Why WHS?

[tahoetim]

lotusv,

Try checking your Bios schemes for power savings to see if its trying to go to sleep or spin down the drives. Same goes for WHS. mine is set to "always on" but yours might be in another mode.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by gplasky

You should probably check your temps on your cpu, gpu, ram and hard drives. If there is nothing in the event log that would be the first place I would look. Some software should pull those temps or get a probe. Or open the case up and put a fan on the entire lot and see if the lockups stop. Then troubleshoot.

Gerry

Temps are all fine. It runs great most of the time and then for some unknown reason just puts a full load on the harddrive. I suspect there is a program causing it, but without any type of logging I can't tell which program. My first guess is either windows search or the backup program in whs.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

lotusv,

Try checking your Bios schemes for power savings to see if its trying to go to sleep or spin down the drives. Same goes for WHS. mine is set to "always on" but yours might be in another mode.

But if this was the case wouldn't it happen every night. It only happens once or twice a month.

[rmac321]

I thought I'd post my observations after playing with SageTV on WHS for a while.

Caveat: I don't have a console/connector software connection from my laptop in the living room to my WHS Sage Server. I already have a console/connector to my EX470 MSS and WHS doesn't allow a second connection. Consequently I either RDC in from my laptop or I go downstairs and initiate the Console from the monitor on the WHS box which is using its own RDC connection because of the way WHS works.

Caveat #2: Because I want my WHS Sage Server to be able to read and write from my EX470, I have my WHS Sage Service changed to use a user/logon. (Thanks to gplasky & GKusnick for helping me sort that out)

Caveat #3: I don't post this to engage in a debate on why I have 2 WHS boxes on the same network. Since others have asked about using multiple WHS boxes, I thought my observations may be of interest in that regard. I'll be glad to discuss what works and what doesn't, but I really don't want to rehash my reasons for doing it.

In my setup, I don't find WHS any more stable than my XP server, but I suspect that is because of the way I use it. I have been using mediashrink to compress my archived shows and some DVD rips. I try not to do any shrinking when the Sage Server will be recording or someone is watching a recording (on an extender) since the programs called by mediashrink are all pretty cpu intensive. I have noticed that while I can go for several days with no issues, if I use mediashrink during the day, that evening there is a good chance that the server will lock up when someone is menuing somewhere in Sage on the HD200. This is totally anecdotal and the lockup is caused by different activities each time. The good news is that recording usually continues, but only on the program(s) that was already recording and will continue to record until the server is reset. I have a 50Gb/8hr recording of a 1 hr show from a couple nights ago. The other possible culprit is comskip, because nearly any lockup on the XP server could usually be traced back to something related to comskip, but the lockups generally happen on days that I have run mediashrink.

The next frustration for me is that resetting the Sage Service on the WHS box is much less likely to get everything back to normal. With the XP server, if something locks up, I can usually uVNC in, stop and start the Sage Service and all is back to normal in a minute or two. With the WHS box, stopping the service often doesn't work. Attempting to stop the service usually locks up the console. I have tried stopping it from the console add-in and from services.msc. To get everything working properly usually requires a complete reset of the WHS box, so a lockup on the WHS box usually causes more hassle and takes more time since the series of events is to try to reset the service, fail, and then restart the box. If I remember to go downstairs and restart the HDHR while the WHS is restarting I can be back up in about 5 minutes.

Another anecdotal observation. I use VideoRedo to cut commericals from TV shows I want to save. I let comskip generate a Vprj file. I then edit/review the cuts on my laptop and add to the Batch Queue. After I have a few shows in the Queue, I'll run the batch on the Server since it has a far better/faster processor. For some reason, on the WHS box I can't initiate a batch from a RDC connection on the laptop. It errors out every time. I suspect that this has to do with the limited video capabilities of WHS. Even though VideoRedo batch processing is a pseudo CLI process, it still opens an instance of VideoRedo and opens the file for display. If I initiate it from an RDC connection on the monitor downstairs, it works fine. The problem with that is that I can't monitor the progress from upstairs on the laptop. On the XP server, I use uVNC to remote in, so I can initiate activity locally or remotely and they both work on the same desktop and activity can be moitored from either location. Maybe there is a way to use the same desktop session with RDC from either location and I'm just unaware of how to make that happen.

I suspect the best use of SageTV on WHS is to keep the box restricted to SageTV and WHS activities (backups, duplications and media streaming) and use a separate machine to run other processes like mediashrink and comskip. In my case, I hate seeing that X2 sitting idle during the day while the other server has a huge backlog of files to be shrunk, so I would have been better served to have a lesser machine running WHS and I wouldn't be tempted to have it do other things when it is not doing Sage activity.

[benogil]

I was thinking about the above post. Actually, there are a number of great points. Running WHS as a media server, as opposed to a dual-use ( backup and media ) server may be the best route. While WHS does great for some, it does lockup for others, and sometimes that does seem to be related to DE overhead and it's problems with RDP console ( or both ).

I was wondering if anyone has tried a pure media server configuration, with no duplication ( or demigrator turned off ) and just WHS and Flexraid ?

Ben

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by lotusvball

But if this was the case wouldn't it happen every night. It only happens once or twice a month.

It has happened again. Last night, for whatever reason, my whs just locked up. Had to restart to get it working again. Besides this issue, whs is great.

[Peter_h]

What does your event log say? If it is an application hang, especially WHS related, you will see it in the event log.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

What does your event log say? If it is an application hang, especially WHS related, you will see it in the event log.

That is the problem there is nothing in the event log. I have not been able to figure out why it is locking. I can't log on to the system when it locks so I haven't been able to even see what is running when it locks.

[rlvogel322]

Originally Posted by lotusvball

That is the problem there is nothing in the event log. I have not been able to figure out why it is locking. I can't log on to the system when it locks so I haven't been able to even see what is running when it locks.

I've seen the same issues before. It was faulty memory in my case. I booted with memtest and discovered it.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by rlvogel322

I've seen the same issues before. It was faulty memory in my case. I booted with memtest and discovered it.

I thought I tried that, but I will give it a go this week to see if that is the issue. Thanks.

[briands]

How does WHS work with Win7? I have a client that I am running the Win7 RC on and will likely be sticking with it. My current server is XP home (not really the best "server" OS) and is due for a reinstall so I thought I'd look at WHS.

Does it work with the Win7 networking features like "homegroups"? Is that important? Will there be a Win7 version of WHS that I should wait for?

Any thoughts?

[Skirge01]

I have the 64 bit RC installed on my main computer and it connects to the WHS box without issue. I don't use the "homegroups" however. In fact, to be honest, I didn't even know what it was until I Googled it after reading your post. Anyhow, from what I read, it's a method of sharing files across networked computers in your home. If that's what you're looking for, then WHS would actually REPLACE homegroups, since that's one of the primary purposes of WHS.

[gplasky]

Homegroups are only available on the Windows 7 platform. You would continue using the workgroup and sharing that you are currently using on XP/Vista/WHS. Win 7 clients can have the WHS Connector software installed and the Win 7 machine will backup to the WHS.

Gerry

[briands]

Thanks for the info guys. One other question I thought I'd ask here since I've seen both answers searching the web.
Does WHS support roaming profiles? We've got a few different computers that we all share at various times. It would be nice if the experience was the same on all of them.

[mtyme]

This is a great thread, lots of usefull info here.

I have a question that I don't think I've seen answered though. The nice features about WHS like drive pooling and the backup and notifications - are they only available with WHS or is this a feature that you can use in Server 2003 since that's what WHS is based off of?

[gplasky]

Only available in WHS.

Gerry

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by mtyme

This is a great thread, lots of usefull info here.

I have a question that I don't think I've seen answered though. The nice features about WHS like drive pooling and the backup and notifications - are they only available with WHS or is this a feature that you can use in Server 2003 since that's what WHS is based off of?

gplasky is correct. To get what you get in Windows Home Server as easy as it is, currently is not possible.

With some work, you could do most of that with Windows Server 2003 and other applications.
For one the Disk duplication and pooling, you could do with dynamic disks and volume pooling.
Backup could be accomplished with something open source, or Acronis for example, but not as conveniently, or cheap as WHS.
Notifications; you could use something like Snare to create events, combined with a Syslog server which sends out email etc...
Then you start with features like the admin console in WHS, and Web access.....
Things start adding up, and when you realize you can get all this in a $93 package from Newegg, it's just not worth it to struggle with making all that software work, unless you are really hardcore, and already know how to do it all.

[frontlinegeek]

And when you factor in how much the license for Server 2003/2008 costs alone, there is very little reason to use anything else but WHS for a home setup.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by que3jxp

And when you factor in how much the license for Server 2003/2008 costs alone, there is very little reason to use anything else but WHS for a home setup.

I think people get access to Server 2003/2008 for free via various resources and that's why this question pops up so often. It feels like a great deal, but WHS is so deceivingly simple to use, most people would be foolish to go with Server 2003/2008.

[frontlinegeek]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I think people get access to Server 2003/2008 for free via various resources and that's why this question pops up so often.

Could we not all be put in that category?

Originally Posted by Skirge01

It feels like a great deal, but WHS is so deceivingly simple to use, most people would be foolish to go with Server 2003/2008.

Exactly.