R5000 and WHS

[camTexas]

Based on all the positive WHS discussions I'm thinking of taking the plunge and move my Sage server from XP over to my WHS box. The only thing that has held me back so far is some early issues being reported using R5000 and HDHR on WHS systems. I think there are a number of people reporting HDHR being do'able now.

Anyone out there running R5000 units on WHS? Anyone know of instructions for setting up the R5000 software as a service in WHS?

Thanks in advanced, Chad

[Slipshod]

Give me a week or so and I'll let you know how it goes. In the middle of setting up a WHS server. Should have an R5000 hooked up to it this weekend.

I don't think there's a way to get the R5000 software running as a service. I'm planning on setting up "auto-login" and trying to script the startup of the R5000 software. I have 2 R5000s, so i don't think just dumping the icon in the startup folder will do the job...

[camTexas]

I have 2 R5000's as well. For XP Pro it was easy enough just to create a batch file with a slight timing delay to kick off two R5000 software sessions. Just not to sure how to do something similar in WHS as it won't auto startup with a logon (like my XP is set up to do).

I am hoping to get some time this weekend to take the plunge and try this out (if I can get a few other projects finished first). I was hoping to find out someone had done this allready which could greatly trim down my setup and testing time. If it doesn't look like anyone's tried it, or had success yet, then I'll take a much more conservative approach and try one piece at a time on an older box I have (but not my final planned WHS hardware). I'm playing somewhat of a computer domino game as part of this passing down older hardware to the kids and actually pulling my beefed up current XP Sage box back as my personal PC for photo editing as it now has more horsepower than I need for Sage given my change to HD100 units around the house.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by camTexas

I have 2 R5000's as well. For XP Pro it was easy enough just to create a batch file with a slight timing delay to kick off two R5000 software sessions. Just not to sure how to do something similar in WHS as it won't auto startup with a logon (like my XP is set up to do).

??? What do you mean it won't auto-startup? You can enable auto-logon in WHS just like Win2003, and if there isn't a startup folder (haven't checked) it's pretty easy to set something to start on login through the registry. I'll make you a deal... Send me your script to start the R5000 software for both units and I'll figure out how to make it work with WHS this weekend. Or beat myself senseless trying.

[MeInMaui]

I don't know if this helps, but I used the Any Service Installer WHS Add-in to set up the HDHR Manager as a service. It has been working perfectly for me. Maybe it would work for this as well.

Aloha,
Mike

[camTexas]

cheers Slipshod and Mike!

Not rocket science for my XP setup. It uses auto login with an admin account. In the startup folder is a batch file that only includes the following:

start r5000hd.exe
ping -n 11 127.0.0.1
start r5000hd2.exe

pretty simple stuff. The ping is just put in there for a delay before starting the 2nd instance up.

I was hoping for something a little more robust (although I've never had an issue with this method). I've messed around a little with WHS but not with any applications or plug-ins. Just enough to try out the backup features, use as a simple file sharing for my DVD collection and family network files. I never used, or even looked for an autologin feature in WHS just because I always felt it was really designed to just startup and "serve" without any account actually logging in.

Mike, Thanks for the link to the Any Service Installer. This looks like it might just be what I was envisioning...

Still wondering though with all the WHS successes out there... hasn't anyone with a R5000 tried their setup yet?

[Motofreak75]

Just an fyi

timeout.exe works great if you want to pause a batch file. I use it to pause sage while my network ecoder software is booting and then I start the sage service.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I don't know if this helps, but I used the Any Service Installer WHS Add-in to set up the HDHR Manager as a service. It has been working perfectly for me. Maybe it would work for this as well.

Aloha,
Mike

Hey Mike, do you have a copy of anyservice installer? The livenode hosting site is down, and I can't find any download links that don't point to it.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

Hey Mike, do you have a copy of anyservice installer? The livenode hosting site is down, and I can't find any download links that don't point to it.

I think I do. I'll have to hunt it down later.

Aloha,
Mike

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by camTexas

I was hoping for something a little more robust (although I've never had an issue with this method). I've messed around a little with WHS but not with any applications or plug-ins. Just enough to try out the backup features, use as a simple file sharing for my DVD collection and family network files. I never used, or even looked for an autologin feature in WHS just because I always felt it was really designed to just startup and "serve" without any account actually logging in.

WHS is just a stripped down Windows Server 2003 Small Business with some additional utilities added. If you hook it up to a monitor and give it a keyboard/mouse you can login to it just like 2003. All the same auto-logon functions that work in 2003 should work in WHS just fine. You can also RDP to it.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

Hey Mike, do you have a copy of anyservice installer? The livenode hosting site is down, and I can't find any download links that don't point to it.

Ok, here it is.

I'll remove the file when the hosting site becomes available again.

Aloha,
Mike

[BostonDan]

A word of caution. I believe WHS still has a bug that if more than one hard drive is in the system, it has data integrity issues with many applications. Microsoft is working on a fix, but Microsoft states it won't be available until June/July timeframe. I just recently built a NAS box and ended up going the path of OpenSuSE and Samba after reading about the bug. WHS would have been much easier for me if it didn't have the bug.

[gplasky]

For my Sage install I'm only using the one drive for WHS and let that be in the server pool. The other 5 drives I do not put in the server pool and do not have WHS manage them. This way I have them formatted in 64K clusters and don't have to worry about the bug.

