Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been officially released and I just finished instalngli the update on my Windows Home Server. The update was straight-forward and quick, taking less than 30 minutes.

Even though WHS can do folder duplication to prevent hard disk failure, that doesn’t do much if he whole server goes down or files are corrupted (or an OS update goes terribly wrong) so I always have copies of the files elsewhere. Because of this I didn’t have to worry about backups. I also hadn’t installed the PP1 beta so there was no need to uninstall it or worry about any special considerations it might impose.

Power Pack 1 Upgrade

My configuration is: HP470 MediaSmart server with 3 additional 1GB drives, Windows Vista running under VMware on Mac OS X. I have additional Windows VMs but the were not used for the upgrade.

The upgrade process was straight-forward and also documented on Microsoft’s download page for the update. You can also wait until it goes out as an automatic update in August.

1. I uninstalled my existing add-ins. While not documented as necessary I figured this was the safest way. I’d check for updates before I re-installed and any problem add-ins would be easy to identify.

2. I had an update from HP waiting for me so I installed that first. I’m not sure if it matters whether or not it’s installed before PP1 but if automatic updates where enabled it would already be installed so I figured it was safer to do it first. It includes two new add-ins which I didn’t install yet. More on these latter.

3. I downloaded Power Pack 1 from Microsoft and followed their instructions to copy it to the server. When I tried to run it I received a permissions error. I had to go into the file properties and click the “Unblock” button. Execution was blocked because the file was copied from another computer.

4. After the update was installed the server did a nerve-rackingly long reboot. There is an option to postpone the reboot.

5. I then had to update the connector software on my Windows vm. I connected to the software share and ran WHSConnectorInstall.exe from the Home Server Connector Software directory. The installation wizard was very basic. Changes (from what I remember) include an option to wake the PC from sleep in order to do a backup along with an option to update the connector software automatically in the future.

Add-In From HP

The HP update provides two add-ins. The first is MacAfee Total Protection Service, a virus scanner. I installed this out of curiosity and soon uninstalled it. It requires registration for a 7-month trial, after which it’s a paid server. Since I didn’t want AV anyway I didn’t go through the registration process.

The second add-in is PVConnect, a media server add-in. I did install this although haven’t used it yet. It does seem like an ideal add-in for a Windows Home Server used to server audio and video.

Additional Tweaks

The big change is that PP1 fixes the data corruption bug but there are additional tweaks there too.

The most noticeable change is that now there’s an alert when there’s an add-in available but uninstalled. To clear the alert you either have to intall the add-in or check the box to ignore the alert as shown below:

Of course, deleting the add-in from the Add-In directory also works.

It’s only been about an hour, but so far everything seems fine. I don’t use remote access through the web server so I don’t know if anything has changed there.

Events changed and I needed another drive to store some files and I figured replacing the WHS drive with a newer drive that also consumed less power would be worth the effort. In short, the upgrade failed and I’ve decided the effort now outstrips the benefit. I figured I’d relay my experiences. Also, if the drive fails I’ll probably be in the same situation so I’ll probably do some research and try again sometime in the future.

First the good news. I put the original drive aside and popped it back in when I threw in the towel. The server came up fine - as if nothing happened.

When I ran the Server Recovery Disc using autorun I had several problems. The first noticeable problem was an empty license dialog. I had to run the the WHSRecovery.exe directly and then the install ran OK.

On Windows Vista the Server Recovery portion worked fine but when the WHS Connector software install should have started nothing happened. I suspect it has something to do with UAC or security but rather than troubleshoot I went to Windows XP.

On Windows XP everything seemed fine until the Windows Home Server Connector software installation. That install couldn’t find my server. I had similar problems during the initial installation but the things that worked there didn’t work here. The Server Recovery has worked for me in the past. After popping the original disk back I was able to install the connector software just fine. In my case the computer and server were in the same switch and one the same network. I could ping the WHS just fine (I could get the IP address from the mac address), the connector install just wouldn’t find it.

