I am not sure because I have not gotten that far. I successfully added a 4TB Hitachi to my WHS2011 server which I use Stablebit Drive Pool so that means for me there is not big need for WS2012E. However there was one interesting thing I pickup up on about Stablebit Drive Pool is that you can move the pool to another server with little to no effort and it would be recognized and that you can have multiple pools.

A far as Storage Spaces I am seeing mixed posts about it and so its not clear if its the way to go or not. All I know is Stablebit Drive Pool works and while its not the fastest solution it works and works well. I will continue to play with WS2012E so I can form a more educated opinion on it but at this point in time I see no immediate need to migrate to it.

_________________
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

So I tried installing WS 2012E on my new server build this weekend, and ummm .... it sucked lol

First thing, after installing when it first loads to the tiles the message of continuing installation automatically appears, and shortly after it craps out on me telling me I don't have a LAN adapter, so either restart or install driver. Since this is brand new hardware of course I don't have a driver installed, I need to still install all the drivers from the mobo disc. I am able to exit out of this, get to the desktop, and load the drivers, and once done the installation works.

Second issue, Gigabyte uses a UI from their disc to load the drivers. Of course this UI doesn't work for WS 2012E so I need to manually dig through the disc and sort out what drivers I need to install. The disc only has up to W7 x64 drivers, so I assume those are the ones to use?

As well, I kept dropping off the network. It may have been in part due to some switch issues I am having that I discussed elsewhere, but at one point I could access the network but just not the internet (even though I changed the settings to allow).

I had two drives connected to the SATA ports but I could only see one (once again, I believe this to be a driver issue)

Needless to say it has been frustrating, but I attribute that more to the driver side / motherboard and not necessarily WS 2012E. My motherboard has dual LANs so I disabled one of them in the BIOS, hoping that was possibly causing some of the issues. Once I get my switch issue resolved then I think I will just do a clean reinstall and hopefully at that point everything comes together.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

The Duel LANs should not be an issue. My HP ProLiant has 3 LAN Ports, 2 are Gigabit and 1 is for remote maintenance and I have all 3 active but only have the 2 gigabit ports connected. Now WS2012E does not natively support the use of multiple LAN Ports or Teaming.

I only mention this because its not an issue on my end so I would assume once you get past the driver and switch issue you can run 1 or both LANs if you like. Heck I believe you could run all the default server operations from one LAN and 3rd party apps to the other trough port forwarding. On my WHS2011 server I have been Teaming my Intel CT NICs.

Good Luck getting past these issues.....

_________________
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

Comp1962, I could of sworn that windows 2012 server essentials supports teaming multiple nics. I haven't tried it on my Supermicro system but I know the selection is there.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

There was something I recall reading on TechNet which indicated the WS2012E did not support teaming and it may have been an older post. I recall being bummed out about it. After reading your reply I attempted to find what I had read in the past and much to my surprise you are correct and its a built in feature of WS2012E and I do appreciate your correction.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 31648.aspx

_________________
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

Today I resumed working on my WS2012E Server and managed to get the drivers installed for the Hard Drive Controller so that I can begin to add drives to the server. I am not certain if Storage Spaces is the way to go or if I should use Stablebit Drive Pool software. Because I want to use the VPN feature of WS2012E I need to continue using the Domain Setup and so I am looking for a way to access files between a workgroup and domain since I want to be able to access files on my existing servers and files that will end up on the test server. I have some ideas floating around in the aging head of mine and trying to remember how I use to do it in the past when my laptop use to be joined to the corporate domain and still access the workgroup computers at home but that was in the days of XP.

While I am happy with my WHS2011 server I see things in WS2012E which I need to explore but at the same time I do not want to abandon my current servers because I am happy with them but I am still drawn to the feature set WS2012E offers so I will configure my Win8 notebook to WS2012E and see if I can also access the workgroup servers. Of course if I were to become impressed with WS2012E then migrating the Storage Pool from WHS2011 to WS2012E using Stablebit Drive Pool should not be difficult since Stablebit Drive Pool Software is suppose to recognize other drive pools created by Stablebit. To test this out I will create a 2nd drive pool populate it and then move it to WS2012E to see if it does recognize it or not and then for fun and games move the pool back to WHS2011 to see what happens. So its another excuse to buy more drives and explore the possibilities.

Let the fun begin

_________________
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

Good stuff Comp, definitely a lot of things to think about with WS2012E.

So think I am mostly up and running. I installed a HighPoint RocketRAID card (8 port). Of course driver install didn't go smooth but I got in installed. Added 2 3TB drives, created a JBOD pool, so that was easy. Only issue now is that WS2012E doesn't see any of the drives. I need to dig further to see if I missed something. If I can get this set up then hopefully I should be off t o the races. I plan on using StableBit to manage my Pool, I just hear too many bad things about Storage Spaces

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

My system is set up as a domain and I haven't connected any machines yet to the domain, yet I can access all shared files on the system with any computers, appletv's, media boxes and anything else I can throw at it. So far I find it exactly like the WHS2011 boxes I had. I run it by RDP into the server and I use no connector or anything else. I expected a complex environment and have not found it. I DO USE Stablebit Drive Pool and not the Microsoft stuff. I have 6TB of stuff out there with no problems yet.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

I read mixed things about Storage Spaces and its hard to figure out if its worth putting effort into and certainly I do not want to invest a ton of funds into this test server setup. I do know Stablebit Drive Pool works and while it may not be the fastest solution out there its simple and friendly to work with. Its way better than DE and if a drives becomes an issue its very easy to work with and its down right cheap to purchase a license.

