Windows Home Server FAQ

[nitrobass24]

Thanks for the clarification.

I was honestly convinced the VM was sufficiently "standard" not to need that stuff... Probably it can sense the CPU change (and a couple more other stuff), especially if you move from Intel to AMD or vice-versa, causing the "too big of a hardware change" trigger to go off.

Now, wasn't it about time VMs behaved like that, virtual? I mean, virtualisation was created exactly to enable people to move guest OSes from one machine to another, as resources change over time? Reactivation in these cases only causes more unnecessary downtime, from where I'm seeing it...

Cheers.

Miguel

Well VMs dont have a prob moving physical hardware.
Its when you move from VMware to Vbox, or citrix, or hyper-v. Each hypervisor has its own unique virtual hardware and drivers.

 

[__Miguel_]

That makes SO much more sense, nitro. Thanks again.

Funny, I didn't even know VMs could be ported between different hypervisors... That subject makes much more sense to me now.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[pjkenned]

Damn, is there ANY WHS implementation (remember the 10 client limit) that actually NEEDS more than Gigabit speeds for regular usage? And, for that matter, are there any consumer-grade switches with port bonding?

I mean, even 10 simultaneous 45Mbps streams are only about half a Gigabit pipe (probably a bit over, with overhead), and while a single HDD might not like that kind of abuse (60MBps+ sustained with 10 data streams seems pushing it), if you really have that many simultaneous viewers consuming 1080p content you're probably already outside a WHS usage scenario.

Though, if available from within WHS, a 2-node cluster should be a blast (I don't think clustering is available with WHS, however, and managing that one would be challenging, to say the least).

That kind of speed (which IS very nice, btw) seems better directed to more prosumer usage scenarios, where WHS isn't even the best OS for the job. That's my take on it, anyway.

Well... "NEED" is a really subjective term Every client I have now runs on a SSD. So the more I can keep on the server, the smaller the SSD's I need. The bigger pipe I give the server, the more practical it becomes to keep everything on there.

As for consumer switches... I don't even bother. Decent Dell/HP switches can be had for $100 or less with 16-24 ports and SFP ports. Spending $30-40 on a consumer switch that I may have to reset one day and can't handle the same workload/ features (like bonding) isn't worth saving a few dollars over. I'm a fan of plug in (setup if needed) and don't physically touch the switch again for 2-3 years when it is time to upgrade.

 

[__Miguel_]

Well... "NEED" is a really subjective term

Somehow I thought that could be the case... lol

As for consumer switches... I don't even bother. Decent Dell/HP switches can be had for $100 or less with 16-24 ports and SFP ports.

Well, I don't even OWN 16 machines that have Ethernet connection, but that is actually a good approach...

My 5-port D-Link Gigabit switch is enough for me ATM, but it does have some quirks, like crashing like once every month or so.

If I were to upgrade that one, what would you recommend? I have NEVER seen HP switches that cheap here in Portugal (Dell is kind of a "bulk buy" brand here, it's difficult for them to sell directly to consumers, and has little to no market share). I was thinking about some sort of easy QoS, without having to use cFosSpeed...

I'm a fan of plug in (setup if needed) and don't physically touch the switch again for 2-3 years when it is time to upgrade.

Well, that is probably the epitome of PnP... lol

Cheers.

Miguel

P.S.: Am I going too OT? If so, please reply via PM.

 

[NO1B4ME]

I'm guessing those are not all ISO's (400 x 40GB each = 16TB) If you want a good (fast) card, either get an Adaptec 5xxx or Areca 1680 based. Somewhat slower (but OK if you are only using 1-3 GigE NICs) tend to be LSI based cards. Another option is to get something that is compatible with a HP SAS Expander if you see yourself going to a 20+ drive setup in the somewhat near future.

With HW raid, you have to remember that every port is costing you well over the $12-15 of a non-raid HBA. Other considerations involve how many expansion slots you have open and etc.

My advice is to figure out what you will need port wise for the next 2 years and build a system to handle that, adding a SAS expander or HBA as necessary down the road. Heck, if you don't need >400MB/s writes and 600MB/s reads, you can use Adaptec 3xxxx series cards and they are super cheap.

I made the mistake of building a system with a E6420 two onboard Realtek NICs and room for only 16 drives through the Adaptec 31605. That server lasted me less than a year and I ended basically re-using the drives and power supply.

As for Win 7 v. WHS. Both are great with MyMovies.