Eventually I’ll set up a simple network with just the WHS and one PC and work on troubleshooting the issue.

If you’ve got an HP MediaSmart Home Server the instructions for replacing the system disk are here. Keep in mind that user accounts will be lost along with other server configurations. If you use file duplication you shouldn’t lose any files.

This isn’t a high priority for me but if I find a solution I’ll update this post.

Among the new features I like is the ability to set the alert thresholds for disk usage. My biggest annoyance was that disks were shown in yellow when above 75% usage and in red when above 90%. Since disk usage is managed by WHS itself and there’s nothing I can do about individual disk usage I disliked having the yellow or red bars which usually indicate a problem when I had an otherwise healthy disk. There’s also new thresholds for total disk pool usage which is is more useful than individual usage.

If you’ve installed the WHS PP1 beta you should use the WHS Disk Management beta which you’ll have to request. In my case, the WHS data is too important to trust to the beta software even though it should resolve the data corruption bug.

I cleaned up the files and have 900GB free so I should have enough space to replace the drives one at a time without turning off file duplication. Being the cautious type I start off by rebooting the Home Server and waiting for it to indicate the disks were balanced. Then I run through the following steps to replace the hard drives.

1. Run the drive removal wizard for the first drive. In this case it’s the drive in bay #4. The wizard tells me that no files, folders or backups will be lost. I confirm the drive removal and the process begins. This drive takes about 3 hours to prepare, during which time the WHS isn’t accessible.
2. Once the removal wizard is finished the LED on the drive bay glows purple. I pop out the drive and install the new one. This process is just like adding a new drive once the old physical drive is removed.
3. I add the new drive to the storage pool using the Windows Home Server console.
4. I reboot the WHS and copy some files up to it to make sure everything is OK. I wait an hour or so and make sure the disk activity dies down. (I use the Windows Home Server Disk Management Add-In to track disk usage.)
5. Then I run the drive removal wizard for the second drive, this time the one in bay #3. Since this drive was nearly full it takes about 4 hours to prepare the drive.
6. Once the removal wizard is finished the LED on the drive bay glows purple and I replace the drive.
7. I give the server one last reboot to make sure everything is fine.

A couple of the wizard and console screens are shown below. The initial drive removal wizard screen is a bit ominous and implies I’m responsible for insuring I have enough space otherwise I’ll lose files. But once the wizard finishes it’s done the calculations itself and confirms that no files or backups will be lost.

Once the drive removal wizard is finished the drive will be listed as a “Non Storage Hard Drive”. Then once the new drive is inserted it will also be listed as a “Non Storage Hard Drive”.

The Disk Management Add-In screen in the management console shows both new drives and the disk activity as files are copied to them.

This weeks my backups were put to the test. And they worked as expected!

Because my iTunes library is so large (150GB+), backing it up is a problem. So my strategy is:

1. I Sync the library with a copy on my iMac’s local hard drive (I use ChronoSync)
2. Clone my iMac hard disk nightly - before the library sync mentioned in step 1 occurs

This give me three copies of iTunes:

1. The active copy on the Windows Home Server that I use.

2. A copy of last nights library on my local iMac.

3. A copy of the library from two nights ago on my cloned hard drive.

So I have a couple days to detect the corruption. As expected the corruption occurred when I was actually using iTunes. I was told it could not write the library. I tried to shut down iTunes but had to force quit after 3 hours of waiting for it to exit. At that point upon restarting iTunes, the library was empty (although the song files were still on the WHS share.).

I decided to run iTunes from my local iMac to avoid future occurrences of the issues, rather than restoring the corrupt library files. I held down the Option (alt) key while starting iTunes and selected the local copy as the library. I expected to have to change the settings so iTunes would look for music on the local disk but it was already set this way. This may have been due to it returning to default settings due to the corruption.

I now sync the local iTunes library with the WHS share as the backup.

I did lose any changes made during the day such as downloaded podcasts and play counts. The podcasts simply downloaded again and I deleted the ones I listed to. If I had added any songs I would have had to import them again.