Gerry

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by gplasky

For my Sage install I'm only using the one drive for WHS and let that be in the server pool. The other 5 drives I do not put in the server pool and do not have WHS manage them. This way I have them formatted in 64K clusters and don't have to worry about the bug.

As long as the shared folders only exist on one "disk" (logical or physical) you are not affected by the corruption. They should have a public beta in May or June for the powerpack which has the fix. Hopefully they got it right - WHS is a pretty compelling product for home networks from a data preservation perspective.... If it didn't have that bug.

I'm doing something similar to Gplasky, but with a RAID5 array for the system disk. That way I have redundancy on the OS and data partitions (very important to me), no chance of corruption, and better write performance than WHS drive extender. Of course, it's also unsupported by Microsoft since they fear RAID.

I've got a WD 1TB drive for the sage recordings, and it's going to be setup same as yours for the same reasons. I put in a hotswap SATA cage as well, so I can add more disks on the fly if I want more recording space.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Ok, here it is.

I'll remove the file when the hosting site becomes available again.

Aloha,
Mike

Awesome, thanks Mike!

[WarlordBB]

I'm not sure I follow the attraction to WHS. I have an R5000 with a Win2003 box as a server for SageTV. Why should I care about WHS? I'm not being argumentative, just curious.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by WarlordBB

I'm not sure I follow the attraction to WHS. I have an R5000 with a Win2003 box as a server for SageTV. Why should I care about WHS? I'm not being argumentative, just curious.

The main reason I'm interested is because the client backup solution in WHS is better than anything else in it's price range, possibly even up to 5x it's price. It does "single-store" at the cluster level, so each file only gets stored once on the server, even across different PCs. Additionally, since it's cluster-level only the changed parts of a file get backed-up when a file is modified. Makes backups run screamingly fast for each one after the first for any given OS. You can also do a "bare-metal" restore on a client with a boot CD. Just throw in a new hard disk, boot off the restore CD, and a couple of hours later your PC is back to life. It'll even resize your partition to match the new HD size.

Nothing can touch the price: bare-metal restore and cluster-level single-store backup for 10 PCs on a home network for $160.

On top of that it's got some other nifty features (RDP gateway, WOL plugin, file versioning), and there's a company which lets you backup all your userdata (unlimited storage) over the internet for $90 per year, as long as each individual file is less than 5GB.

As a bonus, Sage gives you a place-shifter license with the WHS version since you generally can't run the client on it.

On the down side... Don't use their drive extender yet because it can corrupt files. The backups only work on 32-bit XP and Vista, and only Vista x64 will be supportted in the upcoming power-pack update. Bummer for me since I'm using XP x64 on my video editing station - going to have to upgrade to Vista if I want backups. <sigh> Been avoiding that.

[camTexas]

I have to agree with all Slipshod wrote. If I had a copy of full 2003 server I might go that route for a few other of the server resources but $150 vs. $450 I couldn't justify the cost. I've been tempted off and on with Linux over the last serveral years and someday may tackle that given it's cost is even better However I don't have the time right now to devote to setting it up or maintaining it when things would go wrong. I have XP computers throught the house so that's an extra bonus for WHS. It's backup just works. No training the kids, no scheduling, effecient use of backup space... just easy. Yes, it could be a pain given the corruption issue but since I'm putting the managed and backup portion on a single 1TB drive I can afford to wait a few months for the fix to get out there.

Slipshod, Did I see in another post you got your R5000 units up and running on your WHS box? I've been cleaning up tree damage all weekend given we had a huge storm come through here late last week. Doesn't look like I'll get to test my setup this weekend. I'd be interested in your lessons learned.

- Chad

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by camTexas

Slipshod, Did I see in another post you got your R5000 units up and running on your WHS box? I've been cleaning up tree damage all weekend given we had a huge storm come through here late last week. Doesn't look like I'll get to test my setup this weekend. I'd be interested in your lessons learned.

Not quite done yet... I should have it up and running today barring any surprises. I've been experimenting with RAID in WHS, and have reinstalled it like 4 times now playing with different configurations. Finally settled on a 4-disk RAID-5 setup using the new WD 640GB drives, plus a WD 1TB GP drive for the recording directory. Yields about 1.7 TB usable space for the data drive in WHS with protection against a single-disk failure, and 1 TB non-protected for TV programs. I'll probably get another drive and at least mirror that, but am hoping to get a good deal. Bought the first one for $190 a couple of weeks ago.

I'll do a detailed writeup when I'm done, including the HW and SW I'm using in case anybody else wants to go down the same route.

[Slipshod]

Okay, I have it up and running with the default STV. Had some arguments with the server, but I eventually won. Lessons Learned:

1. WHS is just like W2003. Auto-logon can be configured exactly the same if you want to go that route.
2. R5000HD drivers are a pain in the ass with WHS. Something in them goes berserk when the application isn't up yet, and makes WHS disable the driver because it think it's doing some kind of attack. Had to disable the "Execute Disable Bit" in the BIOS to get it stabalized. Bummer about that, especially since I wanted this accessible from the internet. I think I'll have to talk to Nextcom about it.
3. Don't forget to change permissions on the recording drive/folder to allow writes. (Duh!)

There's still a pretty big stutter at the beginning of live TV, which is the same as the previous low-power server. I'd love to get rid of that, even if it meant waiting longer for a channel change.

Now to get all the old data off of the old server and onto the new.... Wish me luck.