Windows Home Server / HP EX470 Info/FAQ

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DevilDoc

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I saw quite a bit of good information regarding the EX470 and Windows Home Server in general spread out over two or three threads in [H]ot|DEALS.
Just so I have a single spot to go-to/out of boredom/just for fun I threw the quality information up here, quoting those members that had good ideas/input as a way of saying thanks.

HP EX470 CPU Upgrade:
DevilDoc said:
FYI: Over at Newegg, the third review down for the HP EX470 says "Pros: Upgradeable CPU to Athlon LE-1640"

Though the LE-1640 is a deactivated item @ newegg, the AMD Athlon 64 1640B 2.7GHz can be had for $49.99.
Click to expand...


I upgraded to a LE-1660 Lima 2.8GHz CPU and 2GB G.Skill PC2 5300
Result:

CPU+RAM_Update.jpg


The server even correctly identifies the CPU part. CPU & RAM were $49.99 & $26.99 respectively @ newegg​

HP EX470 Memory Upgrade:
DevilDoc said:
The real poop on MediaSmart server memory upgrades:

HP changes policy on MediaSmart server memory upgrades

HP's Formal Statement

Cliffs:

"Upgrading the memory, in and of itself, will not void the warranty on the MediaSmart Server. Damage to any part of the MediaSmart Server during the upgrade may violate the warranty, however, leaving the cost for repairs the responsibility of the customer. Customers should perform a backup to an external device before adding additional memory."
Click to expand...

Regarding Memory Upgrades, the Home Server Hacks dude upgraded his EX470 using this 2GB DDR2 SDRAM DIMM from Newegg, and others have had good success using this specific part.​

HP EX470 - suggestion for an eSATA based external drive array:
Neb said:
Anyone know of a good port multiplier based esata multi-drive box to hook up to the ex470?
Click to expand...

It looks like the Home Server Hacks dude has this TR4M-B 4 Bay hooked up to his EX470.
​

Using WHS as a source/host for Media Center Extender(s):
TechieSooner said:
Can I hook my 360 into this and use it as a MCE?
Click to expand...

Here's a completely unsupported and at-your-own-risk way of getting WMP11 onto WHS. YMMV, of course.

I used this method of sharing media from my Vista Ultimate machine to my 360, so this could work for WHS+WMP11 --> 360 as well.

Can someone verify what works for sharing media from WHS --> X360? Is it possible to play divx/xvid & other avi's from a WHS using a 360?
​

WHS 64-bit client support:
Gunr said:
(WHS) does support 64 bit clients once Power Pack 1 is installed.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944289
Click to expand...

Reviews by other [H]'ers & w/ good info on how they use their WHS boxen:
no_control said:
I've had one of these for over a year now. I went from a big hulking 12 drive Raid 10 W2K server to this, and this is waaaay better. Unless your using a "real" server to share out applications, mail etc... (the WHS can do that too.... shhhh)

Just as a file and backup box this thing cannot be beat for the MSRP price. It's a steal at this price. The HP software adds functionality beyond WHS. The size and form factor are great & It looks good.

Don't listen to the negatives. Most of them are either untrue, uninformed or outdated. It a great little piece of hardware. Here are some links for everyone to get good info on the WHS.

The 2 gb of ram does help the processor upgrade doesn't help much. You can use 64 bit once you upgrade to PP1. The [H]ardware is more than enough oor what it was designed for (its not a gaming rig). Add ons add even more functionality and cutomization to your needs. It works with xbox and PS3. This will stream HD media without issue. RAID is not necessary. You can use any number of drives of any size and type. WD1tb+SG1.5tbW+Maxtor 120gb as long as they are SATA they'll plug right in and become part of the pool(JBOD style). IDE can be used thru the esata & usb.

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/
http://www.homeserverhacks.com/
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/index.php
Click to expand...

