HP MediaSmart Server? - Page 27

Originally Posted by jcamber

You can configure it to go to sleep in the console. I guess the only benefit is power consumption? I think my LX195 is rated at 5w when in sleep mode. By default it's setup to go to sleep from 12am to 6am, BTW. But you can change that to whatever.

Originally Posted by jcamber

You can configure it to go to sleep in the console. I guess the only benefit is power consumption? I think my LX195 is rated at 5w when in sleep mode. By default it's setup to go to sleep from 12am to 6am, BTW. But you can change that to whatever.

Originally Posted by npradeepkumar

I think I have a little bit of a strange problem. I appreciate any guidance or help that you can provide so that I can start looking at the right place. I just moved and so I had to disconnect and re-connect all of my equipment. Here is my setup.

Windows 7 X64 Laptop
Windows 7 X64 Desktop
HP Mediasmart Home Server

All the above are connected to the same switch. I used to be able to connect to the home server console from both the desktop and laptop without any problem in the past. When I try now, I cannot connect to the console or to the shared folders from the network using the server name from my desktop. I can connect to the folders if I directly type the IP Address in. I can also connect using RDP from my Desktop. The error message that I get when I launch the console is

This computer cannot connect to your home server. Check your network connection and make sure your home server is powered on. If your home server has recently restarted, try again in a few minutes.

On the other hand, I can connect to the console fine using the laptop.

So far, I have tried to restart the desktop, restart the Home server. I have tried to install the connector again from the server, but keep getting an error message with the installation and it won't let me proceed or it fails when it is looking for the server.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by npradeepkumar

I just found out something new. I tried to ping from my desktop using the ip address and the server name. The IP Address worked fine, but when I tried to ping using the server name, it looked like it is reaching a different IP address. Any idea why the name would be pointing to a different IP address (192....101) vs the actual IP address for the server being (192....150)?

Originally Posted by aaronwt

So with the Lights out add in I've been only running my WHS for five or six hours on weekdays and up to 12 hours a day on weekends.

Originally Posted by jcamber

Does the lights out add-in put it on stand-by or does it actually shut the server down?

I'm having a bit of an issue with my LX195 because it goes to stand-by ok but the WD mybook external drive I have hooked up to it does not (it stays on 24/7, which is unnecessary). The external drive only turns off when the server is shutdown, hence my question. After a few days of being on 24/7, the external drive and server don't talk to each other well...

Anyone else having the same issue?
thanks!

Originally Posted by gmd024

I have an HP EX490 WHS with a Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure and find that I will soon need to add another Mediasonic

The current Mediasonic is attached to the EX490 via the one and only eSATA port available - and iirc the SMART info and Addins like Disk Management only function correctly if the HDDs in the Mediasonic are connected via eSATA -- and if this is correct - will using an eSATA port multiplier to connect a 2nd Mediasonic encl. (and possibly more Mediasonics in the future) function properly --- or am I wrong about needing an eSATA port multiplier - and using the USB port(s) on the EX490 to connect the 2nd Mediasonic still allow for the SMART info and the Disk Management and other Addins to display the info correctly

Originally Posted by aaronwt

You can only go from the existing eSATA port to a port multiplier enclosure. With a max of 5 drives. To add any more hard drives you have to use USB.

I have one, four bay, Media Sonic on my eSATA port, then six more Mediasonic, 4 bay, enclosures attached by USB.

I have three enclosures attached to a USB hub to the back, top USB port. Then I have three enclsoures attached to a USB hub on the front USB port. I also have three BD rom drives attached to a USB hub on the back, bottom USB port.

The front USB port is on a separate internal hub than the back USB ports which is why I split the enclosures up that way.