Well i have been stumped as to what to do. I have 10 of 2TB WD Greens at this time and was trying to figure out what way to go. I guess my end result is that I use RAID 5 or WHS. I cannot figure out what is causing my slow transfer speeds and not it is even occuring my my quad cpu setup.... I do have the Supermicro SAT2 MV8 card as well to assist in using 8 hard drives. What would you guys recommend to use to serve blurays to 2-3 HTPCs in my home?

 

[nitrobass24]

no one can keep up with your issue in this massive thread.

Start a new one, with your setup for your WHS as is
Network equipment
and a computer your trying to stream to

 

[Dangman]

no one can keep up with your issue in this massive thread.

Start a new one, with your setup for your WHS as is
Network equipment
and a computer your trying to stream to

QFT. Start a new thread.

 

[benogil]

I saw this on another forum, in a section dealing with demigrator issues. I am posting it because of it's originality.

Just thought I would add another workaround to DEmigrator. I have used this method for years because I have always loathed the hourly carry on with DEmigrator. As I have not seen it documented any where else, I thought I would post.
Demigrator is not necessary to the data pool. It is only necessary for duplication and the "optimisation" of data on hard disks. Without it running, my disks have just filled up incrementally - fine by me.
I have disabled demigrator the EASY way, no fooling about with trying to disable services. To do this just start regedit & find the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DriveExtender

Go to the dword value of "MigrationDisabled" and change the value to 1. Reboot.

DeMigrator is still enabled as a service, but will no longer run. End of disk thrashing. For duplication, I have added a non-pooled hard disk and use sync-toy to do a pass at 3.30am. The advantages of using sync toy to WHS duplication are that it's quicker and data can be duped on a folder level, not just a share level.
Therefore, less duplication of unecessary stuff - such as the really important files that get externally backed up anyway!


Ben

 

[Kulith]

Speaking of Network Adapters, are these any good: http://www.meritline.com/airlink101...&hq_e=el&hq_m=1973154&hq_l=11&hq_v=c456001ec3

Airlink101 gigabit for only 8 bucks a piece? Intels are 3x that.

 

[Metaluna]

Looks like a Realtek chip, maybe an 8169?

All I'll say about Realtek NICs is: You get what you pay for.

 

[Kenworth]

Speaking of Network Adapters, are these any good: http://www.meritline.com/airlink101...&hq_e=el&hq_m=1973154&hq_l=11&hq_v=c456001ec3

Airlink101 gigabit for only 8 bucks a piece? Intels are 3x that.

Looks like a Realtek chip, maybe an 8169?

All I'll say about Realtek NICs is: You get what you pay for.

Yep, 3x the cost will probably net you the same effect in quality and peace of mind in a demanding network environment.

 

[__Miguel_]

Looks like a Realtek chip, maybe an 8169?

That's probably the most used Realtek chip for PCI cards... And from the pictures, I agree with your view.

Yep, 3x the cost will probably net you the same effect in quality and peace of mind in a demanding network environment.

I have to admit, I've only had experience with one Intel NIC, and that was an embedded motherboard Gigabit controller on an old S478 mobo. I've also had experience with that Realtek chip, on an add-on card.

Thing is, I haven't had too many headaches with the Realtek chip in Windows, though I hear drivers are rather weird at best ("patchwork" was a word I think I read about them... lol), and Linux may be a hit-and-miss thing.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[Kenworth]

Thing is, I haven't had too many headaches with the Realtek chip in Windows, though I hear drivers are rather weird at best ("patchwork" was a word I think I read about them... lol), and Linux may be a hit-and-miss thing.

I have no experience with Linux (at least not enough to give judgement on this subject), but "patchwork" is a word you could use I guess. Most Realtek chips I have worked with are very picky about the drivers in a weird way that Intel's have never displayed. Let me make up a hypothetical situation for explanation purposes. Basically, if Realtek nic chip 1234 is in a Giga motherboard, I have had to go through all revisions of the drivers sequentially (1.0, 1.1, 1.2...) and find which one works with that board and config the best. It may be the latest, it may be the second revision, whatever it is I have to find by installing and re-installing each revision until I find that revision "sweet spot". Now if Realtek chip 1234 is in a Bio board, the revision of the driver that works best in that board and config maybe totally different based on what the board maker and Realtek has put out.
The chip will "work" with some other revisions but not as well as others too.

Now, in comparison, every Intel card I have bought and installed has worked with the latest drivers cleaner and quicker than the nic it is replacing. I am willing to pay a little bit for that peace of mind.