SirKronan said:
I have my HTP configured as my media server for my home as well. On it I have the "Music" folder and subfolders shared, and w/o password protection (made it easier to set up.) I have a password on my wireless network only. I have two HP printers connected to my gigabit and wireless N router. I also have two computers connected via the gigabit ethernet, and two more connected wirelessly.

Every computer, including my one Macbook, can see and make changes to the Music folder. And all four machines are authorized (you can authorize five) to play my account's music library (which only matters for the Apple DRM stuff). It works BEYOND perfect. If I buy a song on one computer, whether with Amazon or iTunes (iTunes very rare b/c of DRM), I can add it to the library on all my others very easily. Sometimes, it'll even find it just via normal folder monitoring, but I'm not that patient. I can also copy songs to my iPod from at least two of my computers on that account. And since the files are all in one place and networked from a single location organization is a snap. I love it. It's taken a little work simply because I've only now started to truly organize my stuff. My digital music collection has been a disaster, with many duplicates, but I'm sorting through it, and iTunes works fine. Most of my music shopping is actually done on a computer other than the server/HTPC, but because they are connected via gigabit, I can download and edit my music library straight up over the network.

You can have the same setup with this WHS. It works amazing. I know there might be fancier or more streamlined ways to do this, but it sure works good for me. Networking after SP1 has been a breeze, and it will be a breeze on this unit for sure. I priced one if I built it myself, and it's pretty darn close to $300. I'm going to eventually build one myself, and it will cost more because I'm likely to use one of those 45w AMD dual cores as the processor, and terabyte hard drives instead.

This is a real deal if you can get one in your "hood."
Click to expand...

-=Antimatter=- said:
Guys, please listen to the people who actually own these things and use WHS.
  • The retail price of this unit is $499, and it comes with a Seagate 500GB drive. Replace the system drive with a larger drive if you plan to populate the unit with 1TB+ drives, as this will save you headaches down the road. The unit comes with restore discs.
  • WHS is NOT vista, and you can't say that a Vista basic install would give you the same functionality.
  • Upgrading the RAM results in a significant performance boost.
  • There is a new model coming out, but nobody knows when. Probably not this year.
  • There are tons of plug-ins to add additional functionality. Many of them are community-developed, you can find them at WeGotServed among other communities.
  • You can access the server via network only, as there are no video ports on the device. You can use the WHS console and Remote Desktop as well.
  • You can access the unit from a 64 bit client, but you must do the initial setup of the machine on a 32 bit machine. Install Power Pack 1 and all avail. updates from the 32 bit machine, then you shoudl be able to find the 64 bit console software from your 64 bit client and proceed from there.
Click to expand...

anonuser said:
FYI, you can mount the share as a drive letter on your system and tell iTunes that this network share is your library location. This way you can transfer songs from a "shared" library that it doesn't realize is shared.

And don't listen to the people that don't have one. Lots of misinformation about the EX470 and WHS in general. I'll touch on a few I read really quickly:

  • 2gb of ram increases speed tremendously
  • Vista x64 has been supported for months now
  • You can add even more drives using the eSATA port and even USB (although drives added via USB would slow down file transfers)
  • It cannot back up Apple computers, but you can tell OSX to save the backup to the WHS share.
  • The price of this is a bargain at $500... try finding a chassis like this anywhere for less than $250-$300.
  • WHS is VERY stable, it's based on server 2003.

Buying one of these saved me hours upon hours of work moving around files from external drives. If you are reading this you already have a lot of files and/or systems. Do yourself a favor and buy it or at least another NAS solution. I wish I had earlier.
Click to expand...

MatreX said:
No RAID.. but when you add a drive, it's added to the "storage pool".. so, lets say you have Drive1, Drive2, and Drive3.... but they all show up as a single drive "D:"

Now lets say you set the "music" folder to be "protected", and then you copy song1 to your music folder. Song1 is copied to say Drive1, but then is immediately copied to Drive2 or Drive3 (the OS decides) but for this example say Drive2... it's now in two places on "D:"

Say Drive2 fails.. the OS sees this and knows that "music" must be protected, it begins to copy Song1 from Drive1 to Drive3.... once the copy is complete, you're protected again. Simply replace Drive2 and it will begin to copy new data to Drive 2 whenever it needs to. The files it copied to Drive3 will stay there and dont have to be copied back to Drive2. It only cares to make sure it's in two places.

