Thinking about a new server....

[Kirby]

I'm thinking of moving my Sage server to a HP Proliant Micro server, N40L. The box would run WHS2011, and I would max it out at 8GB of ram. Will that have enough horsepower to handle my tuners (HDHR dual QAM, HD Prime 3CC), 1 client HTPC and 1 HD200 extender?

Also, I was thinking of using the pci-express slots for my USB3 card I currently have for my Mediasonic enclosure (HF2-SU3S2 non raid version) and maybe a HDPVR Colossus in the other slot to capture from my cable box premium channels. Anyone see any issues with that?

I plan to use the Hp's eSata port for a Sans digital 5 bay eSata enclosure (JBOD mode likely, maybe Raid 5 though). Not sure if the Sans Digital will work off the HP port or if I will need to use their included card, which would then change the plans for the HDPVR card above back to my old original HDPVR.

The eSata card that is included with the SD enclosure has 2 eSata ports, so forgive my ignorance, but could I hang 2 SD enclosures off if it for 2 Raid5 sets of 5 drives each? Or I could move the MediaSonic enclosure to the 2nd port or the HP's eSata port if that might give me faster throughput.

My biggest concern is the processing power of the N40L. I dont do comskip, or encode recordings. Simply record from my tuners, and rip BD's for playback. I do use placeshifter sparingly at work.

Sorry for all the questions, just not 100% knowledgeable on port multipliers, or these micro servers, or even WHS. Just want to be able to power down my monster desktop PC thats currently the server and drawing gobs of power.

[gplasky]

I'm in the process of setting up an Acer Aspire Easystore. (caught it on sale for $267) so I'm doing the same thing. Your tuners are digital so there is no processing the server needs to do. I have 2 HDHR and a Prime. I'm also stuck at 2 GB RAM. No comskip or transcoding. (done from a different PC) I had 3 extenders (1-HD300 and 2-HD200) watching recordings and 2 recordings going with no issues. WHS 2011 installed. I'm trying to work thru some Playon issues. (Everything plays but the Netflix. flv files no longer exist. )I'll have 4 hot swap drives in it when I'm done and will probably get an eSata enclosure if I need more storage.

Gerry

[Kirby]

Thanks for the reply. How do you like the Acer? That's got the Atom D510 cpu right? I've been trying to find a comparison between that and the AMD N40L and it but cant find much. But since I wont need much horsepower, it probably wont matter.

[stevech]

Doesn't seem to me that the Acer Aspire Easystore would be a better choice than a Synology or QNAP

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I'm in the process of setting up an Acer Aspire Easystore. ... Gerry

Let us know how you make out, looks like a cool little setup.
-Skybolt

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by Kirby

...My biggest concern is the processing power of the N40L. I dont do comskip, or encode recordings. Simply record from my tuners, and rip BD's for playback. I do use placeshifter sparingly at work.

Sorry for all the questions, just not 100% knowledgeable on port multipliers, or these micro servers, or even WHS. Just want to be able to power down my monster desktop PC thats currently the server and drawing gobs of power.

I setup and tested for a short time on a dual core Atom 525. I had no issues what so ever, I used 2 HVR1600's for capture and an HDHomeRun Prime.

This served up 3-4 clients at once, no skipping or anything. I think there pretty close in speed. Good Luck.

-Skybolt

[Kirby]

So I ordered the HP N40L Microserver. Should be here tomorrow. Also got 8GB of ECC ram for it. Currently downloading WHS2011 for the installation (need to get it on USB key).

At this point, I am probably going to install to the original 250gb drive in the N40L (may move to a ~120gb SSD down the road).

what I am wondering is does anyone have tips, setup suggestions, etc for WHS2011 and SageTV and SageDCT etc? Going to be installing a eSata card that came with my new Sans Digital 5 bay tower raid. Maybe I should have gotten an Intel ethernet card for the other slot? Is the ethernet built in on the N40L not good? (seen a lot of people that upgraded to an intel based card).

Hoping to move everything over to the new server including my Prime 3CC, HDHR, and HDPVR, as well as all recordings (can I copy my wiz.bin over without issue?).

[gplasky]

I just did this with an Acer Easystore. I disabled UAC on WHS 2011. You'll also need to enable the guest account on WHS 2011 so that SMB shares will have adequate permissions from other services or accounts. For example, Playon, specifically Netflix wouldn't work until the guest account was enabled. (You can't have the Playon service run as anything but a local service account.) I had Playon running on a different machine than WHS 2011 so it couldn't write the .flv file to the share. I am in the process of getting more memory (4GB) for the Easystore. With SageTV, SageDCT and 4 extenders I had some memory issues. As a workaround I moved SageDCT off to another server on my network. I would work with the internal NIC until it is proven not to work well. The Easystore uses the Marvell chipset and seems to work fine so far. And yes you can just copy your wiz.bin over. I copied all the media over from my WHS v1 server over 3-4 days. I have the Prime and 2 x HDHRs. Also get in the habit of right-clicking and "run as administrator" when installing anything.