There’s really no way to know if this was the data corruption bug or just some other problem. I’m leaning towards the bug because I have also been copying a lot of files to the Windows Home Server so the drives have been very busy, which seems to be a needed ingredient.

HP describes the procedure to add the drives here and the entire process took me about 10 minutes. The HP EX470 comes with one drives so three drives can be added while the EX475 comes with two drives so it has two empty drive bays. If there’s a drive in the bay the the light bar will be lit.

Adding the Drive Hardware

The front door of the HP EX475 swings open revealing the drive bays. Drives are added from bottom to top so You’ll add drives to the lowest empty bay first. It’s not necessary to shut down the server when adding drives, but it can’t hurt.

To remove a drive bay push down the latch that holds the handle, lift the handle and pull the bay out. Be sure to push down the rear flap, as shown below, once the bay is removed. Just push out the side rails a bit to free up the flap.

Insert the left side of the new drive first (left - when the handle is toward you), it does make a difference and it’s much easier. The posts in the drive bay will fit the mounting holes in the drive. Then flex the right rail outward and put the rail pins into the right side of the drive.

Side the drive bay back into the server. Be sure not to accidentally lock the handle down by pushing on it when inserting the drive. (Yea, that’s what I did.)

Close the HP’s front door when all the drives are in. The LED’s should start glowing purple soon after the drives are inserted. Mine took less than 30 seconds.

Adding the Drives to the Storage Pool

Once the hardware is installed it’s still necessary to add the drives to the pools so they can be used. Start up the Windows Home Server console and go to the server storage tab.

You’ll see the unused drives listed under "Non Storage Hard Drives". Select one of the unused drives and click the "Add" button. The Add Drive Wizard will run. There’s not much to do beyond clicking through the wizard.

Once the drives are added the Server Storage tab will reflect them. Once the drives are part of the storage pool the light bars will glow blue.

The Aftermath

I found that the original two drives continued to be used for new files for quit awhile. Then the system drive stopped getting new files but the original second drive continued to accumulate files until it exceeded 90% in usage. Then the two new drives started to use space in tandem, growing at the same rate.

I eventually deleted a large amount of files which shrunk usage on the original drives, with the system drive seeming to have the lowest priority as it’s now the once with the most free space, even with 20GB dedicated to the system partition.

I was also having connectivity problems from my Macs. These were also sporadic and I suspected they were due to the recent OS X 10.5.2 upgrade rather than the Windows Home Server.

I figured no matter what, if I called tech support the first thing they’d want me to do was re-install. I also wanted to rename the server. I happened to name it the same as my .Mac ID and I figured there was a slight chance this was the cause of the connectivity problem. At the very least, it could be confusing.

The recovery is done from a PC connected to the the same network as the Windows Home Server. The Server Recovery Disk included with the HP WHS is used. A wired connection is recommended so that the connection isn’t interrupted during the recovery. I did the rebuild from Windows XP running under Parallels on my iMac.

HP has pretty good procedures online (scroll down to the Recovering Server section) and the online help and recovery wizard are also good so I won’t repeat every step in detail.

Factory Reset

I made sure my data backups where up to date and inserted the DVD to start the recovery. There’s two choices presented:

I go with the Factory Reset option in order to completely flatten the server. The data is backed up so there’s no sense trying half measure. The reset goes along as documented and the wizard is self-explanatory. It took about 90 minutes from the time I popped in the DVD to the time I could start restoring my data files and creating the IDs.

About half this time was spent watching the following dialog box. There were extended periods of time (5-10 minutes) where no progress was shown.

After the reset was finished I needed to recreate the IDs and restore my data files (a simple file copy). All the PC backups are lost and the home server connector software has to be uninstalled and re-installed on each PC. Since backups were lost I initiated a backup immediately after re-installing the connector software on each PC.

The Results

I did the Factory Reset last Saturday and the server hasn’t crashed all week so that problem seems to have been resolved. Looks like it was a software problem.

Much to my surprise the intermittent connectivity problems also went away. So that was either a Windows Home Server problem, a conflict with the old server name and my .Mac ID, or a total coincidence. In any case it looks like this problem was also resolved.

Microsoft Remote Desktop is already installed with Windows Vista. To run it just go to the Start -> Search box and start typing Remote Desktop. It’s also included with Windows XP where it’s in the Accessories -> Communications menu group.

It can also be installed on Windows 2000 Professional and and earlier OS’s by downloading it from Microsoft.

When the remote desktop client starts you’ll first be for the computer to connect to. Once that’s entered you’ll be prompted for the user name and password. Use administrator as the user name. Use your Windows Home Server console password as the password and you’ll be on the server.

You’ll see a ominous message warning you about bad things:

It’s open in IE so just close the window and you’re on the server desktop.

• Windows Vista Photo Gallery
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
• Microsoft Money 2007
• SyncToy 2.0 beta
• Intuit Quicken and QuickBooks may be affected
• Torrent applications may be affected

The cause is a terse:

This issue may occur because of a recently discovered problem with Windows Home Server shared folders and with certain programs.

No work-around is posted, other than don’t use the apps with WHS. Microsoft has been able to reproduce the problem according to a blog post by the Windows Home Server team.

Microsoft has said they’d update the KB article when they have a fix but I would expect a software update to follow.

Update: Ed Bott at ZDNet has additional information on the bug. It’s harder to reproduce than the Microsoft KB lets on and requires the WHS to be under “extreme” load among other things.

This article at Mac OS X Hints, provides information on how to share iTunes between Mac and Windows. While the procedure basically worked I had some problems, possibly due to changes in iTunes since the article was written, possibly due to something unique in my setup or requirements.

I had two problems:

1. iTunes would not let me select the library on the share from my iMac. When I option->clicked to open iTunes and browsed to the WHS it wouldn’t list anything (literally - no shares, no files). I ended up creating an alias (sym link) to the iTunes directory on my WHS music share. I could then browse to the alias and select the library. To add to the frustration this worked fine from my other Macs but still fails to work on my iMac, even moments after shutting down iTunes.
2. Switching between the Windows and Mac versions of iTunes caused the library to rebuild each time. I didn’t like the delay. Besides, all my Windows machines are virtual machines running on a Mac so I don’t need Windows iTunes. This appears to be due to the way iTunes addresses the library and it updates the path to the files. But the procedure outlined in the Mac OS X Hints article does work and there may be a way to specify the location that will be both Mac and Windows happy.

You may want to turn off DS_Store files on network drives, if you haven’t already. The process for setting up my specific WHS configuration is documented below.

Setting Up the Share

I decided to create a folder called iTunes under the common Music share that was there upon delivery. Since my iTunes library was on my iMac I needed to set that up to connect to the share. I browsed to the share in finder to mount it and told OS X to save by id/password in my keychain. You can also mount it by selecting Go -> Connect to Server in the Finder menu. Type in your WHS name in the format smb://servername, where servername is your WHS. You’ll be prompted to pick the share and enter a ID/Password (if it’s not already saved in your keychain).

I want this share mounted all the time so I’ll add it to my start up items. To do this go into the Accounts panel in System Preferences. Select the ID and then the Login Items tab. Click the plus sign to add an item then browse to the new iTunes folder on the Windows Home Server. Click the Add button and it will appear in the startup list. To work seamlessly the id/password should have been added to the keychain when you manually connected.

Moving the iTunes Library

I moved the iTunes library from my iMac to the Windows Home Server by following the standard procedure for moving an iTunes library on a Mac with some minor modifications. Be sure to select a sub-directory of iTunes for the files, I created iTunes Music to match the standard. After finishing the standard move process (the bulleted items in the Mac OS X Hints article) I copied the iTunes Library file from my local iTunes folder to the iTunes folder on the share. I did not add the extension so it’s still Mac only.