 

[__Miguel_]

I have to be EXTRA lucky, then... I have NEVER had drivers misbehaving in such a way I noticed, and I have the habit of jumping the gun when it comes to update drivers (and we all know just how often Realtek updates its drivers... lol).

Unless it's because of the motherboards I choose (I've just recently bought my first Gigabyte board, before that it has been Asus, ASRock or Intel), but I doubt that. Probably I just wasn't too inclined to check for all bottlenecks, and it's a typical example of problem between the monitor and the chair... hehehe

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[odoe]

Quick question, I just had my WHS OS drive fail, so I've got my backup drive and I'm reinstalling right now.
Once I've done all the updates and attach my backup drive, it will be able to restore my shares from the backup in the WHS Connector screen correct?

If all else fails, I can spend a a few hours copying the backups over manually, but ouch.

I also took out an aging IDE drive that had data, so a Server Reinstall wasn't really going to work here.
Luckily, my backup is about a month old, but most stuff I'm losing on the WHS is still on my local machine, so no biggy.

To answer my own question, I was able to connect my external backup and I'm restoring from the latest backup. Crossing fingers it grabs everything and I don't need to do restore from each backup date.

So it looks like I'll need to restore each backup, as this latest one is not as big as it should be. Oh well.

**update: ok, looks like I just need to start from most recent and work my way back to get everything.
**update2: there are still some files I can see on my backup that didn't get restored to my WHS. Restoring backups in WHS is becoming quite a PITA. I'm thinking I may have to manually move over stuff and start my backups fresh. Not sure what the problem is here.

am I mistaken in that let's say I have a folder of mp3's, do a backup. I later edit the mp3 metadata, then do a backup later on. It keeps the old files in a previous backup?

 

[BigTy]

Greetings all
I was looking to setup a VM on my WHS box so I can install Windows 7 in a VM. The reason I want to do this is because of the features that I am missing when trying to stream to my Xbox 360. I don’t want to setup a whole new box to gain those features back. So that is why I would like to setup a vm. Can someone point me in the right direction to start this project? Also if someone has done something similar what are some limitations or bumps you ran into?

 

[nitrobass24]

What features are you missing?
What exactly are you trying to do? Shoukdnt need win7 vm

 

[Metaluna]

I have to be EXTRA lucky, then... I have NEVER had drivers misbehaving in such a way I noticed, and I have the habit of jumping the gun when it comes to update drivers (and we all know just how often Realtek updates its drivers... lol).

Unless it's because of the motherboards I choose (I've just recently bought my first Gigabyte board, before that it has been Asus, ASRock or Intel), but I doubt that. Probably I just wasn't too inclined to check for all bottlenecks, and it's a typical example of problem between the monitor and the chair... hehehe

Cheers.

Miguel

When I was just starting with WHS builds, I had severe problems with Realtek 8111 PCIe NICs dropping offline under heavy network loads, especially when combined with certain kinds of disk activity (e.g. WHS backups). WHS would show the NIC as still connected, but there would be no activity lights, and none of my clients could see the server, and vice versa.

At first I blamed the motherboard so I swapped it out from an AMD to an Intel-based board, but the problem persisted. Then I started seeing the same problem on a new desktop machine I built (at the time I think I was running Vista, or maybe Windows 7). Finally I figured out that the common thread was that all these boards had the same Realtek chip (you can't get away from these things. Try finding even an add-on NIC card that has anything else). Finally, I tried an Intel PRO1000/PT on the WHS box and the problems went away. At that point I decided that the low end Intel NICs (e.g. PRO1000/CT) are cheap enough that it's not worth wasting my time chasing problems with cheap NICs. Plus Intel's driver control panel is really nice. It sucks having to give up a PCIe slot though, especially on a server. That's why my new build has a Supermicro motherboard with Intel NICs built-in.

 

[__Miguel_]

When I was just starting with WHS builds, I had severe problems with Realtek 8111 PCIe NICs dropping offline under heavy network loads,

Hmm, I have experienced a similar behavior, but outside the "heavy network load" scenario, and on my gaming rig, rather than the WHS machine (both have a Realtek NIC). What happens is, from time to time (since Xmas, when I assembled the gaming rig, it has only happened two or three times), the gaming rig loses network connection altogether. The switch light goes out for that port, and I have to reboot to regain network connectivity. I've chalked it up to switch misbehavior (since it has already crashed twice), but I might need to revisit the NIC... C***...

(you can't get away from these things. Try finding even an add-on NIC card that has anything else).

Well, you CAN get away from Realtek on the NIC department. But you either end up with Attansic (which is even worse, at least on my book ) or high-end/server/expensive boards, like those Supermicro boards, which are always very nice, but very expensive...

I'll try to study my Realtek-related issues with more detail. Maybe I do need to upgrade, too...

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[PigLover]

Use an add-in NIC from the Intel ProSet 1000 series. They are not that expensive and will kick the Realtek's behind for WHS performance. Both PCI and PCIe versions are available, depending on what extra slots you have.

 

[BigTy]

What features are you missing?
What exactly are you trying to do? Shoukdnt need win7 vm

On my XBox360 I need access to Recorded TV shows and the stock WHS doesnt allow this for some reason. Also I would like to use the Media Center interface. But I would be fine if I just have access to the Recorded TV shows. As for OS'es I'm ok I have enough keys of all the OS'es out.

 

[nitrobass24]

Ok well that makes sense. You will have to use your Xbox in Extender mode, because the xbox wont play DVR-MS from the dashboard.

 

[BigTy]

But has anyone load a VM "within " WHS from this community?

 

[nitrobass24]

But has anyone load a VM "within " WHS from this community?

Yes just install VMware Player

 

[aldamon]

This will probably be obvious to everyone, but I downgraded from a Q6600 to a Celeron E3300 in my WHS and I'm very pleased with the power and heat savings. It's a killer budget, low-power CPU and still has virtualization.

 

[__Miguel_]

I've got an E3200 Celly on my WHS machine. And the mobo is G31-based, WITH decent energy savings features.

The CPU can drop to around 5W power draw (probably including the power circuitry) for most of the time, WITHOUT any underclocking (the motherboard undervolts it automatically), so yeah, I know what you mean on power sipping... I mean, the cooler I'm using right now is a MAJOR overkill (v1 Ninja), but it does allow me to run the whole box with only one fan (the PSU)...

Also, I do think an E3xxx Celly is probably just good enough for software-based FullHD decoding and general productivity software, so it's a shame having it disappear along with the rest of the S775 lineage... Especially when they are THAT dirt cheap (~€80-90 for a CPU+board combo, or just about the same as mini-ITX dual-core Atom boards...).

Thoroughly recommend them for low power builds, especially if paired with a G31-based mobo (like from ASRock or Gigabyte).

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[brennok]

Hey guys I am hoping someone has an idea on what might be happening to my server.

I added a 1.5tb Samsung drive a couple months ago. I came home one day to show the drive missing. I pulled the drive and reinserted it back into the Norco. My WHS detected the drive fine and everything has been fine since until today.

I come home today to find the health of my server's health is critical and has database errors. I go to repair the database errors and my computer loses connection with the server during the repair. I go and check the server itself and it is showing the same Samsung drive missing again. I am currently running chkdsk on the various drives but it is taking forever as predicted. WHS shows no errors with the drive via the console which it detects immediately if I pull the drive and reinsert it back into the case. I still plan to run chkdsk on all the drives, but I don't want to keep coming home to this.

It seems to only happen when I am gone which is when I have the backups set to run. The only other error I have seen lately is it was reporting my PC had a different version of the connector software. A reboot fixed the issue though and I was running the latest version.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[nitrobass24]

Well first when you run a database repair you will lose pc connect (console) connectivity.....that is normal.

Sounds like the samsung drive is bad. Go to their website and download their diagnostic tools and run the long test on that one drive.

there is no sense in running chkdsk on the entire drive pool when obviously one drive is acting up.

 

[brennok]

Ok thanks that is good to know. I have never had to run it in the past so I didn't realize it would disconnect me. The weird thing is WHS doesn't report any errors on the drive so it won't give me the option to repair.

I wanted to only run chkdsk on this drive, but couldn't see anyway to identify which c:/fs/ correlated to which drive.

I will pull it this weekend and run diagnostics to see. I was also wondering if maybe something was wrong with that connector in the norco since I have read of some people having issues with specific tray slots.

 

[nitrobass24]

it could be the slot but its more likely the drive or a bad cable.

WinDirStat will tell you what the mappings for each drive is.

 

[Justintoxicated]

So would it be possible to do the following:
Build win7 HTPC system with 4 Hard drives.

Use the system as an HTPC with Win7 as the OS installed on one of these hard drives (maybe partition it in 2 if necessary). Within that install, setup a VM for WHS (should it go on the other partition?). Then add the remaining 3 drives to the storage pool within WHS?