A benefit to this over Raid is that you still have protection when one drive fails, but in this instance, you never have to bother with getting the same make/model/firmware versions to match your raid array. Now, in RAID-5, and in this storage pool setup, if 1 drive fails, you still have 100% data, if 2 drives fail, RAID-5 is now trashed, no data, but the storage pool setup still retains some data, it's not a 100% loss (where there are 3 or more drives).
Click to expand...
 
no_control says that "you can use any number of drives of any size and type. WD1tb+SG1.5tbW+Maxtor 120gb as long as they are SATA they'll plug right in and become part of the pool(JBOD style). IDE can be used thru the esata & usb."

but I thought all of the drives had to be the same capacity for them to work in the mediasmart... can someone please advise?
 
NeezyDeezy said:
no_control says that "you can use any number of drives of any size and type. WD1tb+SG1.5tbW+Maxtor 120gb as long as they are SATA they'll plug right in and become part of the pool(JBOD style). IDE can be used thru the esata & usb."

but I thought all of the drives had to be the same capacity for them to work in the mediasmart... can someone please advise?
Click to expand...
You don't need identical drives/capacities for it to work properly.
 
Through the WHS OS, can you create a separate area on the server that uses only the USB external drives to secure data on other USB external drives? That way I could use my existing USB drives in redundancy and all the media data on my SATA drives stays on SATA drives and can be transferred quickly.

If this is the case, that would be fantastic.
 
good little FAQ

i love my WHS box, although the other day when i asked my wife if she had been using her user share she said," wait, i thought it did that automatically?" in reguards to having her my documents in the user share and her "my documents" on her computer.

I explained it backup up the whole volume and that i can get individual files but for easy remote access she needs to manually "sync" her files.


I have seen and used synctoy and i am a live mesh beta tester but non are truly integrated file sync capabilities....

JMO
 
Yes, that external eSATA 4-bay deal from Sans does work the the HP server.

My dad has three total for his three HP Mediasmart servers. They work perfectly.
 
Through the WHS OS, can you create a separate area on the server that uses only USB external drives to secure data on other USB external drives? That way I could use my existing USB drives in redundancy and all the media data on my SATA drives inside the server stays on SATA drives and can be streamed quickly.
 
Adidas4275 said:
good little FAQ

i love my WHS box, although the other day when i asked my wife if she had been using her user share she said," wait, i thought it did that automatically?" in reguards to having her my documents in the user share and her "my documents" on her computer.

I explained it backup up the whole volume and that i can get individual files but for easy remote access she needs to manually "sync" her files.


I have seen and used synctoy and i am a live mesh beta tester but non are truly integrated file sync capabilities....

JMO
Click to expand...


Instead of manually syncing the files every few days by copy/pasting or by sync toy, you could change the location of the Documents, Music, Pictures etc in her user directory to be stored on the WHS in her user share.

If you do this on all the machines in your house you can have the same Documents, Music, Pictures etc accessible easily from any computer.
It gets a little tricky if you're on a laptop and you leave the network.
 
I upgraded my CPU and ram this evening, and it couldn't have been easier.

One LE-1660 Lima 2.8GHz CPU and 2GB G.Skill PC2 5300 later, and here's the result:

CPU+RAM_Update.jpg


The server even correctly identifies the CPU part. The system is quite a bit snappier as a result.

I bought my parts last weekend, and I just noticed that the LE-1660 is now a "Deactivated Item" over at newegg. I picked up the CPU & RAM for $49.99 & $26.99 respectively.
 
Vague said:
Instead of manually syncing the files every few days by copy/pasting or by sync toy, you could change the location of the Documents, Music, Pictures etc in her user directory to be stored on the WHS in her user share.

