I’ve been playing around with WHS 2011 over the holidays and I’m pretty disappointed so far. In truth, I’m not sure if it is ME, the OS, or my HARDWARE I installed WHS onto. And If I can’t figure this out I’m going to stick with my old and reliable WHS v1.

I’ve installed WHS on the following hardware:

ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU
Intel P5 Dual Core 3 GHz
4 GB RAM
1 GB NIC
1 TB SATA
430W PSU


While the new WHS 2011 box does well at just sitting there, access has been relatively slow, particularly via remote. But of greatest concern is that I can’t seem to connect ANY external drive to it via any USB port. I’ve tried:

Bare SATA drives via a USB connector kit
External USB boxed drives
Buffalo Drive Station
Thermaltake BlacX with SATA drive inserted

Now all of these things work just fine when connected to either my Windows 7 desktop or Windows 7 laptop, But when I plug these into WHS 2011 , if it does anything, it frequently wants to format the drive. However, most of the time it just sits there and become non-responsive, frequently saying that the device couldn’t be recognized. Even if I just plug in a USB stick!

Questions:

My hardware isn’t that bad is it?
What am I missing here?
Or should I just reinstall?

Thanks in advance,
--Ed

I would take the time to review the drivers to make certain they are all 64 bit drivers both for the motherboard and for the devices your connecting when the drivers are loaded. Its the only thing which comes to mind. I have 2 WHS2011 servers up and running and have not encountered any issues with USB, eSATA connected devices on either unit be it front, rear or on cards.

You may have already addressed this but I felt it was worth mentioning.

As far as WHS2011 I find it so far to be very stable and have not really had any issues. I still continue to run my WHS v1 servers and probably will for another year or two. While I do like both I enjoy the DE function in WHS v1 and hope a viable DE solution is found in WHS2011 or the next version of WHS.

_________________
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

Now that's why I post; because I knew someone would suggest something that wouldn't even occur to me. And checking that I am using 64-bit drivers for the USB is just such a thing. I'm on it!

BTW, since WHS 2011 is so largely based on Windows Server 2008 R2 I've been looking for known USB issues there as well. But so far, nothin'.

--Ed

Good Luck resolving your 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