First hiccup.
Backups work after tweaking the power settings.
It would goto hibernate while performing a backup with the 3tb drives full of data.
So for some reason wol only works at the initial start of a backup.

Using the pc restore cd had some issues.
After tweaking the bios to turn off secure boot I was able to boot from the pc restore cd.
However I could not get the internal network adapter to load.
It is a intel l218-v.
I downloaded every driver at asus and intel, still no joy.
The MB and Intel don't support a os older than win7.
So I had a old nic that supports 98,me,vista,xp and it came up without additional drivers loaded by the flash drive.
And the restore worked perfect.
Problem is that nic has a fixed low profile bracket.
So I can't secure it in the case.
I have a usb wifi dongle that supports xp SP2 I am going to try next.

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)

Update,
I have upgraded my htpc to windows 10/ 64 bit
all my media is installed on the htpc
I installed stabilbit drive pool and whsv1 does complete backups.
But it will not backup the drive pool. I guess due to it really is a dynamic disk which is not supported.
So I can backup each real drive but with duplication turned on , it is a large backup and takes a extremely long time.
Sometimes when I add a lot of media the backup is still running outside of the elected backup time.

But with windows 10 I have noticed that if say the pc is off. when turned on it will start a backup if needed on its own regardless of what time it is. Ignoring the time settings on the server.

So for now my ex490 whsv1 has been reduced to a backup NAS.
Which is okay.
And my htpc supports whatever size drive I elect to use.

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)

BTW,
I tried my wifi dongle still no go.
Due to all the modern nic cards and wifi connection drivers are now exe files and read the current os to install the drivers.
So it is difficult to install a 32bit nic driver file since it is compiled in the exe file to a usb flash drive, to use with the pc-restore cd that came with the server.


I have started to experiment with easyus backup. and just have the pc run the backup and save to the server. But I have not attempted a restore with that method yet.
Due to it takes an extremely long time to run a restore and I don't want to brick any pc's, and have to start from scratch at this point in time.

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)

I'm too struggling for a replacement for my mediasmart, it has faithfully run without complaint for years- I clean dust out of it 3-4 times a year and that's all

Kind of depends on what you Want.
Do you want to be able to pull a drive at any time and be able to read it on another pc? Then your looking at some version of win server:
WHS 2011 Win2012E Win2012E R2 Win2016E all of these start about $300 and up. All would run on a EX-490 / x-510 with a cpu and ram upgrade and the video adapter.

If you can build, there are a lot of DIY in the DIY thread. You could get better performance with the above OS'es with better hardware.

If you don't care about reading a drive outside the system, then I would recommend Qnap or Drobo N or Synology but backups will not be included.

I personally went with a DIY and Winserver2012E, but am still using the good old WHS V1 and will till it won't go any more.

Hope this helps and Good Luck

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2012E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud