Windows Home Server (WHS)

[rlvogel322]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

I'm running Sage 6.0.19. Serves to MVP's just fine. I'm getting occasional playback exceptions on a PC Client, but that may or may not be related to WHS (see other thread).

Capture cards are a Hauppauge 250 and an Avermedia M150. Both working with standard XP drivers.

How are your drives configured for Sage?

I was wondering if you set anything up to do the larger cluster size.

[Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by rlvogel322

How are your drives configured for Sage?

I was wondering if you set anything up to do the larger cluster size.

I haven't gotten that far in WHS yet. The drives that Sage writes to aren't yet part of the WHS drive pool. I'm doing this because if WHS proves unstable or unusable, I can just delete the WHS install and go back to the XP install that's already on one of those drives, and my recordings are still right there. So the drives were already formatted with 64k clusters when I built the server in XP.

[rlvogel322]

Gotcha, thanks.

I'll be doing the install "hopefully" later this week. I plan on letting WHS take care of the drives for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I'm in the same boat so let us know. Just downloaded the beta and trying to round up enough for a machine to run it on. And waiting for a couple of 500 GB drives to show up.


Gerry

I wanted to do a more formal, step by step update of what I went through with WHS, SageTV, nVidia DualTV tuners and a HD Homerun. I just can't seem to find enough time so I thought I would go through some informational highlights.

WHS server (Beta 2)
P4 3.2 GHz
1 GB RAM
2 x 500 GB SATA drives (SATA 3.0)
1 x 160 GB SATA drive (SATA 1.5)
1 x 80 GB SATA drive (SATA 1.5)
1 x 200 GB PATA ATA133 drive
1 x DVD drive

Clients
2 MVPs (version 1 and the latest with the SPDIF-but not wireless.)
1-AMD 3800+ XP, Windows XP sp2, 1GB RAM, 60GB Hard drive, nVidia nForce2 MB, 6600GT
1-P4 2.6GHz, Windows XP sp2, 1 GB RAM, 40GB Hard drive, ABIT MB, 6200 GS
1-HP laptop, P4 2.4GHz, WInodws MCE, 512 MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, ATI video

So right now WHS shows me have 1.31 TB with about 340 GB free. I have all the default shares. Music, Pictures, Videos, Public, & Software that WHS creates. I let WHS create and format all the drives. After the install was finished I remote desktop to the server and through Disk Administrator re-formatted all the disks except for the Primary (OS) drive partition with 64K blocks. (I copied the software folder off to another drive first and copied it back when done) This was sucessful and left everything intact and allowed all my shares to have 64k blocks. In each share I created-a Music folder in the Music share, Photo folder in the Photo share and a DVD folder and a SageTV folder in the Videos share. I had shut down my original Sage install and copied out all of my media to the WHS server. Once that was done I brought up my orignal Sage install and added all the new UNC paths and left the old ones in place. This way Sage could see that they were moved and no longer where they were. And could now see where they were moved to. I now started to install SageTV on the WHS server.

Make sure through this part of the install you are actually on your WHS server with an attached monitor and keyboard. Even though you can remote desktop and run this install Sage and other software can't see the ports and as an example when I did remote desktop Sage could not contact the EPG. As long as you are really at the server your installs will go fine. Installed the nVidia DualTV tuners too. Everything worked with the normal Windows XP drivers. I also copied over my existing wiz.bin that contained the updated UNC paths tot he WHS server.

I installed SageTV and configured it to run as a service. I installed Comskip Monitor and configured it to run as a service. I installed HD Homerun and got it to run as a service. I was able to use the Windows Resource Kit and using "InstSrv" and "SrvAny" I managed to get the HD Homerun to run as a service. Now when the WHS server boots it just runs all the necessary software without a user being logged in. When I brought up the server they all ran and my favorites, recordings and schedule was there. No DirectX was installed or required.

I also configured the WHS server to backup my 3 PC clients. I limited it to just having it backup the SageTV client directory. Now supposedly I should be able to (with enought free disk space available)be able to shut down the server, pull out a drive and replace it with any drive (larger, smaller, SATA, PATA) bring the server up and have everything just be there.

I actually was able to do this with a failed 160GB SATA drive. It ended up with a bad block I couldn't fix so I shut down the server. I pulled out the failed drive and put in a 80GB SATA I had lying around and restarted the server. Everything came up and all the data was there. I was had less free space available then when I had the 160GB in there., as expected

It's all working very well. I hope to have some more detailed instructions to help anyone trying to do the same thing. Post your questions and let me know. A word of warning: This is beta software. There is always the chance you could experience complete failure of the software. Worse yet, you could experience complete data loss. If your happy home life depends on this being up and available I would think twice. I still could go back to my original setup and I do have the data backed up. Ripping is time consuming but can be done again also.

But for the most part I have had this up and running since the weeknd, HD and SD recodings being made (30-40 recordings) and not a hitch. Client PCs are being backed up. What can I say...it's a nice setup.

Gerry

(PS-Sorry for the long post.)

[bcjenkins]

Nice post, half tempted to try it myself.. I didn't see any mention of Direct X install. Is that not required for WHS? Also, do you have any MVPs you are using and do they transcode files okay?

B

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Nice post, half tempted to try it myself.. I didn't see any mention of Direct X install. Is that not required for WHS? Also, do you have any MVPs you are using and do they transcode files okay?

B

Good point and I will add it to the post. I'm only running the service so no client on the server. No DirectX install. And I have 2 MVPs (original version and the latest-but not wireless) working fine. HD and DVD are playing fine on the MVPs.

Gerry

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Good point and I will add it to the post. I'm only running the service so no client on the server. No DirectX install. And I have 2 MVPs (original version and the latest-but not wireless) working fine. HD and DVD are playing fine on the MVPs.

Gerry

Thanks for the updated info. I am currently running 2K3 for headless server and feed 3 MVPs and 2 clients. I have my beta key, just wanted someone else bite the bullet first.

B

[flavius]

Originally Posted by gplasky

HD and DVD are playing fine on the MVPs.

Gerry

Are you transcoding HD in high quality for the MVP's?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by flavius

Are you transcoding HD in high quality for the MVP's?

It's currently set to High.


Gerry

[PGPfan]

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for the info. Looks like I'll soon have to try it myself. Any chance you could try client playback once on the WHS? I'd need to run that way for about a month until my case for the new htpc client arrives and I can go back to seperate client/server again.

-PGPfan

[rlvogel322]

Great post Gerry. That post will help a lot when I try it this weekend.

I was also wondering if you could give the client a try. My WHS will also have to serve as the SageTV server/client until the HD extenders come out.

Also, will it support two network ports (seems I read on the WHS forums it won't)? I would like to hook my HDHomerun up to one port and run the simple DHCP server I have. The other port would get hooked to the home lan.

I would love a little more detail on how you made the HDHomerunSageTV a service. I'll have to start looking into that.

Rick

[samgreco]

Wow, great post Gerry. I have been sitting on this since I got my invite a couple of weeks ago waiting for the time to do it. Your post has me fired up now

I think it may be time to buy a couple of Opterons for the dual socket 940 board I've got laying around.

[valnar]

I haven't looked into WHS other than the news blurb when it was announced. I want to buy or build a NAS, and the current frontrunner is an Infrant ReadyNAS. The main reason is the ability to add drives easily in the ReadyNAS because it supports an online expansion capability of RAID 5.

So now in this thread, I see that WHS is basically a stripped down Win2003? Is that true? Because I remember reading that WHS had the same RAID capabilities for protection of folders (quasi-RAID) that a home user would need to protect data, and I don't believe the "regular" Windows 2003 has that.

-Robert

[rlvogel322]

Originally Posted by valnar

I haven't looked into WHS other than the news blurb when it was announced. I want to buy or build a NAS, and the current frontrunner is an Infrant ReadyNAS. The main reason is the ability to add drives easily in the ReadyNAS because it supports an online expansion capability of RAID 5.

So now in this thread, I see that WHS is basically a stripped down Win2003? Is that true? Because I remember reading that WHS had the same RAID capabilities for protection of folders (quasi-RAID) that a home user would need to protect data, and I don't believe the "regular" Windows 2003 has that.