Originally Posted by gmd024

Thanks Aaron -- If I understand correctly - I can only have the 1st Mediasonic 4-bay enclosure attached to the HP EX490's one and only eSATA port - and if I wanted to use a 2nd Mediasonic 4-bay enclosure attached via eSATA through an eSATA port multiplier, the HP/WHS will only recognize 5 of the available 8 (eSATA att'd) bays/HDDs because WHS only supports 5 eSATA HDDs, whether they are attacheced separately, or attached via multibay enclosures... Correct?

And if this is correct and I have to use USB to attach any more that 5 HDDs... does the S.M.A.R.T. info and the Add-in info (ie... Disk Management and other Add-in(s) info) also give their intended information if used via USB instead of being used/attached via eSATA

Originally Posted by aaronwt

I don't get the info from the Disk management add in from the USB enclosures. But I think the info partially showed up from the Smart Add IN. It would show the info from the first drive in each Mediasonic enclosure. Although I removed that add in later. At least I think that was the Add in.

As far a a port multiplier, I tried one before on the eSATa port. It was a 1x5 device. But I could only attach individual drives to it, not a port multiplier capable enclosure(It may have only seen the first drive, it's been a while since I tried it. I had hoped I would have been able to use multiple enclosures with it but it didn't work that way)

EDIT: The Disk management add in will show the status of each drive in my Mediasonics over USB as being healthy or unhealty but it doesn't show the temperature.
The SMART Add IN showed some info but if I remember correctly I think I had some issues with it. Maybe from the number of drives I have.

Originally Posted by npradeepkumar

Hi,
I am curious to know what you think of these Hitachi drives as they seem to be available at an attractive price of around USD 60 (for 2 TB), as an addition to my Mediasmart server. I still have my space on my current drives and have 1 free slot available to fill up. I am wondering if I should pull the trigger here or wait for better deals on this or other (may be 3 TB) drives in the future.

Originally Posted by npradeepkumar

Hi,
I am curious to know what you think of these Hitachi drives as they seem to be available at an attractive price of around USD 60 (for 2 TB), as an addition to my Mediasmart server. I still have my space on my current drives and have 1 free slot available to fill up. I am wondering if I should pull the trigger here or wait for better deals on this or other (may be 3 TB) drives in the future.

Originally Posted by Satori84

My HP EX490 Mediasmart has been in service over a year without any issues or problems. For the last two days or so it's been a little sluggish, especialy when trying to start and log onto the console. I RPD'ed into it, and had a quick look at things with Task Manager, but I didn't dare kill any processes through RDP without knowing the consequences.

I don't really know how to fully interpret what I see, but it feels like a virus...

The CPU usage is continually pegged at 100%, while the page file usage is low. THere are no applications running. There are only 8 processes running, of which 2 (taskmgr.exe and rdpclip.exe) are there because I invoked them, I presume. I have no idea if the other 6 are legit or not. One (wuauclt.exe) apparently can be a virus/trojan horse, but there is a legit app with that name as well. (The others are explorer, winlogin, csrss, WindowsSearch, and ctfmon, FWIW).

Threads and handles look reasonable, as do memory and kernel usage...

Clients still get files served OK; don't notice any change there.

I would appreciate suggestions on how to further diagnose this issue.

Thanks,

Mike

Originally Posted by Satori84

Hi Damian-

I haven't enabled demigrator myself, don't see it in either applications or processes as running. Is its executable demigrator.exe? Does it launch as a standard part of WHS? I see by research it is possible to add a bat file to kill demigrator, but I'm not sure it is running presently.

The frame has 2 identical 1 TB drives. All partitions in Disk Management show healthy status. Sys partition of drive 0 mapped as "C" has 10.92GB free of 20GB allocated. The other physical drive (1) shows a single 931GB allocation, with 505GB (54%) free. The data portion of physical drive (0) however shows a data partition 911.5GB allocation, of which 1000.44 is free, or 109%, whch looks odd to me, but I don't pretend to understand how disk duplication (which is on) reports this since all data space is mapped as "D". Is there another tool besides DIsk Management I should use to check for SMART errors?

