Finally going to try WHS 2011

[hansolo77]

Grr... this install is driving me batty! First of all, it requires a minimum of 160gb drive, and the SSD I bought is only 120gb. That was an easy fix though. Now I'm getting hung up after it reboots the 2nd time, where it is finalizing. Sits at 0% for 2 hours without moving. Do a reset and you have to start from scratch. I'm on my 4th attempt now.

[Draco1962]

Yeah I saw on Technet the minimum specs for the HDD - why so hefty on the OS? Doesn't leave much overhead for installing other support programs.

[stigzler]

Especially as the actual install is about 35G (see pic above).

Keep on trucking Hans - you'll get it. I might have had a few tries, but ultimately it did turn out to be less hassle than V1 (probably because I bought a monitor breakout board to stop trying to instal windows headless!)

[hansolo77]

I got it installed finally. My hang up was caused by the the computer trying to access the internet. I had to disconnect my router from the modem. After that, it went straight through. I've reorganized my drives and the server now properly detects most of them. I'm having trouble now getting one of my PCI controller cards to detect the drives I plug into them lol (always somwthing!). If I can't get it to work, I'm gonna give up on it. I don't think it's capable of the AHCI control I'm using now (I was using Legacy IDE mode with WHS v1).

[Draco1962]

Is it possible that another PCI card would work? Does your PC support PCIE?

[hansolo77]

I have 1 PCIe 1x, 1 PCIe 16x, and 2 PCI... I have a 4-port SATAIII card in the 1x slot. I might save up and get that 8-port SATAIII card for the 16x slot, I dunno.

I'm still having issues. I've not been able to get a single Windows Update since installing. It just sits there, scanning for updates but doesn't DO anything. And when it starts, I look at my Task Manager and it's running 100% CPU and 50% RAM on an svchost. I've dropped the priority to LOW and it still takes over everything. This thing is so freaking slow, even with the SSD, it makes me wonder if I should have even bothered. I'm hoping it's just doing a massive download in the background or something.

[Draco1962]

Having not worked with WHS since the initial beta, I don't know much, but is it possible it is trying to index your pool drives?

[hansolo77]

That's not really an issue either. WHS 2011 doesn't come with built in pooling capabilities, that where the StableBit Drive Pool software comes from. I installed it with the 30day trial but haven't actually configured it yet. I've been researching my problem and it is apparently a known issue. Windows Update's svchost process is taking 100% cpu, and their is a memory leak bug in the software. If I disable the service, then everything is fine. Trouble is, I need to get those updates! So I'm now in the process of trying to find the solution. I've downloaded 2 or 3 hotfixes but they didn't solve the problem. I've also tried a manual/direct download of the latest version of the updater software which was supposed to have fixed the problem, but I can't install it for some reason.

[stigzler]

Think it took me a weekend about a year ago, but once you get it set up, it's all plain sailing. Haven't had any issues with it since..keep the faith

[hansolo77]

Well I started up the service and initiated the "scan for updates" process before I left for work this morning. When I got home, I was greeted with a nice "There are 207 important updates and 6 optional updates available". I thought maybe it was getting hung up trying to download, then install, each update individually and told it to just download and let me choose to install them. Seems to have done the trick (maybe....). I've gone ahead and selected to install EVERYTHING, and then hit OK. The svchost process is still pegging at 100% cpu and 1.2gb ram, and the screen is "broken". Only half of the window is rendered out. But it looks like it's doing something.

[fingers crossed]

Hey Stigzler... how did you choose to install Stablebit? Did you go with the 2011 version, or the latest? When I went to the website, it says the latest version is compatible with WHS 2011, but I don't know if it will have the "Dashboard" plugin with it. Since I've been working on getting Windows installed and updated, I haven't bothered trying to connect any other computers to it yet to see the "Dashboard" so I don't know if it installed a plugin or not. Just curious. That's a nice thing about the 30 day trial, you don't spend any money seeing which version works best for you.

[stigzler]

Id go with the most recent. As you say, as a trial you can always choose differently. In short, cant remember!

[hansolo77]

Ok here's today's update and questions!