Gerry

[Kirby]

Thanks for the tips Gerry!

I was a bit concerned with WHS2011 in that I was mistakenly thinking I wouldnt be able to create a 3TB volume, but learned I just need to do it in disk management. Not sure I am going to do RAID on the box itself (its internal drives) but I might do Raid5 on my SD enclosure for my BD rips. Not too concerned with losing TV show recordings, but BD rips take too much time to re-do.

Did you install the WHS installer version of Sage, or the normal version? I think I have read that I need to use the normal version as there is no real support for WHS2011 (no add-in support).

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Thanks for the tips Gerry!

I was a bit concerned with WHS2011 in that I was mistakenly thinking I wouldnt be able to create a 3TB volume, but learned I just need to do it in disk management. Not sure I am going to do RAID on the box itself (its internal drives) but I might do Raid5 on my SD enclosure for my BD rips. Not too concerned with losing TV show recordings, but BD rips take too much time to re-do.

Did you install the WHS installer version of Sage, or the normal version? I think I have read that I need to use the normal version as there is no real support for WHS2011 (no add-in support).

I installed the normal version. I have some Placeshifter licenses so the one that comes free with the WHS version I don't really need. And since WHS 2011 doesn't support the previous WHS v1 add-ins I went with the normal version. Currently running java 6 bld 26. But I did see someone is running java 7 with no issues. I may upgrade once I'm satisfied how everything is running.

Gerry

[Kirby]

Does the WHS version use a different license key than the normal version?

I dont like messing with Java versions once I find one that works well.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Does the WHS version use a different license key than the normal version?

I dont like messing with Java versions once I find one that works well.

No-same license key. And this is the only instance where that is true. (WHS vs. Windows)

Gerry

[Jesse]

Originally Posted by gplasky

You'll also need to enable the guest account on WHS 2011 so that SMB shares will have adequate permissions from other services or accounts. For example, Playon, specifically Netflix wouldn't work until the guest account was enabled. (You can't have the Playon service run as anything but a local service account.) I had Playon running on a different machine than WHS 2011 so it couldn't write the .flv file to the share.

Gerry

Will I need to enable the guest account if I am not using Playon?

Thanks,
Jesse

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Will I need to enable the guest account if I am not using Playon?

Thanks,
Jesse

I saw issues when I didn't have it enabled. And it wasn't playon issues. But ihad other starnge things going on until I reloaded WHS 2011 a second time. In the Microsoft tech note it mentioned if you are using smb to see the file shares you'll need to enable the guest account.

Gerry

[Kirby]

Gerry,

Have you by chance installed Jetty/BMT on your WHS2011 box? Any issues? I cant get it to work for /apps/ or /bmt/, but /sage/ works.

http://localhost:8080/apps yields this error:

HTTP ERROR 500
Problem accessing /apps/. Reason: 

    /index.jsp(17,62) PWC6188: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application

http://localhost:8080/bmt yields this error:

HTTP ERROR: 503
Problem accessing /bmt/. Reason: 

    SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE

I find it odd that neither of those work correctly, yet the sage web ui works just fine.

*Edit* Nevermind, it must have needed a full server reboot, now its working. Weird.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Gerry,

Have you by chance installed Jetty/BMT on your WHS2011 box? Any issues? I cant get it to work for /apps/ or /bmt/, but /sage/ works.

http://localhost:8080/apps yields this error:

HTTP ERROR 500
Problem accessing /apps/. Reason: 

    /index.jsp(17,62) PWC6188: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application

http://localhost:8080/bmt yields this error:

HTTP ERROR: 503
Problem accessing /bmt/. Reason: 

    SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE

I find it odd that neither of those work correctly, yet the sage web ui works just fine.

*Edit* Nevermind, it must have needed a full server reboot, now its working. Weird.

Good. Because it is working for me also. Usually as a rule of thumb if something doesn't work as I think it should I always reboot. No matter if the plugin tells me to reboot or not. And also patience seems to help.

Gerry

[Kirby]

Have you gone through WHS2011 yet and disabled/removed any features or services to make it run leaner? I havent yet, but was thinking IIS might be my first target. Really have no idea what else is running, have not spent much time worrying about it yet.

Just got Sage moved over on Sunday, along with 6 TB of recordings. Now I am getting ready to move over 7 more drives holding movies, DVD's, blurays, and TV imports I made from my Tivo Premiere.

[gplasky]

I replaced the 2GB DIMM with a 4GB DIMM in my Acer Easystore. Since I'm not having any memory issues I haven't done really any tweaking.

Gerry