-Robert

Robert,

I'm by no means an expert but will try and answer your questions with what I know.

I believe WHS is a stripped down version of Win2003. The "raid" capabilities come in the form of their own disk managment like you stated. From what I've read on the beta forums, it seems to be working quite well.

After this weekend I will be able to give more input on my perception of WHS.

Rick

[bcjenkins]

Gerry,

One other question.. Are you running Sage service as an admin priv. user?

B

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Gerry,

One other question.. Are you running Sage service as an admin priv. user?

B

I do have the Administrator user setup as the user for all the services. (Sage, Comskip Monitor and HD Homerun)This way I know I won't have any issues trying to run with a limited account.

I gave a short try of running the SageTV client on the server. I think other users might be doing. I got an audio error 5 running it with remote desktop. Keep in mind it's a headless, keyless server. I have no speakers attached. It's an Intel board and has the Intel High definition audio and no DirectX was installed by me. It's working for me as designed-a Sage TV Media Server so I'm not going to go the extra lengths. Sorry.


For $100 get a MVP and it works great. As for the HD Homerun I just think you're better off and easier getting a router with ports for $50 or so. Follow the instructions from Microsoft to install HDHR as a service. Remeber it's a command line utility. Don't use directories over 8 characters for InstSrv or SrvAny. I put both of those in a directory called "InSrv". Make sure to use regedt32 and not regedit when editing the registry or the new service will just start and stop. Hopefully by this weekend I'll get a better writeup done.

Gerry

[PGPfan]

Thanks for the reply, Gerry. Looking forward to the step-by-step!

I'm already using 2 MVP's in bedrooms, I just need the client interface so that my video projector in my theater looks as good as possible.

-PGPfan

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

Thanks for the reply, Gerry. Looking forward to the step-by-step!

I'm already using 2 MVP's in bedrooms, I just need the client interface so that my video projector in my theater looks as good as possible.

-PGPfan

I'm with you on that. I'm just saying I'm pretty sure others have the client running on Windows 2003 server. WHS is Winodws 2003 server Small Business tailored for the home user. It shouldn't be an issue. Most of the XP drivers will work.

Gerry

[bcjenkins]

I'll be doing this conversion tomorrow morning. The new NVidia tuners arrive today. I would like to add, by installing this, I know SageTV will not provide as much support if they can't repro a case and will likely blame the OS. Make sure you fully understand this prior to moving from a supported OS to an unsupported one. Since I am already running 2K3, I have made my own peace with that.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I'll be doing this conversion tomorrow morning. The new NVidia tuners arrive today. I would like to add, by installing this, I know SageTV will not provide as much support if they can't repro a case and will likely blame the OS. Make sure you fully understand this prior to moving from a supported OS to an unsupported one. Since I am already running 2K3, I have made my own peace with that.

Keep in mind with the setup/install of WHS it wants/has to format the drives. Make sure you have extra drives that you can either use for the install and leave your original server up so you can copy your existing recordings to the new installed drives or have a large external drive to copy your recordings to. I don't think there is a way around WHS having to format every drive you add to it.

So I started with the 2 x 500 GB drives and installed WHS. (WHS wants your BIGGEST drives used first. It will create a 10GB partition for the OS. Then what's left is your Primary drive. ( D: ) the rest gets added as DATA volumes with no drive letters) Then format the drives through disk admin to 64k blocks(not the 10GB OS partition)Then I copied recordings and rips from my original server to the new server. Shut down old server and yanked out 2 x 160 GB drives. Shutdown WHS. Attach drives. Power up. Added drives to WHS. (which formats them) Go into Disk Admin and format added drives to 64k blocks. Copied more recordings and files. One drive gets an unrepairable bad block. Shut down WHS. Yank one of the 160 GB. Bring it back up. Everything is there but with less free space. (So I didn't have to re-copy anything. Drive went bad and WHS stopped using it.) Shutdown and add 80GB drive that was lying around. Bring WHS back up. Add the drive and let it format it. Go into DiskAdmin and format to 64K blocks. Bring it up and all is there and all is well.

Gerry