I have my 1st drive in and will move 4 drives out of Highlander after I give some thought to the drive pool experiment and free time on my hand is just not there the next 10 days so it may have to wait 10 more days but that's plenty of time to remove those 4 drives from the drive pool and setup another drive pool and move data on them to test things out. I think its time to add my Win8 notebook to the WS2012 Server and experiment with how that client works with the server offsite.

One good thing is I do have Remote Web Access working and so I can access the servers running WHS v1, WHS2011 and WS2012E and accessing them with my Android Devices is a nice touch too. So far so good but I am not like breaking any sweat getting this server functional just yet and its running on a very old ProLiant Server so I can not complain about that.

_________________
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

Last night I installed HSS2013 and Stablebit Drive Pool v2.x Beta on my WS2012E server. Now the version of Stablebit looks quite different then what I am use to but so far so good. I copied some data onto the server to play with the MediaServer Functions which show up on my Win7 Client but for some reason are not functional on my Remote Web Access Page.

One thing I never noticed was the System Drive was not partitioned which I really liked. It also looks like Stablebit could add the System Drive into the Pool but its not something I would do but it might just be something left undone at the moment since its a beta to get Stablebit to work with WS2012E but it was functional I gather with WS2012 so the code had to be rewritten and thus its beta but for me its a test server so I can muck around with it.

For me to see the server folders I had to map them and then I could see everything on the server from my Win7 client and yes they are shared on the server itself. I did some reading and there are something I can do to make them show up as I am use to but for the time being I am happy with the mapping because it works.

In HSS2013 it showed the Storage Pool Drive but it had no clue what to do with it. I do not recall seeing this on WHS2011 so I set the Storage Pool Drive to be ignored by HSS2013 and that resolved that so its not showing up on my HSS2013 drive listing. Not sure if I should bring this to Matts attention or not since its a simple work around and may be more to do with Stablebit than HSS2013 which may go away as its developed.

What I have not done is Teamed up the NICs but I think I will get to that in the next few days. Getting around the sever software is a bit awkward but no different than when I first started playing around with Win8 so it was the experience with Win8 which helped out quite a but I still have a learning curve.

When I was messing around with data on my server I aborted a file transfer which appears to of caused the server to shut down and reboot. This is troubling me but I did get a nice email from the server telling me it rebooted for some unknown reason so at least its keeping me informed.

Since I run Remote Potato I am curious if I can install that on WS2012E. I have it running on a Win8 Client so I am going to attempt to install it on WS2012E and see how it fly's. One nice thing is I can see everything on my network with WS2012E so accessing data across my servers should not be an 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

On my W7 PC as long as I type in \\ServerName into my Network view I can see my WS2012E server folders

I bought the WGS WS2012E manual that I need to read through to get more comfortable with. I hope to have an hour or so of alone time at home after work to hopefully resolve the fact that my drives on my RAID card don't show up in 2012

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Thanks for the info - I did that and it works but when I closed out the Network Listing it vanished so I did it again then performed a refresh and now its there all the time.

Right now I am installing the client software and its way too long of an install and it looks as if it restarted my notebook. The installed software has poofed away and now I am rather annoyed since this is the notebook I use at work but I do not wish to reinstall everything so what I need to determine is why it did not blend my local user account with the network account. This is something I need to work on because I do not want to reinstall everything.

_________________
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

Never mind I found it. This is crazy as I now have 3 accounts on this notebook. One tied to my live account, the other which I have been using and the third for the server. I understand the separation but I expected something more integral.

Question is can I run the WHS Client Connector on the Local Account and still run the WS2012E Client software. Only way to find out is to muck around with it.

Nope no can do as it added the WS2012E Launchpad to the Local Account which is fine with me. Big learning curve here and so which account to use and now I have to learn how to get all my office apps on the server and I know they have one called something like Office 360 but I need to keep things as simple as possible.

_________________
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

Have you tested transfer speeds over the network?

I was finally able to figure out how to create a GPT partition so my drives would get recognized as one JBOD. Doing some quick tests I am getting between 2-7 MB/s transferring files which is absolutely horrible

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

I was hitting 50-60 but was expecting it to be more like 90-120 mbps. My transfer was started by the client moving test files from WHS2011 to WS2012E. This was after I installed Stablebit Drive Pool v2 Beta. I am only using an older SATA II drive drive I had available a 2TB GRN EADS Drive.

I am now trying to get the VPN working but I do not use the UnPn or whatever you call it because I manually configure my router so that I can get Remote Access to all my servers but I did allow 443 to go to the WS2012 but port 80 definitely needs to go to my WHS v1 server which I use the landing page to provide all the links for my friends and family to use but maybe I can do something with the landing page on the WS2012E server but now is not the time to mess with that.

I did setup teaming of the NICs so lets see how that works out. So far so good and its been a valuable learning experience.

_________________
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