I could not do the next step on my iMac until I created an alias. Browse (in Finder) to the iTunes directory in the WHS music share (not the "iTunes Music" folder with the song files, but the main iTunes directory.) Right-click (or control-click for one-button mice) the iTunes directory and select Make Alias from the menu. Then move the alias that was created to your local hard drive. I put mine in my home directory. I did not need to do this on my Mac Mini or MacBook.

Start iTunes by holding the option key when you click the icon (aka option->click it) browse to the alias you just created, then select the iTunes Library file and open it.

The album art will be missing so now’s a good time to copy it. Copy the contents of the Album Artwork folder (located in the iTunes Folder) from your local PC to the iTunes directory on the network share. I did this with iTunes shut down (not sure if it matters but to be safe) and made sure the network directories were empty of files.

At this point I just option->click iTunes on each of my Macs the first time I start iTunes and select the shared iTunes Library file.

I still haven’t deleted my old local iTunes library although I did rename the iTunes folder.

Additional Information

I haven’t purchased or used any iPod games although the one demo game I had (Vortex) seemed to move to the server share just fine. This may have occurred when I first synced my iPod as I was told some purchased items were missing and I let them be restored from the iPod. I didn’t notice the directory earlier but since I didn’t have any games I didn’t think to specifically check. You may also need to manually copy the iPod games directory and library file to the share, or make sure they get restored from your iPod.

I did try using iTunes for Windows and Mac to access the same library. This did work but every time I switched the OS the Library was rebuilt which was time consuming. Since I have no real need for iTunes on Windows I decided to drop it.

Since doing this I’ve had problems keeping my sync connection to Apple TV. Apple TV still only syncs with my iMac and not with any Mac that has the library open. The iTunes name displayed for sharing is still unique on each computer. But, I’ve had to set up syncing for my Apple TV to iTunes a couple of times since setting up the shared library. I’m unable to reproduce the problem on demand by going to the different copies of iTunes and starting them and then checking my iMac iTunes. But eventually it just disappears. I’ve never had a iTunes sync problem before but others have so this may be unrelated to the shared iTunes library. Or, it could be related to the DRM that limits Apple TV to one iTunes library for syncing. The good news is all I’ve had to do is re-authorize it, it doesn’t clear the hard drive and cause everything to resync again or force me to reconfigure what I want synced.

My iTunes Library file consists of about 8,100 titles and is about 19MB. When shutting down iTunes over a wireless connection there is a short but noticeable delay while it saves the library. Over my 802.11n network it takes less than 10 seconds and over 802.11g it takes about 20 seconds to exit iTunes. Not a problem for me, but noticeable.

Backup Considerations

Windows Home Server has the ability to duplicate shares which means it makes sure there’s a copy of the file on two different physical drives. Not exactly mirroring, but similar in concept. With the iTunes Library on my Mac it was being backed up in Time Machine and on my drive clone, two different pieces of hardware. On WHS it’s on two physical drives but not truly backed up. If a WHS drive fails I’m OK, but if WHS itself or the server hardware fails the files are trapped. Also, if something gets deleted from WHS accidentally it gets deleted from the duplicate drive too. The same with corruption.

I’ll probably set up something with ChronoSync to copy the library down to a local drive either as a current backup or to be picked up by Time Machine. The benefit of Time Machine is I’m not locked in to restoring only the latest files. If I missed some deletion corruption I can go back. Unfortunately my iTunes library is just to large to back up over the Internet to something like Amazon S3. It would max out my upload bandwidth for weeks.

I’ll start with the solution and work back. The problem I was experiencing was that the installation of the Server Connector Software couldn’t find the HP MediaSmart Server. I use OpenDNS and that ended up being my problem. I could go to a command prompt, type a totally garbage name and it would resolve to an IP address, always 208.69.32.137, which is very close to the OpenDNS name servers so it’s probably related. I tried disabling OpenDNS’s typo correction but that didn’t have any effect (although I did confirm it stopped fixing typos).[Updated: See next paragraph] I also tried creating a LMHosts file but that didn’t work since DNS was still used to resolve the name. I considered putting a hosts file on each machine but considered it to much of a pain to manage.