What would be the disadvantages of doing this? Also what would happen if the OS drive failed or a drive in the storage pool died?

The idea would be to save power by having everything on one machine instead of 2. It would also allow me to save money by not building an HTPC (current WHS parts would make a very good HTPC as well). Would the VM instance of WHS be able to wake the machine up when it's time to do nightly backups, assuming the HTPC went into sleep mode?

 

[brennok]

it could be the slot but its more likely the drive or a bad cable.

WinDirStat will tell you what the mappings for each drive is.

Thanks. I am trying to run the repair now for the database. This thing is taking forever. I am thinking I should have pulled the drive first before doing it.

 

[Dangman]

So would it be possible to do the following:
Build win7 HTPC system with 4 Hard drives.

Use the system as an HTPC with Win7 as the OS installed on one of these hard drives (maybe partition it in 2 if necessary). Within that install, setup a VM for WHS (should it go on the other partition?). Then add the remaining 3 drives to the storage pool within WHS?

What would be the disadvantages of doing this? Also what would happen if the OS drive failed or a drive in the storage pool died?

Well the main disadvantage is that it won't work with Windows 7. In order to run WHS as a VM and if you want to be able to add drives to it, you will need a virtualization OS/app that allows for direct disk mapping. AFAIK, only 2008 R2 with Hyper-V supports that option well.

So in order to do what you want to do, you will have to use Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V as the host, not Windows 7. However AFAIK, Server R2 with Hyper-V does not allow for the VM to use the the onboard video for hardware accelerated playback of HD content.

 

[Justintoxicated]

Well the main disadvantage is that it won't work with Windows 7. In order to run WHS as a VM and if you want to be able to add drives to it, you will need a virtualization OS/app that allows for direct disk mapping. AFAIK, only 2008 R2 with Hyper-V supports that option well.

So in order to do what you want to do, you will have to use Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V as the host, not Windows 7. However AFAIK, Server R2 with Hyper-V does not allow for the VM to use the the onboard video for hardware accelerated playback of HD content.

The VM would not need any sort of hardware accelerated playback since it would just be hosting the SageTV server and not the client (It just manages connections to your TV tuners for you so you don't hose recordings or interfere with what someone else is watching. The clients do the decoding).

However I'm not sure the SageTV client would run on Server2008? It seems silly to host a VM of WHS within server 2008, or would that make sense to do? Is that what everyone else is doing that is using WHS as a VM?

 

[nitrobass24]

The reason for 2008 is because no other virtualization options work well for hosting WHS.
vmware doesnt support direct disk access on vista and up.....even tho they claim that.
esx is the same

 

[Kulith]

Hi guys I have three questions:

1) how can I view the cpu temperatures of my WHS? I already tried CoreTemp and Everest. CoreTemp gives an error and Everest can't find the sensor. I also tried an Intel cpu temperature monitoring utility which crashed the server on installation...

2) I think somebody asked this already, but is it safe to run VM's on my WHS? I would like to run a webserver on one VM and a linux distro on another.

3) How much power are your servers using? My p4 uses a full 150+w's with only 3 drives.

 

[__Miguel_]

Hi guys I have three questions:

1) Try SpeedFan. If there is a sensor to be found, SpeedFan WILL find it, and read it correctly.

2) Given the way DE works, it would be best if WHS was the GUEST OS, not the HOST. A couple of posts ago it was advised to use Server 2K8 R2 with HyperV as the Host OS, with WHS as a Guest OS and with direct access to the drives, as it seems the only way of reliably not messing everything up (DE is a b****).

3) I haven't measured it, but my guess is my Celeron E3200, G31-based WHS probably draws not more than 75W tops when idling (the 4 drives don't spin down, and one of them is a 1TB Samsung F1). I really wish WHS allowed the drives to spin down, but uTorrent complains about torrent errors if drives are allowed to spin down... Maybe Vail will help me there

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[Kulith]

this is all speedfan shows: http://i45.tinypic.com/fdudl5.jpg

I guess there is no sensor...?

 

[aldamon]

CoreTemp works fine on my WHS. I have it running all of the time.

 

[aldamon]

3) I haven't measured it, but my guess is my Celeron E3200, G31-based WHS probably draws not more than 75W tops when idling (the 4 drives don't spin down, and one of them is a 1TB Samsung F1).

My guess is lower than that. My WHS has a P35 mobo, 7300LE graphics, an E3300, and two 1TB Hitachi drives and it draws ~49W at idle from my UPS.