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PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 6:37 pm 
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I had posted an my earlier thread about my failing EX470.

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13300

Because of that, I had decided to move to WHS 2011 and build a new server. I wanted to re-cycle my 6.5 TB of drives from the EX470 to keep the costs down. I almost bought an HP Proliant Server and used that but decided to go with the Shuttle build instead. So, here are the components I selected:

Shuttle SH67H3 Barebone System
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004UC4HCG/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheap Kingston RAM (4GB)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QXT98Q/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i04?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheap Celeron Processor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B4BJYVU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Samsung DVD Drive
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CE58ZYC/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

WHS 2011
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0050TVAWS/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Total cost: $359.84 with free Super Saver shipping from Amazon. The cost of the barebone kit and memory went up right after I ordered, so I felt lucky! :cheers:

The build went pretty smooth. I really like the cable management and heat management in the Shuttle PC. The Shuttle case has room for two 3.5" drives and one 5.25" drive. I loaded it up with one clean 1TB drive and my 1TB backup drive from the EX470. I had planned on connecting the other 4 drives using my Sans Digital eSATA tower from the EX470. (more on that later)

WHS 2011 install went pretty smooth. I had one issue where I had no keyboard or mouse when I first booted the system to the WHS 2011 DVD. Moving the keyboard and mouse to different USB ports solved that problem. WHS 2011 needed drivers for some of the Shuttle hardware. I directed WHS to the DVD and let it pick the drivers it wanted, and all was well. After putting in the drivers, the install was pretty much complete minus product activation and updates.

So next I try to recover my data from the backup disk, and that's when the fun started! I got the backup disk to mount and gave it a drive letter and then I could access it. I am still having major problems getting my other disks to mount to be accessible. I have to say that this point I am really under-whelmed with WHS 2011.

I know it's already water under the bridge, but Microsoft did not do us WHS V1 users any favors when they came out with WHS 2011. How about a WHS V1 data import wizard tool??? Geeze! Getting my data moved over to the new platform is a major pain and more trouble than it should be. I am not impressed! So I am still trying to access my 1.67TB of movies. I'll figure something out, but it should not be this hard to do!

I was hoping that the eSATA port on the Shuttle supported a port multiplier, but no such luck. I knew that it would probably not work, but it was worth a try. I will need to install a RAID card to access all the drives in the Sans Digital tower. Until I do, I can access only one drive in the tower. So while I am not really happy with WHS 2011 so far, there are some positives. The biggest is that I really like having the ability to have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and DVD drive on my WHS, none of which was easily do-able on the EX470. No port multiplier? No problem, just add a RAID card! Try that with a HP MSS!

I will get this new machine all figured out, with all my data on it like I want, running like I want, and then I will be happy with it. It's just going to be a pain getting it to that point. I have added some pics of the build!


Attachments:
File comment: All the parts
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File comment: Shuttle barebones
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File comment: Drive cage, 2x1TB + DVD drive
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File comment: Sans Digital 4-drive tower
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File comment: Mostly comlete
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File comment: Mostly Complete
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:25 am 
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Getting the right drivers and keep in mind Microsoft does not always provide the best drivers so if your running into problem with say Microsoft Drivers then go to the OEM for the drivers. When migrating your data its always a PITA mostly because of the time it takes to get the job done. WHS2011 should pick up your drives but remember you need to set it up so that you can view hidden files and folder then you will see the DE folder where you will find your data. Its quicker to move it within the server then from server to server.

WHS2011 has no pooling software so your going to have to figure out a storage solution. One thing WHS2011 does is it allows for the backup of the System Drive which is used for recoveries but it will eat up one of your drives. IcyDock has a 3.5" unit which allows you to install 2 x 2.5" drives which you can configure to run RAID1 Mirror and its hardware raid then you can setup the OS on it and that will provide you a backup solution but if you want backup redundancy then you need to eat a drive.

As you know I did some testing with a couple Port Multipliers on my Highlander Server first running WHS2011 which I ran Stablebit Drive Pool on and then again with WS2012E again with Stablebit Drive Pool and did not experience drive drop outs. However there was one main difference in WHS2011 I was able to connect my port multiplier to the servers eSATA Port and have it work correctly but not so in WS2012E because obviously did not have a good drivers to run eSATA port. Not really certain if your Shuttles eSATA Port is port multiplier aware or not but if it is then its a driver issue.

I actually liked WHS2011 after using it just shy of 2 yrs. I hope you get things settled in and can begin to enjoy using the server OS as much as I did. I do recommend you look into Stablebit Drive Pool as its a very friendly easy to use Pooling Software that I had very good luck with. Its way more friendlier then DE and you can have multiple drive pools if you so desire. I was also able to easily add 4TB Drives so your options for expanding storage capacity and keeping the foot print small is now more possible then ever before and who knows how large the drives will continue to grow over time.

Looks like you have a pretty cool motherboard there for both RAM and expansion ports which will provide you with some expansion options.

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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


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:10 pm 
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Thank you for the reply.

I am still having major trouble accessing my data from the old drives, but after some investigation, I think I know why.

My EX470 was acting badly, and locking up every few days which is what started me down this path with WHS 2011. I first tried a server recovery to get it running right, and that failed. I tried it 4 times with no joy. So I pulled all the drives from it, and installed one clean drive, and did a factory reset. That worked perfectly. So I know that I must have an issue with my drives such as corrupt data.

