For what it's worth I just built a DIY server and with 8 gigs of ram and I thought " Lets try WHS 2011" well, I don't like it at this point, but will keep working with it. At this point I would certainly not put it on a HP ex??? x??? but WHSv1 is limited by being 32 bit, memory and 2tb.. Dang you Microsoft!!
For me the 2011 is in test only and I hope my x510 and whsv1 will hold out till something better.
But I have a bad feeling that 2012 at $400-$500 is the future

_________________
[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 W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

What finally convinced me to put WHS2011 on my EX495 was being able to back up the server system partition in case of a bare metal restore. Having done several server restores on WHS V1 in the past, it was always a hassle. The last 2 wouldn't work with my pool drives attached, and I had to migrate terabytes of data after the restores which took addtional days to accomplish. Not to mention reinstalling programs and settings too. I felt this was totally unecessary due to the way V1 will not add a drive with existing data to your pool without formatting it. Now, with Stablebit Drivepool, drives can even be placed into another machine and automatically add themselves to the pool with their data. This kind of flexibility is wonderful. It's good to know that all my settings, programs, and configuration are protected with a good system backup.

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Lenovo TS-440| 8GB| |13 int HD's| 2xSans Digital TR5M-B (10 HD's) | WHS 2011 | |Stablebit Drivepool |Stablebit Scanner| |FlexRAID 2.0|

Just to confirm the moving of Stablebit Drive Pools to another system running Stablebit Drive Pool that it works like a charm. I have already mentioned this a couple weeks ago when I did it. I was nervous as hell about it too but to see it work was a very nice surprise. I was running WHS2011 with Stablebit Drive Pool and installed WS2012E on to Highlander with all the storage pool drives disconnected. Once I got the OS installed, configured and installed Stablebit Drive Pool I shut the server down and connected the 21 Storage Pool Drives and booted the server and bang there was my storage pool.

There is a bit more to it then that as I have to recreate my shared folders using the pool location but its less work then copying data or performing a recovery. When I changed out my System Drive to an SSD in WHS2011 I just imaged it and threw in the SSD and was back in business. Very painless change unlike that with WHS v1.

Do not get me wrong I have a fondness for WHS v1 but when someone inquired about a Home Server I could get them an MSS at a reasonable cost or if they had an acceptable computer at home that could run WHS2011 I could set that up for them along with Stablebit Drive Pool and all they would need to buy is the software and the hard drives. In the end its a much easier OS to run and with Stablebit Drive Pool you can get larger hard drives working in the pool which almost caused me to abandon WS2012E but that has something's in it that I desired very much otherwise I would still be running WHS2011. Because both WHSv1 and WHS2011 support XP, VISTA I will replace my primary WHS v1 server 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

I do not understand why it is so hard to just add another HD. Plug it in. Open Windows disk manager. Create a new volume. Move data onto the HD and create a share point. Setup takes 5 minutes, plus the time to copy data.

I did not even use drive extender when I had WHS v1. DE only makes sense if I have several small HDs that I really want to make a larger volume. Actually any volume larger than 2 TB makes it very hard to back up and upkeep....

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WHS 2011: Intel S3420GPLX/Intel SC5650UP/Xeon 3470/Hardware RAID 6-Bay Hot Swap/5x1TB RAID 5
WHS 2011: Intel DQ965GF/Core 2 Duo E7500/6GB RAM/5x500GB RAID 5
WHS v1: Asus NRL-LS/Pen 4 2.67 Prescott/2GB RAM/Adaptec SCSI