If you do this on all the machines in your house you can have the same Documents, Music, Pictures etc accessible easily from any computer.
It gets a little tricky if you're on a laptop and you leave the network.
Click to expand...


yeah she has a laptop.....
 
Ironically enough, the original LE-1640 @ newegg is now reactivated and for sale. Since I'm using the server as a WSUS server also, I think I might just upgrade it. It also doesn't hurt that it puts out less heat than the stock cpu.

FWIW, turned on jumbo frames on my EX470 and received roughly 350mbit/sec throughput; I think it's limited by the SiS network adapter on it. With fastcopy I managed to copy a 4gig file at 39MB/sec, so it's running pretty close to maximum.
 
Anyone know if DDR2 6400 will run in an EX470? I have a stick laying around that I have been trying to find a home for...I got a home just don't want to pop her in and ruin things, ya know? :D
 
It seems there's no real rhyme or reason as to what memory sticks work or don't; pop it in and see what happens :)
 
As long as it sticks with JEDEC spec, I would imagine it would just downclock to 667mhz. Low CAS RAM need not apply (it's not gonna work).
 
Neb said:
FWIW, turned on jumbo frames on my EX470 and received roughly 350mbit/sec throughput; I think it's limited by the SiS network adapter on it. With fastcopy I managed to copy a 4gig file at 39MB/sec, so it's running pretty close to maximum.
Click to expand...

What did you set jumbo frames to? Mine came set with a value of 1500 out of the box.
 
1.5k is the standard ethernet frame size; I have mine set to 9k. Note that for jumbo frames to work correctly everything on the particular switch it's on will need to be set the same.

My EACS drive just came in the other day; removed the stock drive from the pool via console, pulled it out, stuck the new drive in, and added it to the pool. Very cool to not need a reboot and the software handled all the file movement to clean out the drive. I really like WHS. :)
 
Neb said:
removed the stock drive from the pool via console, pulled it out, stuck the new drive in, and added it to the pool. Very cool to not need a reboot and the software handled all the file movement to clean out the drive. I really like WHS. :)
Click to expand...

Wait....you removed the stock 500GB drive? Doesn't that have WHS installed on it??

I just ordered some more drives for this( hard to ignore the 15% cashback deal with newegg atm ) and was dreading having to setup everything again....

Does WHS "duplicate" itself on another drive too?

That would be like...awesomeness unheard of!
 
No, when I first picked received the server I had pulled out the stock drive and put a 1tb drive in it's place. Then I did the server restore to put the OS back on. I did this so I can maximize the space on the server.

It would be nice if it had the capability to back itself up like that, but not unfortunately :(
 
Ahh ok. I left the 500GB in there, knowing I would be replacing it and put in the first 1.5TB I got from Newegg to test it( firmware issue )

Now I am going to have to do it with the next three coming to me!

I really wish WHS did that too. How bad was the restore process? And how are you getting access to changing the frame size? BIOS? I know enough to NOT be dangerous so Im not worried about messing stuff up, but Id like to see what is possible to change...
 
With the server restore disk, it's rather painless. The whole process is described here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01213381&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&product=3548164

Essentially the process boils down to the following:
1) install server restore program on computer that's on the same network as the MediaSmart server.
2) Run said program, then when prompted:
3) Force server into recovery mode by using paper clip + small button on front when server is first starting (red/blue blinking light)
4) Program does its thing, after prompting for an ok click, server reboots a few times and you're set.

NOTE: FACTORY RESET OPTION WILL BLOW AWAY ALL YOUR DATA ON ALL YOUR DRIVES. If you have any data on any of the drives you want, either take them out, or do a server restore.

All in all, it's a fairly well done restore process.

