My problem is in my HP MediaSmart Server.

I have three 465GB hard drives and they are reported to be "Healthy".

I added an additional 1TB hard drive, and it is shown as "Not Added". I keep getting the "Calculating Sizes" message for hours now. Is this normal. It won't let me add this new hard drive.

Am I missing something in the procedure for adding a new hard drive?

Lawrence

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Lawrence

Assuming you have a ex-49X no. it should just come up in the whs console.
From the help:
You can add a hard drive to your server storage from the Server Storage tab of the console.

First, physically install or connect your new hard drive. For instructions about how to install an internal hard drives, see the manufacturer’s documentation.

On the console, select the new hard drive (either internal or external), and then click Add. This starts the Add a Hard Drive Wizard. This wizard helps you add a hard drive to your home-server storage. Complete the wizard to add more space for your files to your server storage.

Caution
Hard drives are formatted before they are added to server storage. Make sure that you back up any important files that are on the hard drive before you add it to server storage. Formatting a hard drive deletes all files on the hard drive.

Important
If you add a hard drive to your server storage, you commit it to be part of your total server-storage space. You should not disconnect the hard drive to use it for other purposes. If you want to use the hard drive for other purposes, you should first select the hard drive and then click Remove.



So possibly the new drive is defective or not compatible in it's current state.

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Hi Lawrence,

Is the drive new or was it previously used? Also the make and model of the drive would be helpful.

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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

Thank you both for your comments.

Actually the hard drive has been in for about a year, but I'm not sure it was ever working. I just received a message that I am low on memory space which made me look at the Windows Home Server Console under the Server Storage where it shows the drives.

I have 3 - 500 GB Seagate drives which all appear to be working, but the one in question is a Western Digital 1 TB drive (WD1002FBYS).

I just ordered a UBS docking port which will allow me to see if the drive itself is working.

When I open the Server Storage page, it shows the 3 Seagate drives as Healthy, and the Western Digital drive as Not Added. The Add and Repair buttons appear to be grayed out and do nothing when pressed. I see the Remove button looks like it is active, but I an afraid to press this one.

On the right hand side of the page under Server Storage, there is a green light that keeps traveling across the page and under it it says Calculating Sizes... I have let this run for hours and it never seems to stop. I am going to let it run overnight to see what happens.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what I did when I installed this drive the first time. I can't remember formatting it, but I may have. I don't remember looking at this page after the initial installation either.

I am a photographer, and not up to speed on computers like I should be.

A little hand holding would really be appreciated on this problem.

On another note, I am considering adding additional 1TB drives, but I am concerned about doing this because I understand one of the drives contains system files, and I am not sure how to handle this. I don't even know which drive contains the system files. I know just enough about this to be dangerous.

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Lawrence

Hey Lawrence holding hands here sometimes turns out to be a group activity and there are times when each of us have had our moments with issues of one sort or another.

I looked up that 1tb drive and I can tell you its an enterprise raid class drive which puts it way above the drives most here use.

The System Drive is located in the bottom bay and it has a locking mechanism to keep you from removing it by accident.

Your issue may not be so much with the 1tb drive but one of the other drives. I suspect that because you indicate the server lists the 1tb drive as not added and the server is busy calculating the size of the storage pool.

If you let the server run its course you can make a Remote Desktop connection to the servers desktop and there you can look at the drives to see how many are actually installed from My Computer where you would see SYS (C:) for the WHS OS and DATA (D:) for the storage pool drives in the drive pool. If you see another drive and its the 1tb drive then its not part of the drive pool. Now you may not see the drive in this case you will want to select the Windows Home Server Console Icon on the desktop and check the Network Health Tab for a report of a Missing Drive but you would of also seen this from the Server Storage Tab where it would list an installed Storage Pool Drive as missing. I don't believe you have a missing drive because its something you would of noticed because WHS pinches one hell of a fit telling you about a missing drive and that you have file corruption and your Client Backup Database is corrupt and so on.