WHS 2011 is fully installed and updated. Woohoo! I installed the latest version of DrivePool (not the 2011 version) and it went right in fine. It even gave me the Dashboard plugin. I've been going through and connecting 1 drive at a time to my controllers. Once Windows detects it, I deleted the existing partition (it's already been formatted when I took them out of the WHS v1). I then created new partitions without a drive letter (that way they don't all show up when you open My Computer!) but gave them all location names (like, Internal Bay 1, Internal Bay 2 ~ etc). Once each drive was connected, partitioned, and named, I added them to the drive pool. Once I had enough storage available, I started moving files over from the non-pooled backup drives into the new pool. Once an entire drive's contents were in the pool, I re-partitioned it, named it, and added that drive to the pool too. I have 2 drives left to add (including the massive 4tb TV Show drive).

I've also installed my copy of Raxco PerfectDisk to make sure these drives stay nice and clean.

While looking at StableBit's website and getting DrivePool, I was also looking at their Scanner. I've installed it, but I'm not really digging it. It didn't install a Dashboard plugin like DrivePool did, so it looks like I have to work with it inside a Remote Desktop to the server. If that's the case, I'd rather just use HD-Sentinel since I already had that working. Scanner looks like a basic SMART utility that constantly monitors the drives' temperature and data for failures. One nice think I like about it is that it can be configured to send you an SMS or PUSH alert to your phone if a drive is failing. But without Dashboard integration I don't think I'll be using it. Plus it's really slow. Not only does it monitor SMART, but it looks like it runs a low-level sector scan and chkdsk on a schedule. Of course the default is to run these scans every 30 days, but when you first install your drives, it immediately wants to start the first scans. I'm trying to let it do it's thing, but it's been running now for about 3 hours and my smallest drive (500gb) is only 2% complete.

Ok, I've just NOW decided (after writing about it) that I'm going to just uninstall Scanner. It's eating too much system resources to be useful. I was going to as you Stigzler if you bothered with it, and whether or not you figured out how to get it installed into the Dashboard. But I'm not going to mess with it.

Lastly, I intend to install LightsOut again. I loved having it on my WHS v1 because it would keep my system from running really hot during the day when I'm at work not using it. Trouble is, I lost my registration info. LOL! When I had it before, it was on the WHS v1, and when I made backups of my stuff I didn't bother with the /software folder because that was all WHS v1 software! I believe my license/registration key was in there. Oh well. I've posted a message on their forums and sent an email request. Hopefully they'll get back in touch with me soon.

So Stigzler, or anybody else who uses WHS 2011.. what other things do you have installed? I was thinking about getting some kind of virus scanner, but I don't really need one since all the files existing on the server are already scanned through the client machines to begin with. Also, WTF is Launchpad? Seems like a waste of time, since the big stuff you want is in the Dashboard. Anyway to get rid of it?

Oh, and I got my new CPU heatsink/fan and Artic Silver paste. Just waiting on the CPU chip itself and I'll be upgrading to the new Core2Duo!

[stigzler]

Didn't bother with Scanner.

Other plugins:

Home Server SMART 2013 - monitors disk health info - alerts if any errors/failures (essential after some bad experiences on V1)

Light-out

Advanced Admin Console - can access lots of useful stuff from Dashboard

Remote Launcher - Can launch apps etc straight from dashboard

Apps installed on server:

HWMonitor - monitors all core temperatures etc

Yeah - launchpad is a waste of time.

Lastly, I DID choose to have a virus scanner on my WHS. I don't have a specific one on all my client machines - just windows etc. I really did feel that if I want a scanner anywhere it's gonna be on my server as this feels the most important thing to keep spic and span. I use Eset - they have a specific AV for WHS2011.

Sounds like you're getting there, Hans. Once you get that CPU plugged in, you'll be gald of all the work - loved WHS2011 + been problem free for a long time now (as opposed to my V1 days!)

[hansolo77]

Wow what an eventful week. I've got it up and running now. Been having some difficulties with the StableBit software because of the controller I'm using, but hopefully it's all been worked out. I've already made my purchase of DrivePool. Microsoft is f-ing stupid for taking that option out of their OS, but DrivePool is excellent and I have no problem supporting them for it. I'm even going to give their Scanner some love because I like how it can be configured to automatically send out an SMS message to my phone if a drive is failing. That way I'm not totally shocked when I get home (even though the total shock at the time I get the message and not being home to fix it is probably worse). But I appreciate it's value in being able to scan my drives for safety sake.