When I plug those drives into my WHS 2011, they do not mount or show up at all. I can see them in the 'computer management' console but I still can't access them.

I also had a designated backup drive in the EX470 that was never in the storage pool. That drive would not mount either. I plugged it into a Vista machine and gave it a drive letter, than then it would mount just fine in WHS 2011. So at least I have that data back! :) I will keep working on the other drives to try and get my 1.67TB of movies back.

As far as WHS 2011, I am not impressed at all so far, but I hope that will change. It is super-slow accessing my data. Opening a 6MB picture file takes 5 minutes. It has yet to take a backup of my Win7 client. The backups keep failing.

My data is 1st priority, then I will work on the server issues.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 5:45 pm 
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If you can see the drive in Disk Management you can also assign a drive letter or change the drive letter. If the drives do not have a letter assignment then they will not show up on the desktop or Dashboard. HSS2013 I believe will pick them up to display the SMART info but that does not provide you with a picture of the File System Health.

The drives that were installed in the actual MSS should be the first ones you should work with as they will probably be in the best condition since I you did have issues with drop outs in the Port Multiplier. You may have to run a Check Disk but you know if you just did a recovery and it went through fine then its hard to understand why the drives would not be behaving.

I assure you WHS2011 does run well but right now you have a lot going on. The other key factor in this equation is the Port Multiplier which I believe you have connected to a PCIe x1 eSATA Card which is new in the equation and if the data is to be written to the external enclosure then you need to rule out if there is an issue with the card, cable or enclosure. Can you connect the card and enclosure to another computer and see if you experience better luck with it?

The other thing too is if you install different drives to the enclosure do you get the same result. I mean WHS2011 is very user friendly when it comes to the drives. You connect them and they will show up and it will not format them unless you configure them for backup so do not do that.

With only a couple spots for drives your limited and you do need that Port Multiplier to function well or your not going to be a happy camper and this has nothing to do with WHS2011.

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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


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:49 pm 
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Thanks for the reply.

2 of my 1TB drives do show up when I plug them into the WHS 2011 via the SATA ports on the motherboard of the Shuttle PC.

I copied off all of the movies, only to find that the data is scrambled. I have .VOB files missing all over the place. I guess WHS V1 put some of the .VOB's for one movie on one drive, and some on another. That's the only explnation I have for the missing files.

I have pretty much decided that my movies are toast. I suppose I could re-assemble some of them, but it's more effort than it's worth. I have no one to blame but myself. I did not back them up because there was too many of them. It was a calculated risk that came back to bite me in the a$$.

The stuff that mattered to me more like pictures, music, documents, software, etc. were backed up and are safe.

I buttoned my my WHS 2011 machine, and got it moved over the the Gigabit network. It's running like I expect it to now. Files open normally over the network now. I'm not sure why it was so slow before. I have a sustained transfer rate of 70MB/sec over the network with Jumbo frames enabled. I had hoped for faster speed, but still that's not too bad. Yes, the Shuttle will need to have port multiplier added to it to make the Sans Digital tower work. I do not currently have a card for it.

Since I lost all of my movies, I guess I don't have to be in a hurry to get one. :(


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:22 pm 
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Not really sure about your file situation. When I migrated from WHS to WHSv1 I popped in 4 drives in a port multiplier and spanned them then I coped my data to it and then I copied my data to the new WHS2011. I chose to leave the data on the WHSv1 server until I knew WHS2011 was a sound platform but it really too Stablebit Drive Pool to make it work. Then when I was happy with WHS2011 I began to reduce my server down to 6 drives and still have duplication turned on. I moved the drives to my new server to increase its storage capacity and then I installed those 4 drives I used for my data migration onto the new server. Later I built a small server to run WHSv1 and moved my server drives to the new WHSv1 server which I continue to run today.

The thing about Jumbo Frames is for it to work the NICs on your network must all support the same size frames which is why I never bothered with it. I have WHS2011 on an EX485 and I see transfer speeds up around 65mbps but on my primary server I was seeing up to 120mbps. The speed actually varies here and there depending on what the server might be doing at the time. My family uses my server to stream media online so when that's occurring I expect things to slow down.

I have all my movies duplicated because the cost of the drives was less then the 3 months time I spent ripping movies to get my collection on the server. Damian got me hooked on MKV's so that's the video format I chose to use and continue to use to day. I still have the other video formats I toyed and even had my EX470 convert my collection over to mp4 and I swear I almost killed it doing it as it would over heat the processor and shut down.

Its too late now to go back to WHSv1 unless you kept all the drives in tack from your WHS v1 server where you could boot the server and run it if you can do that then you can try moving the files much like I did but if you only have that one Port Multiplier its going to be somewhat tricky unless you have room to install the drives in a client then you could move your files to the drives and then when done you can connect the port multiplier up to the new server, pull the drives from the client and install them in the port multiplier and be done with the file migration.

Not sure which works best for you or if you should just opt to rip your movie collection again but I remember what a task that was and how anxious I was to get everything on the server to the point I set a number of movies to rip each day at a min and always ripped more then what I put out because I wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible. Its a task I hope never to have to repeat every again.

_________________
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


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