Taking it a step further if you enter computer management by Right Clicking My Computer and selecting Manage, then Storage and then Disk Management there you will see all the drives connected to the storage pool. Here you look at the volume names, SYS is the WHS OS Drive Partition which will also have the drive letter (C:) in the volume name and all the Storage Pool Drives will be named DATA with one of the Data Drives having the letter (D:). Then based on your description of your server you will see two drives with the volume name Data without a drive letter in the name but if you see a third then check the capacity and if its 931.5 GB then that's your 1 TB Drive. If your 1TB is not named Data but Removed then it was at one time part of the storage pool but was removed at one point or another. If Computer Management requests for you to initialize the 1 TB drive then it may never of been added or something went wrong.

If you have never used Remote Desktop then review the info in the following link: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/wiki/in ... te_Desktop

Good Luck and lets work to put your issues behind you......

_________________
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 your input on this problem.

I will print out your post and see if I can follow your instructions. I am way over my head on this one.

Is it normal for the server to be running this "Calculating Sizes" test, and if so, is it normal for this to run quite a few hours?

Also, is this "Calculating Sizes" test in any way related to my inability to add this 4th hard drive?

Lawrence

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Lawrence

Monday morning.

The server has run for about 11 hours now and is still running the "Calculating sizes" test. I can continue to let this run if you think it is actually doing something and is not in some kind of a loop. However, I don't know how to stop this test from running. Is this a critical test?

I followed your instructions and connected remotely to the server from one of my computers. What is being shown is as follows:

Disk 0 Basic 645.76 GB Online - - sys (c:) 20.00 GB NTFS Healthy (System) -- Data (D:) 445.76 GB NTFS Healthy

Disk 1 Basic 645.76 GB Online - - Data 465.75 GB HTFS Healthy

Disk 2 Basic 645.76 GB Online - - Data 465.75 GB HTFS Healthy

Disk 3 Basic 931.50 GB Online - - Data 931.50 GB HTFS Healthy

What is also shown is:

SYS(C:) is 33% free.

Data (D:) has 9% free

Two drives are shown as 2% free.

The large drive is shown as 77% free.

I'm not sure what all this means seeing the Home Server Console still shows the 1TB drive as being not added.

I am confused

Lawrence

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Lawrence

Based on your post it appears the 1TB drive is part of the storage pool based on its name. It also appears that at one point in time your storage pool ran out of space because the (D:) Drive which is the Data Partition on the System Drive was used to store data. I am assuming at this point you added the 1 TB Drive to increase your storage capacity and that you added data to your server. I am assuming you have File and Folder Duplication turned on and that your new data was stored on the 1TB drive but there was not enough space to duplicate your data on the other storage pool drives causing DE or the Drive Extender to get bogged down looking for space to duplicate your new data.

Now I could be wrong but this seems logical to me. Maybe another will jump in to offer there opinion. What I would first recommend to you is to backup your most important files. If you can access your Shared Folders then it maybe easier to just copy the files to a location or media of your choosing. Once you have your most important files backed up then we can work on a solution which would require running a CHKDSK /r on your existing drives to make certain your drives are in good working order then we can see what WHS is doing when you reboot your server. For me the solution might be to add another larger drive externally for WHS to properly duplicate your data. If this worked then you could remove one of the smaller 500 GB drives, shut the server down and then move the external drive to the location the 500 GB drive occupied. WHS doesn't care where the drive is located it just needs to be able to see it.

Anyway down the road when things settle down then we can recommend some ADD-INs to help you keep an eye on things. For now the objective is to protect your data which will give you peace of mind while working on your server. If you can not access the shares then let me know and I will explain how to access your data off your drives outside the server.

_________________
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 again for your help.

I believe I have all my files from the HP server backed up on a Drobo that is connected to the network. I try my best to place all my image files on my HP server, then copy them from the HP server to the Drobo, on a job-by-job basis.

I didn't quite understand about taking one of the drives out and placing it external, but where the HP server can see it. I just purchased a docking station which I should have in a couple of days, would this work?

Ever since I bought this HP server, I have treated it like a black box, and never learned the inner workings of it. I use the Console to back up two of my computers to it, and save all my photos to it, but that is about it.

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Lawrence

Most who have ever gotten an MSS typically set it up maybe play with it for a period of time then it just sits there doing its job for long periods of time. What brings many here is when an issue is discovered and assistance is needed. That's how I ended up here and ever since I have been learning from other forum members and assisting others when I can.

