Hi-

I'm going to upgrade my EX495 to WHS 2011 here soon and was wondering if anyone had any advice on the process for me.

Thanks!
Mark

Hi Newtie welcome to the forums,

Alex wrote a guide back when WHS2011 was called VAIL on how to install the OS onto an MSS which you can review in the link below:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/04 ... rt-server/

I would urge you to look through the forums to see what others have to say about installing WHS2011 on their MSS some liked it others did not and its worth gathering as much information as possible.

What I can tell you is that if you do install WHS2011 your server will not function as you are use to. The LED's for example will not function properly at all because there is nothing written to drive them. Now someone was working on this but I am not certain how far they got but you can read about it in the link below:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/06 ... rver-2011/

I happen to run several servers I have an older EX470 and an HP ProLiant running WHS v1 and I built a test server and a Monster I fondly call Highlander that I installed WHS2011 on. I still rely heavily on my WHS v1 servers to protect my data and while I am pleased with WHS2011 I am still sitting on the side lines thinking about data redundancy on the server this is something you will need to consider since WHS2011 does not have a DE Solution but your hardware limited with your EX495 and only have a few options to chose from.

Much has been written on how to get WHS2011 installed on your server and I have already pointed you to option to consider but others have partially installed WHS2011 in another computer then moved the system drive to their MSS unit to finish the install. While people have reported success doing various methods of installation my personal prefrence would be to add a debug cable to connect a Monitor, Mouse and Keyboard and then I would connect an external DVD drive to the MSS and install it the way it was ment to be installed. Of course my way makes it more expensive but I prefer to see whats going on so I can address the issues as they arise and having a headless unit can at times be abit tricky and tax ones patients but its still cheaper than building a new server if you heart is set to upgrade your unit.

So please do take the time to read what others have posted. Read as much as you can so that you can make a well informed decision. Just keep one thing in mind and that is a Server is only a computer which runs server software. Some motherboards designed for servers are indeed unique and special and come with a nice price tag but when you boil it all down its just a computer with a variety of hardware compliment running server software. Having said that the MSS is a cool looking device and I really wish HP still made the MSS instead they now offer a ProLiant MicroServer another cool device but not a cool looking as the MSS.

_________________
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

Thanks for all this great information. I think what I'm going to do based on your info is to install WHS2011 on an empty HD in my regular PC box and see just what I'm getting myself into with replacing what's actually working pretty well.

Thanks again,
Mark

I installed it on my EX490 (upgraded to 4GB or RAM and a quad-core processor) from a USB stick and have been very happy with it. I did buy the thing from VoV Tech that allows you to hook up a mouse, keyboard, and monitor but I would have done that anyway. WHS 2011 was just a convenient excuse. I installed Stablebit Drivepool this past weekend and so far no problems with it either.

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

Interesting. I'll look at the VOV board as it looks like installing WHS2011 pretty easy with the usb stick.

If it works...

If it doesn't, just install WHS 2011 on a hard drive in your PC and once installed move it into your MediaSmart.

See: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=10994

After my experiences with the USB unintended install vs. just installing on another computer that has a keyboard/mouse/monitor and then moving the drive, I do the latter. Indeed, I've now upgraded six MediaSmart/DataVaults with that method and it works flawlessly.