB WD Green. Not expecting much but you never know. They might stand behind their products - can't hurt to try.

I just configured iTunes with the Virtual Audio Cable to get rid of the iTunes "we detected a problem with your..." dialog box, and also configured the server to auto-logon with the admin account. HomeSeer works better logged in than as a service, so I didn't bother to make iTunes run as a service but I had done that on my WHS1 install with an article that was on either this site or one of the other MediaSmart web sites.

So far I'm very pleased! As I said, the machine is far more responsive and performing much better for what I am interested in. I haven't bothered to manually make a disk images for TimeMachine for my Mac's yet - it was nice that HP provided a system preference to automate it and a little disappointing that MS didn't quite get there with the Mac dashboard. Other than that, theres not much I miss from the HP software. And I no longer have to worry about support, software restore issues or anything else proprietary to HP.

Just thought I would pass along my experiences - anyone on the fence about this, I wouldn't be that concerned. From what I have read, WHS works fine with the default 2GB of RAM - but the 4GB upgrade is around $60 to $80 depending on sales and it takes about 15 minutes tops to pull the server apart, swap the DIMMs and put it back together so I would highly encourage it. I would only upgrade the CPU if you are going to do CPU intensive stuff. I now kinda regret upgrading the CPU - I don't necessarily care if it takes longer since the server is always running, in the background and I'm not actively using the console on it. Oh well... I would put the $100 or so towards WHS 2011 instead of a new CPU if I were to do things over again.

Thank you for this info as I'm currently on the fence about selling my EX490 and doing a DIY server w/ WHS_11, thisa means I might get some more life out of "TheBeast". Now to find some cheap upgrades!

I was about to dump my EX495 but have decided to try WHS 2011. It's currently a work in progress but I like it better than 2003 already.

_________________
- Tom

OK, I am senile, lets get that out on the table. I have a 490 that was working but slower than molasses running uphill in January. So I upgraded to 4 gig of RAM and E 5700 processor. Worked OK, CPU at 100% and temps of 72-73 on both cores. I bought a OEM WHS 2011when the price dropped to $49.
Now the mystery. Install DVD does not show an ISO, so I used "Free DVD ISO Maker to create on on a 8G memory stick and added the ini file from the thread on various sites. cleaned all the partitions off the system drive and plugged the USB into the bottom slot. Several hours later I have a nice rhythmic blinking of the blue lite on the front and the red light on the USB. Not very entertaining, and no OS on the 490.
So I decided to try the install on my utility box computer by inserting the 490s system disk and running the CD. (Its Win 7 64.)
When I select my clean 1T system disk, the next screen says I have not selected a drive >160G and gives me the single choice to restart.
I know I have done something simple but wrong, I just don't know what. Sorry for the long post, getting frustrated because I know WHS 2011 will work if I can get it installed.

Thanks in advance...

I never made an iso. Just make the USB drive bootable and copy the DVD to the drive the old fashioned way, add the file necessary for the unattended install and it works fine.

_________________
- Tom

Did the same basic upgrade after reading all the posts. Had absolutely no luck with USB install and didn't want to spend the time/money on the video cable. So I did the install on my "bigdob" box, pulled it out at the first reboot and stuck it in the 490. As reported, within a few minutes I was up but it refused to believe my password. Got no help from the forums, they all seemed to say I could RDP, but couldn't. Then bit the bullet and reinstalled, watching very carefully when I typed in the password. After install completed on 490, RDP worked. Installed the first computer, it worked a treat. The rest of the computers are working fine. I have one problem - it will not allow me to move or copy files to the server folders even tho I have all permissions set and homegroup logged in. Time to surf the forums again.

Thanks for all the good advice...

Do the 3tb drives just install into a slot like normal drives or do they require PCI adapters to work. I have a mini motherboard and no pci slots.

Be aware that the homegroup permissions override the settings you may have made for each user. It is not a very good design, and really makes the homegroup feature useless. I tried it and when I had trouble accessing things, turned it off.

Yes. But you have to use Disk Manager and convert them from MBR to GPT for the partition table. Then you can format them as 3TB drives (or a 2TB and 1TB partition)