By on June 24th, 2011

MediaSmart Server LED Management for WHS2011

A developer by the name of Lewis has made a driver that makes the lights work correctly on the HP MediaSmart Server if you have upgraded it to WHS 2011.

After upgrading these to WHS 2011, and without this driver the HDD lights would stay off and the system light would blink all the time. This driver replicates the LED management as it was with the original HP software.

HO MediaSmert Server LEDs

Compatible Hardware:

  • EX48x tests are positive
  • EX49x tests look promising
  • X510 should also look promising if it is really the same hardware as EX49x
  • Acer H340 should have a test version this weekend and it looks promising
  • H341 is possibly compatible with the H340 (like EX49x to EX48x) so it might also be a candidate

Finally the developer needs the following registry info from an Acer H341 and HP X510 owner, so please help out if you can:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\BIOS]

More details on are available from both of these locations:

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By on June 23rd, 2011

Add-In: Drive Bender 1.1.5.1

Drive Bender has it’s first update for beta 4.

Drive Bender Logo

Version 1.1.5.1 includes the following bug fixes:

  • Bug fix: A number of minor code changes to fix potential lockup and service crashes.
  • Bug fix: The un-installation routine now correctly restores service dependencies.

Drive Bender can be downloaded from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on June 23rd, 2011

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 141

home_server_show_small

Episode 141 of "The Home Server Show" podcast is available for your download or streaming pleasure.

This weeks episode has the latest Home Server news, more details on Drive Extender replacements plus lots of great chat from Dave and the gang which you can find here.

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By on June 22nd, 2011

Video: WHS 2011 Windows Phone 7 Connector

YouTube user jvonkuster has posted a video of the new "Windows Home Server 2011 Windows Phone 7 Connector" app.

jvonkuster video goes through the installation and configuration process and gives us a look at the various screens which are available:

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By on June 22nd, 2011

WHS2011 Media Library Design Shortcomings?

One Windows Home Server 2011 user isn’t happy with his experience when accessing the Media Library via Remote Web Access.

Media Library via Remote Web Access Error Message

Geoff Coupe explains the errors he receives and also what he sees as design limitations in the Media interface. An interesting read which you can find here.

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By on June 21st, 2011

A Look Inside Our Hard Drives

Engineer Guy Bill Hammack tears down a hard drive and shows us how it is engineered.

bill-hammack-hard-drive

Bill opens up the hard drive and describes how the "head" reads the magnetic information on the disk, how a voice coil motor and a slider controls the position of the head and explains how smooth a disk must be.

A great video looking at something which we all use in our Windows Home Server’s.

A transcript from this video is available at Bill’s site here.

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By on June 21st, 2011

Add-In: Drive Bender 1.1.5.0

Beta 4 (v1.1.5.0) a major update to Drive Bender has just been posted.

Drive Bender Logo

This last major beta version of Drive Bender includes the following changes:

  • Update: A new version of the WHS 2011 addin.
  • Bug fix: WHS client backup could sometimes fail, this has been fixed.
  • Bug fix: Drive balancing no longer balances Drive Bender specific files.
  • Bug fix: Windows update no longer fails (permission issue fixed).
  • Update: The drive merge functionality has been improved.
  • Update The drive removal functionality has been improved.
  • Update The drive add functionality has been improved.
  • Added: Drive convert feature to convert an existing non pooled drive into a pooled drive.
  • Added: Option – Smooth Stream. This is file read caching to improve file streaming performance (default = disabled).
  • Added: Option – CRC file validation of duplicated files (default = enabled). Disabling this reverts to file size validation.
  • Added: Option – Log level. The specifies the amount of logging taking place (default = none).
  • Added: Option – Drive balancing. You can enable / disable balancing as required (default = enabled).
  • Added: Option – Drive renaming. When adding a drive to the pool, it is now renamed to make its use obvious (default = enabled).
  • Added: Option – Drive letter management. Allows Drive Bender to manage drive letters for drives added to, and removed from the pool (default = enabled). Note that due to a bug, this feature was disabled prior to release.
  • Bug fix: Renaming and deleting files and folders should no longer fails with errors.
  • Bug fix: Recycle bin support have been fixed.
  • Bug fix: Remove Windows assigned mount points (i.e. drive letters) if there is a conflict with a Drive Bender mount point.
  • Added: Pool recovery feature. This can recover a pool (or pools) from connect drive without any configuration information (to be uses with OS re-installs etc)
  • Added: Pool configuration repair. Drive Bender now validates and repair broken configurations.
  • Added: WHS running tasks and notification windows (full WHS notification integration to come).
  • Known issue: Fault tolerant mode (i.e. when a drive is missing from the pool) is still not displaying duplicated files (will be fixed in the next update).
  • Known issue: The WHS move folder feature throws an error (to be fixed in an update).
  • Known issue: The opening of web links from the getting started tab are opening on the server, not the client.
  • Known issue: Documentation incomplete.

The download can be downloaded from here, but hurry as beta registration will be closing very soon.

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By on June 21st, 2011

Video: WHS 2011 Dashboard and it’s Features

Another Windows Home Server Learning Bites video has been posted on the Microsoft WindowsHomeSvr2011’s Channel.

This five minute video covers a high level overview of the new Windows Home Server 2011 Dashboard and it’s features.

More Learning Bites videos can be found here.

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By on June 20th, 2011

WHS Meetup this Saturday with Live Feed

The Home Server Show are having a meetup in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin this coming Saturday (June 25th) between 10:00 and 16:00.

Home Server Show Meetup in WI

Sponsored by Drobo, the guys will be giving away some great goodies and if you live too far away from Wisconsin, then the meetup will also have a live feed too – Great stuff!

More details are available here.

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By on June 19th, 2011

Add-In: StableBit Scanner 1.0.3.2585

The advanced hard disk surface scanner and monitor add-in StableBit Scanner has had an update.

StableBit Scanner 1.0.3.2585

Now at version 1.0.3.2585, it includes the following changes:

  • Manual config switch to turn off WMI SMART permanently.
  • If WMI locks up retrieving SMART, do now spawn addional threads.
  • Added ability to create user dump files from the new Support tab in settings for ALPHA and BETA versions.
  • Added config option for maximum number of trace lines to log on error report.
  • Fixed rare access violation in native code handler.
  • Fixed insane bytes per sector value on one particular USB enclosure (based on auto error report).
  • Fixed omni-store tree node delete.

StableBit Scanner is available as a 1 month trial, and costs $24.95.

More details on StableBit Scanner are available from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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