I changed the frame size by going into the device manager and going to the advanced properties tab. If your network doesn't completely consist of jumbo frame hardware, then generally speaking you're better off leaving it alone as the small performance benefit isn't worth the hassle imho. But as always, feel free to experiment, it's what makes this a fun hobby :)
 
Neb said:
With the server restore disk, it's rather painless. The whole process is described here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01213381&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&product=3548164

Essentially the process boils down to the following:
1) install server restore program on computer that's on the same network as the MediaSmart server.
2) Run said program, then when prompted:
3) Force server into recovery mode by using paper clip + small button on front when server is first starting (red/blue blinking light)
4) Program does its thing, after prompting for an ok click, server reboots a few times and you're set.

NOTE: FACTORY RESET OPTION WILL BLOW AWAY ALL YOUR DATA ON ALL YOUR DRIVES. If you have any data on any of the drives you want, either take them out, or do a server restore.

All in all, it's a fairly well done restore process.

I changed the frame size by going into the device manager and going to the advanced properties tab. If your network doesn't completely consist of jumbo frame hardware, then generally speaking you're better off leaving it alone as the small performance benefit isn't worth the hassle imho. But as always, feel free to experiment, it's what makes this a fun hobby :)
Click to expand...

Yea a server Restore is really easy. Ive done it twice now....only part that sux is that you have to redo your programs/add-ins/user accounts.
 
Neb said:
into the device manager and going to the advanced properties tab.
Click to expand...

Device manager of the EX470? I don't even know how to get off the WHS Console window yet! :p

I read somewhere you can get to the desktop, but I was skimming and now I forget where and just haven't really been bothered yet to follow the internet trail again.

Just got electricity back yesterday, so my time has been filled with..well, you know. pr0n and video games. And in that order! :D
 
WHS Console = slick looking skin on top of remote desktop

on your computer go Start -> run -> "mstsc", click ok, then at the prompt enter your EX470 server name and click connect. That'll start a remote desktop connection and I'm sure you know how to go from there :)
 
Neb said:
WHS Console = slick looking skin on top of remote desktop

on your computer go Start -> run -> "mstsc", click ok, then at the prompt enter your EX470 server name and click connect. That'll start a remote desktop connection and I'm sure you know how to go from there :)
Click to expand...

Even though that IS how I manage mine 90% of the time (i find the WHS Console useless for my needs), if people install WHS Add-Ins, the only way to use them is the console.
 
criccio said:
Even though that IS how I manage mine 90% of the time (i find the WHS Console useless for my needs), if people install WHS Add-Ins, the only way to use them is the console.
Click to expand...

The console can be opened within the remote session, so it's not very useless.
 
Neb said:
on your computer go Start -> ru
Click to expand...

Is about where I started shaking my head and laughing at myself.

Can I get a one big DUH! for me please? :eek:

I so hardly ever USE Remote Desktop, I never even think about it. And after you mentioned it, I remember someone else saying they use it to connect that way too.
 
criccio said:
I know it can, I was responding to Neb.
Click to expand...
I was in turn responding to Inacurate, who was asking about accessing the device manager to change the jumbo frame setting on the NIC, which you can only do thru the console if you get the Advanced Admin Console add-in ;)

As a side note, I normally use the Console for pretty much everything except for WSUS; for some reason the snap-in doesn't work as well thru the console as it does thru RD.
 
criccio said:
Even though that IS how I manage mine 90% of the time (i find the WHS Console useless for my needs), if people install WHS Add-Ins, the only way to use them is the console.
Click to expand...

Ockie said:
The console can be opened within the remote session, so it's not very useless.
Click to expand...

Neb said:
I was in turn responding to Inacurate, who was asking about accessing the device manager to change the jumbo frame setting on the NIC, which you can only do thru the console if you get the Advanced Admin Console add-in ;)

As a side note, I normally use the Console for pretty much everything except for WSUS; for some reason the snap-in doesn't work as well thru the console as it does thru RD.
Click to expand...

There is a way to enable full desktop view...RD inside the Console.
EDIT: nvm it was on WeGotServed
 
Hah, that's a very spiffy trick, using the show desktop shortcut to show the full view.
 
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