I just want to share my success with my HP MediaSmart Server EX470 and HP MediaSmart Server EX490. For me, upgrading to WHS 2011 was a good thing. Installing a hard drive larger than 2TB with previous versions of WHS seemed impossible but it was a breeze with WHS 2011. Today I had my EX490 working perfect with 3 internal hard drives, a 2TB, 4TB, & 6TB. It is my understanding that you need the VGA cable in order to format the drives from the server but I also think if you format them on another computer as GPT you can just place it in the server and it should work. I do not believe you can format them larger than 2TB from the Server Dashboard. But I successfully exceeded the 2TB limit. The bottom/system drive must be a 2TB but the other 3 can be 6TB making it a maximum of 20TB or 1.81TB + 5.75TB + 5.75TB + 5.75TB giving you 19TB. Installing WHS 2011 can be difficult. I may not have done it the right way but here is what I had to do. The EX490, I took it out of the case and plugged a DVD drive into the top slot, it would not boot from the DVD. So I read online that you have to mess with the jumpers. There is a 3 pin jumper next to the VGA plug, all I did was move it to the other pin. (One pin over) and then it booted from the DVD and installed. And I used a VGA-Keyboard-Mouse cable. Now for the EX470 it was much harder. There was no jumpers and it would not boot from the DVD so I read online and I had to install WHS 2011 using another computer. You must shut it off when it tries to restart the first time. Move the drive to the server and continue the installation. Be patient, this can take like 3 hours. It will say 0% for like an hour and then it will start to move very slowly. I also am using a Internet Remote Control service "TeamVeiwer" which makes it very easy to control without a monitor but you may need a monitor to get it installed. TeamVeiwer is free for personal use but I think you can use Windows Remote Desktop as well, I have not played with that yet. If you use a remote desktop make sure you disable the (Ctrl+Alt+Del) at the login screen or you will not be able to gain access when you restart. I think I said everything. More testing and experimenting to do.

I am using my EX490 at home for a movie media center. Seems that a PS3 is the best device to use for playing movies from the network on any TV but I have not got one yet to try. Reading online tells me it is better than any Blu-Ray or Media player on the market. As far as playing files from the network it is even better than the PS4 and the XBox One. Because I can take my EX490 to 50TB I now have room to expand my digital movie collection. I am currently going to keep it at 6TB and my EX470 will be at 8TB. This gets expensive when you have to pay over $200 for one hard drive. Any one want to donate? LOL

Well, nothing more to say at this time but if anything changes I will post it here.

Great post, thank you.

I upgraded my EX495 using the EX470 method you described below and overall it's running great. I have a EX485 running 2011 at family members house with CrashPlan backing up my primary EX495 just in case my house burns down.

I also have an old powered-off EX470, but can't find a use for it. Are there any benefits running an EX495 and EX470 at the same time?

So have your feelings changed on this or do you still dis like it?

Im at a cross roads on what I want to do. I am currently using WS 2012 Essentials R2, which is more complicated then it needs to before WHS hobbiest. I miss the ease of use of WHS V1. I want stable and ability to support 6tb or higher drives.

Just checking in on the forum today and thought that I would add that since updating from v1 to WHS2011 with Stablebit drive pool I have been thrilled with WHS2011. No issues at all since installing on a hardware upgraded EX495. Quad core processor, 4 Gig RAM. Running Sage TV, Win 7 backups and restores and storing all my files and media on the server.

Which quad-core did you end up selecting? I hear some chips cause the HP EX49x to shut down by pulling too much power.

I've also been looking into upgrading the chip.

I upgrade back in 2011 to the Q9550s. Has to be the s version which is 65 watt. Without the s at the end of the model name it is a 95 watt processor and runs too hot. If I remember the discussion from back then I think you have to limit yourself to 65 watt processors to avoid over heating and you have to rework the fan speed settings in the BIOS.

This was the thread I read back then to decide. Looks like in the latest posts somebody was still able to get one of these processors somehow. What I see as best price is on ebay from china:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5512&start=315

Thank you... off to ebay for a Q9550s

From what I hear you will need the fans to run pretty much full speed, depending on the ambient temp.

I use the E5800 cpu and the temps are lower then factory and I didn't have to touch the fans. I pick them up on ebay for like $50 each.
But some need the Quad core, if you do, that's the way to go.
Good Luck Enjoy!

_________________
[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 W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud

In my case the server lives where I do so the ambient temp is 75º to 78º depending on season. With my BIOS fan settings and Quad core 9550s the fans ramp up as needed. Sage TV is almost always recording something. At the moment recording 4 shows Hardware monitor reports CPU temp in the 40ºs C. Task manager shows CPU in the 30s % with occasional ramp ups to ~50s%. I don't have any software that can directly read the fan speeds on my EX495 while running WHS 2011. I think speed fan didn't work so I got rid of it. You can hear the fans ramp up significantly when comskip processes the finished recording mpg files to log commercial locations. Then they drop back. CPU just dropped to 3% and fans slowed significantly. CPU still in the 40s C. Really happy with the way it all works.

Thx for the info, good to hear it's working well for you. Will give it some more life for down the road. Heck you might even find a checp copy of win2012E that would love it.
Good Luck and enjoy!

_________________
[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 W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud