My 490 has been sitting powered off for 6 months due to what seems to have been a slow failure of my system drive. My attempt at cloning the drive following the detailed instructions I found were unsuccessful too.

So, since WHS 2011 is the current version and it is only $50, and I have finally gotten over the agony of dealing with my old setup, I decided to upgrade.

For whatever reason, the USB route to upgrading the machine did not work despite several tweaks to the config file. I did read in the comments that others had been successful by installing the system drive into a desktop and then moving the drive over to the server box. This worked on the second try. The first time, I let the installation of WHS go too far while the drive was in the desktop. As was made clear by some, but not others, the point at which you need to power down and move the drive is at the FIRST restart- when the installation files have been copied over, but before the actual installation specific to your machine. You must be watching too as it is an automatic restart. I had left the room during the second try and was only saved because my BIOS held up the boot to notify me that my second HD was missing (I had unplugged it for the process).

As noted by those who successfully loaded the installation files to the drive while in a desktop, I was able to log into my router, find the IP, and access the 490 to go through the rest of the installation. I definitely would not have made it this far without reading this site.

I spent the next few hours downloading and installing a bazillion updates for the server and clients.

So, I now have a server that seems to be running fine. I now need to spend some time organizing folders and transferring files. I also need to set up backups.

I also got an external enclosure that holds 4 more drives. I plan on adding at least one more 2TB drive immediately. This would take my capacity to 6TB, I believe. When my original config died, it was pretty full as I ripped several hundred DVD's. Thank goodness I saved backups of the rips in second HD's on my desktops or I would have wasted those countless hours ripping and properly IMDB naming all those movies. When I get comfortable with the server, I may also move over at least one of the 2TB drives in my desktops holding the backups of the DVD rips. I'm also considering not filling every slot in either the server or the external case to hopefully manage heat better.

I rip my DVD's to ISO and stream them and audio to a Boxee Box in the main entertainment room. Audio files are also served to a Roku Soundbridge in a den. Network is wired although wireless is also an option when needed.

Thanks for the help. While not painless, I know I would not have made it through the upgrade without resources like this site.

Update:
Made lots of progress rebuilding my server this weekend.

After many hours, I finally got all my movies and music transferred and somewhat organized. Certainly, this weekend, I missed the drive extender feature, but I think I'll survive and be happier in the long run with the stability and easier disaster recovery without it.

I have about 8TB of storage capacity between my server and attached Probox.

Hardware-wise, I am still stock. I have a 4gb stick of RAM in hand but am waiting to install it until my new processor (a 6300 I got for almost nothing) comes in. (update) Processor came in and it looks like I accidentally ordered a core2 instead of a Pentium. Oh well. I'll just start with the RAM)

Update:
I installed the 4GB RAM stick last night. Again, this was much easier thanks to the instructions on this site. I've installed RAM plenty of times on desktops and laptops but it would have taken me some time to figure out how to get the box apart.

I've been running Stablebit Drivepool for quite awhile now with zero issues. You might consider that for making it easy to deal with your drives.

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

Processor:
So I have this Core2 duo E6300 I ordered in error (meant to get pentium). It has a clock speed of 1.86 vs 2.2 of the stock single core. Since I am stuck with it, should I try it out?