Thanks for any advice,

Mike

Originally Posted by Satori84

Yes, duplication is on. I burrowed down in Computer Management and see that it (and a bunch of other services) are running. I didn't quite get the difference between processes, as shown in Task Manager, and services, as found in Computer Management. At this point can I safely turn off duplication briefly from Console to see if the CPU usage drops? Or can I safely stop migration temporarily in Computer Management? I'm leery of doing anything VIA RDP other than looking at status, logs, etc. because of the full-page disclaimer/warning I see when I go into WHS by RDP.

Thanks for the link to a SMART tool; I'll attempt to check the two drives and see what's reported. Meantime CPU usage is still at 100%, CPU temp is 60C (usually 32-40C), and the last "storage balance" was 3 days ago, so I guess that's how long this has been grinding away. It's certainly not an hourly or intermittent process.

Thanks for your help; also reading your very thorough WHS blog looking for knowledge...

Mike

Originally Posted by aaronwt

I guess I must be alone in how I use my WHS. I only use it for BD ISOs now so demigrator ony kicks in after I rip a new title

Originally Posted by Satori84

SMART add-in installed and working; was NOT fun since the CPU thinks it is very busy, and everything takes a LOOOOONG time to accomplish.

Anyway, both disks show zero bad sectors, zero pending bad sectors, zero reallocation events, and reasonable temps (38 and 39C respectively). All items in the details pane have green healthy checkmarks for both. I'm reading up on the meanings of the thresholds and values for my own edification, but presume if a status is healthy, that parameter is within norms.

Going back to Damian's original post, should I infer that demigration is hogging the CPU time? What is the safest way to, at least for a brief test, to stop duplication and see what happens?

Thanks again for yoiue help,

Mike

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Demigrator kicks in afterwards as it rebalances frequently. Obviously the biggest impact may be right after a large copy, but demigrator runs periodically throughout the day

Originally Posted by usace

I've read through much of this thread and this option for large amounts of data storage intrigues me. Although I'm reading that these have been discontinued, which makes me wonder why and if there's a newer model out there now I should be looking into. One thing that I like is the option to add on additional HD's beyond just the 4 internal bays (for instance going the mediasonic enclosure route) and have it add to the overall storage size. This allows you to continually add more storage as your needs increase.

My use will be mainly for dvd and bluray rips, but also a way to backup photos, home videos, etc. Is the mediasmart server (485, 495, etc) still a good option, or does HP have a more current model I should consider?

Going a bit off topic here, but what's to stop me from just getting a mediasonic 4 bay enclosure and attaching it by way of usb to my desktop PC? I suppose it wouldn't have the redundancy tied to it? Or I see there are enclosures that offer raid functionality. If I connect one of these to my PC would this allow me to have duplication of all data stored on it? Sorry, a bit off topic I know, but it's something I think about whenever I see these enclosures mentioned.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Satori84

I've learned a lot. Thank you, Damian, for some good pointers.

I don't think disk migration was the problem, however. Here's what I found out:

I was in the process of turning off replication for each folder, one at a time. It was taking a LOOONG time, about 15 minutes PER FOLDER, because the CPU was slammed.

While I was waiting for console to finish changes to one folder, I idly RDP'ed into WHS again, opened Task Manager, and this time checked "show processes from all users". Suddenly I had a whole page full of things running, and on doing a sort by CPU usage, found TwonkyMedia at the top, using 99% of CPU time ! I hope I didn't break anything in WHS, but I forced the TwonkyMedia Tree process to stop inside Task Manager, and suddenly, the 490 came back to more normal life. I don't use Twonky, and have no use for it, so I may just disable it permanently once I'm sure nothing else is amiss.

Next, I'm going to restore folder duplication and watch things for awhile.

And now the $64 question is, why was TwonkyMedia running amok, and if I don't kill it permamently, what should I do to diagnose and prevent this from happening again?

Thanks all, especially Damian, for encouragement and advice.

Mike