I've also been trying to tackle Emby. I had it all setup and working great on WHS v1, but I had the server program installed on the same machine as the media center. The big hurdle was that WHS v1 is in x86 and Emby Server required x64 for it's SQL libraries. That's the #1 reason I wanted to upgrade. That, and the fact that WHS v1 was no longer being supported. I suppose I could get whatever latest version of Server Essentials everybody is using, but I would have to learn the process of MANUALLY configuring the daily client backups, and managing the shares, and doing everything else WITHOUT a Dashboard. Until I have the money to actually build and work on a new prototype, I'm going to just stick with this for now.

On the purchase front. I've not decided on the RAM I want to get. I should get something ECC but I don't believe my motherboard supports that type of RAM. I know I need to get 8gb, as that's the largest amount it will support, in 2 sticks of 4. The specs (here) say it can support up to DDR3 1333, but I don't know what that (O.C.) would be for, unless they mean that I can only use 1066 and have to "Overclock" it. Doesn't sound right though. Anybody have any suggestions on what to get?

I did, also, take up an offer from the "Second in Command" over at StableBit. I was browsing their forums and found a thread where people were bragging about their storage pool sizes. Some of those guys are like +75tb! Anyway, I commented on my desires to build something similar but lack required funds. The guy who's pretty much their head of support offered to sell me one of his extra IBM ServeRAID M1015 controller cards. Just for comparison, Amazon is selling it for $199 (link) and NewEgg is selling it for $569 (link)! And he is being so generous, he's selling it to me for $50! He said he has 2 of them just collecting dust, but my current setup can only hold 1 so he's selling 1 to me. Basically these cards can support 8 drives directly, or 32 (!) drives with an expander. More than I'll ever need. I just need to get the breakout cables. So my next purchase is definitely going to be the cables and RAM. I just need to find what RAM to get (already know what cables I need).

[hansolo77]

Doesn't seem like this thread is active anymore.. I can change that! Since becoming a part of the StableBit community, I've really been heavily considering a complete rebuild of my server. I know I just upgraded this one, but I'm looking longer term future now. I just wanted to share with you guys the case I'm going to be getting.

Norco RPC-4224

That's right. Look at that beast! It's what a true storage server is all about. As it is right now, my MID-TOWER case is holding 12 actively running drives. I had 2 5.25 bays open so I ordered one of these to give me 3 more drives. That IBM ServeRAID M1015 card arrived, and is capable of driving a minimum of 8 drives, or up to 32 I believe it said using an SAS-Expander. So once I get those installed, I'll be running 15 drives (in bays) as well as 2 more I have laying around that will be just sitting inside the case. So a total of 17 drives. The 4224 is the next logical step. There are a TON of people out there using them who say they are great. Just imagine. If I had the money, using that case to drive 24x8tb drives (192tb). Also, YES, I do need that. My current system is holding 15tb of storage, but with duplication for fail-safe, I've only got about 2tb to spare, which is really all that much. The extra 5 drives I have that I'll be installing soon will only give me another 3.5tb.

Anyway, that case is a future plan. I might be able to squeeze out a deal on eBay soon though. There is a guy in Texas selling his for $200. I've been in contact with him (though only once) and he agreed to ship it to me (the listing says local pickup only). I'm crossing my fingers and really hoping he can hook me up. If not, I'll just wait a few weeks and buy the real deal legit from NewEgg or somewhere else if I can find it cheaper, though NewEgg has the best CURRENT price.

So with those future plans in affect, I'm actively researching other parts for the build. Sure, I could just swap out everything and put it into that case, but I'm really feeling like I should buy all new stuff. For instance, that motherboard I'm using is kinda old and likely to fail soon. I'd like to get a dedicated server board, that is compatible with ECC Ram. It's also gotta have room for expansion, so that means more PCIe slots (the current one only has 1 1x and 1 16x). I've also started researching what the benefits would be to having multiple RJ45 jacks. I'm still unsure why I would want it, but I do like the idea of being able to remotely configure the BIOS through a dedicated port. Another feature of a true Server board, besides enhanced longevity, would be the expansion of RAM available. WHS 2011 currently only supports 8gb, where as Server 2012 R2 Essentials can support up to 32gb I believe. While I may not need it now, it may be nice to have that available in the future.