Update: Turning off typo correction does work. My cable modem was rebooted and I also got a new IP address. There may have been some caching someplace. Also, as Mike from OpenDNS mentioned in the comment, adding the device name is also a possible solution but for now I’ve decided to leave typo correction completely off.

These are the symptoms that led me to look outside my network for the problem:

• Running the diagnostics from the Microsoft Windows Home Server Toolkit returned a long list of errors, all pretty much saying the server or various components couldn’t be found.
• The installation worked when I cut off my Internet connection.
• After the successful installation, with the Internet restored, the server console wouldn’t connect. The desktop tool (for doing backups) could see the server.
• Pinging garbage names still resolved to an IP (I took too long to try this one - try it first, even if you haven’t named the WHS yet).

These are the configurations I’ve gotten to work:

Router: Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) - Both the WHS and Cable modem are connected via ethernet cable to this router. This does not support uPnP so port forwarding will need to be configured although this does not need to be done for the actual connector install.

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate running under VMware Fusion 1.1 on Mac OS X 10.5.1. It was necessary for me to configure the network connection to "bridged" mode so the VM would get it’s own unique IP address. It was set to "share the hosts Internet connection (NAT)" which I believe was the default when I created the VM (at least I don’t remember changing it). This is on a MacBook which is connected via 802.11n wireless using the AEBS.

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 running under Parallels Desktop 3 (Build 5582) on Mac OS X 10.5.1. Unlike VMware, Parallels gives the VM it’s own IP address so no config changes were needed. This is on my iMac connected via ethernet cable to the same AEBS as the WHS.

Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 running on an old HP laptop. This usually connects via 802.11g wireless to a 802.11g wireless access point that’s bridged to the AEBS. This laptop could not see the WHS to do the installation over wireless. I had to connect it via ethernet cable to the AEBS. I haven’t tried testing it with wireless now that it’s installed. I pulled it out to eliminate the VMs as the problem and once I did that I packed it away again.

Port Forwarding for Remote/Web Access with the AEBS

uPnP routers handle all this on their own, some feel uPnP is a security risk and want it disabled. Personally, while it may not be a true security risk in itself, it’s designed to do things seamlessly for the user (meaning no need to tell the user). These things include opening up router ports. Apple doesn’t support uPnP, they support NAT-PNP instead, which provides similar functionality. I’d rather know what’s going on, opening the ports myself, so I turn off NAT-PNP on my AEBS and would turn off uPnP if my router supported it.

By default the HP MediaSmart Server (and probably most Windows Home Servers) use DHCP to get a IP address. This means the IP address of the WHS could change, even though it’s unlikely if it’s left on. Still, to be safe I reserved a DHCP address for the WHS in the AEBS config. This way I can forward ports to an IP that won’t change. You can get the Mac address and current IP address from the Windows Home Server console. It’s in the Remote Access section, click the details button under Router. I reserved the IP address it was already using.

The private IP address is your WHS. Add port 443 for the HTTPS protocol, port 80 for HTTP and port 4125 for remote access. You can leave out the remote access port if you won’t be using remote access.

The AEBS has an annoying habit of doing a reboot after any change, no matter how minor (like a DHCP reservation), so make all the changes at once and expect the reboot when you click the "Update" button.

Worlds Didn’t Explode

There wasn’t any great explosion when I hooked up this Microsoft device to my Mac heavy home network. I spent so much time troubleshooting, partly because I expected the problems to be related to the VMs or my AEBS that I haven’t had much time to give WHS a workout, but it’s encouraging so far. OS X can see and connect to the shares on the WHS. Differences in file naming conventions means there are limits with the OS X files I put on the server but for straight data it seems fine so far.

I was extremely surprised when I saw the HP MediaSmart Server show as a shared music source in iTunes on my Macs, although I haven’t loaded any music to actually try it yet.