When you remove a drive from your server you will want to power it down. Best way to power it down is to logon to the console and shut it down from there. If that's not possible then momentarily press and release the power button and after a couple minutes the server will shut down. Then you can remove a drive to work on it by connecting it to another computer. If you want to examine the contents of the drive then the computer the drive is connected to must be setup to view hidden files and folders. Once that's done you will see the hidden folder DE and in that folder you will find the files that particular drive is storing. Its important to note that you should not modify any of the contents on the drive the look at the contents and copy anything of interest. Just leave the files on the drive unmodified to maintain the integrity of the drive. From there you can also run CHKDSK /r from the command prompt using administrator privilege's or from TOOLS where you Right Click the drive you want to work on then select Properties, then TOOLS and then ERROR CHECKING.

If all goes well you can reconnect the drive back into the server and do the same for the other drives. Running a CHKDSK on a drive is a rather long process at times depending on what the utility finds and corrects so its never a fun task. When I do these things I always use a computer I know I will not be using for anything else but not everyone has that luxury.

Your EX49x Server is very expandable. It can accommodate a wide range of USB or eSATA enclosures from a single bay to 10 bays. Your eSATA Port can support up to a 5 Bay Enclosure and the USB Ports can accommodate up to 10 Bay enclosures. These multi-bay enclosures are known as Port Multipliers. While Drobo's are quite popular and fast they are not as user friendly when a drive issue occurs although replacing a drive is simple enough however when the Drobo has a hardware failure the only way to recover your data is another Drobo unit where as with WHS you can recover your data by connecting the drives to another computer. There are advantages to having a Drobo and a WHS and each has its unique strengths and weakeness but its good to see your backing up your files which unfortunately many do not.

_________________
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

The way I use my HP Server is to power it up follow a photo shoot, and upload all my image files from the shoot, then I turn power off again by holding the power button depress for about 5 seconds until the unit shuts off. I only turn on the server when I need to use files stored on the server.

Am I causing problems by turning the unit on and off like this?

I now have a bunch of images to process and print, and I have two websites to design where the clients are in a rush. Because of this, I won't be able to get back to my server problem for maybe a week, or so.

I appreciate all the help, and I will be posting here again after I get a chance to check out the drives.

Lawrence

_________________
Lawrence

Lawrence when you press and hold the power button in like you describe your doing a hard shut down. This means that the server just shuts down much the same way when power is lost. This type of a shut down is a last resort shut down. If your hard drives are being written to when you perform a hard shut down they can become corrupted requiring you to run a CHKDSK one or more of your servers drives. If you review the forums you will find countless stories of people having server issues after a power loss something that's preventable by having a UPS to instruct the server to shut down after a period of time after a power failure.

Simply pressing and releasing the power button is all that's needed to instruct the server to shut down as I described in my previous post or logging on to the console and telling the server to shut down. This allows the server to shut down properly where as holding in the power button does not. Now there are times when you need to hold the power button in to shut the server down and those times are when the server becomes unresponsive or if you intend on performing a Server Recovery but its always a last resort. Its the same for any computer you own where you have one or two hard drives on average but servers often have far more and so the problem only amplifies with a server. Often it will only take 1 drive to have an issue for WHS to pinch a fit over or prevent it from booting.

Hopefully I explained why a hard shut down is not good.

_________________
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 the tips on the power button. Since you mentioned this I have been following your suggestions on shutting the unit off.

I have completed a Check Disk procedure on two of the three top drive, and so far no problems. I am running a Check Disk on the third drive now.

Does anyone have any suggestions for good, reasonably priced 1 TB hard drives? I will probably purchase 2 new drives so I will end up with 3 each 1 TB drives in the top 3 drives. Is there any reason to change out the bottom drive to a large drive?

I assume to replace a drive I just remove the drive in the Console software, remove the drive, install a new drive, and then install it in the Console software. Is this the correct procedure?

Lawrence

_________________
Lawrence

The price of a 1TB vs 2TB is so close that the 2TB drive is a much better value.

_________________
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

I wish I had realized this. I have two 1TB drives coming.

_________________
Lawrence