Icy Dock MB561US-4S Quad Bay External Removable Enclosure

This is the Icy Dock MB561US-4S Quad Bay External Removable Enclosure.

During CES 2010 Dave , Chris and Jim paid a visit to the Icy Dock booth. They saw the potential of how the Icy Dock product could contribute to the Windows Home Server ecosystem. Icy Dock was pleased to help out and soon we each received a product to review.

Icy Dock MB561US-4S

The Icy Dock MB561US-4S unit has both USB and eSATA connections. It holds 4 SATA drives and supports the latest 2TB drives. It is available in a silver aluminum exterior with a white front and rear plastic panels or a completely black unit. This case is quite stylish with no screws or switches on the front for a simple clean finish.

Construction

The aluminum shell is a one piece construction with no seams and rounded corners. The quality is very sturdy and adds to reducing drive vibration and noise and helps to keep the unit cooler.

The  4 removable trays may look flimsy, but with a hard drive installed and 6 small screws to secure the drive, it is solid. There is a external plastic removable fan at the rear.

This design allows the user to remove the fan effortlessly by applying pressure to a tab located on the bottom of the fan at the center. Also you can choose to leave the fan off the unit if you have only 1 or 2 drives for a completely silent unit or leave it on if you add more drives. The power supply is also silent and internal this eliminates the need for an external power brick.

What’s included

Instruction manual, screws, USB cable, eSata cable and power cable.

Use

The trays can be removed by releasing a gray plastic tab that will allow an aluminum arm to swing out and pull to remove the tray. Remove the plastic insert with a philips screwdriver and attach a SATA hard drive with the supplied screws. Slide the tray back in and secure the drive by moving the aluminum arm back in place unit you hear a click. Plug the unit to your servers external eSATA port, plug in the power cable. Power up the unit and your done.

Using the Icy Dock with your Windows Home Server

I’ll be testing this unit on my EX470 and my EX490 HP MediaSmart Servers. The EX470/5 has an external eSATA port multiplier aware connection that can recognize a 4 bay eSATA enclosure, while the EX490/5 can recognize a 5 drive eSATA enclosure. The EX485/7 can only recognize 1 drive therefore these model will not work with the Icy Dock MB561US-4S.

Console View

These 2 views using the Disk Management addin show my 3 WHS pooled drives in the EX490 and then in the Icy Dock.  You will notice that the temperatures are very similar.

eSata vs USB

I wanted to take full advantage of my HP MediaSmart server. To do that I am using the eSata connection for faster transfer speeds and to leave the 3 USB ports on the server available for other uses.

Conclusion

The primary use of the Windows Home Server Software is for PC backups. Secondary is to have a central place to store all my media and have it available throughout my network. Video libraries can grow very quickly if you want to have your content available immediately. WHS does this well. However to properly secure your precious files and a lot of work, it is wise to plan for data loss. Turning on Folder Duplication reduces your storage space by half and doing a Shares Backup also decreases your available storage of new data. This is where the Icy Dock MB561US-4S can be an invaluable and prudent product. You can very quickly double your storage capacity. You can use the speed of the eSATA connection to the Icy Dock unit to eliminate the storage space lost by enabling Folder Duplication on WHS. Or you can use the Icy Dock unit as a non pooled drive for Shares Backup and turn the unit off when not in use or remove the unit completely as an off-site disaster recovery plan.

Pro’s

You can very quickly double your storage capacity.

You can use the speed of the eSATA connections to the Icy Dock unit to eliminate the storage space lost by enabling Folder Duplication on WHS.

You can use the Icy Dock unit as a non pooled drive for Shares Backup and turn the unit off when not in use.

Remove the unit completely as an off-site disaster recovery plan.

Using the Icy Dock just to backup my shares, allowed me to be able to connect this device to my Popcorn Hour via USB and watch my videos.

Con’s

Does the price out way the advantages ?

My XBOX360 was not able to connect to this device

Product Website – http://www.icydock.com/product/mb561us-4s.html

Newegg – ICY DOCK MB561US-4SC External Enclosure

Popularity: 11% [?]

VGA/PS2 build project for Media Smart EX and H340 Home Servers.

Hi ya folks,

I’m looking at starting a project on building a VGA/PS2 interface for the HP MediaSmart and the Acer H340 EasyStore servers.

HP has come out with their 3rd generation home servers, the EX49x and I know Microsoft prefers WHS boxes to be headless. But with the recent changes to the EX49x boxes, reinstalling the server software has become more difficult and is a shot in the dark process.

So I figured I’ll try and build a printed circuit board to make this process more bearable.

What’s nice is that the Acer home server are built using the same internal connector, so this PCB will work on those boxes also.

Parts List from Digikey ;

CONN HOUSING PHD 26POS 2MM DUAL , CONN HD15 FEMALE OVER DUAL PS/2

CONN HEADER PHD TOP 26POS 2MM, CONN TERM PHD CRIMP 22-26AWG TIN

Printed Circuit Board Software ;

I’ll be using ExpressPCB to design the printed circuit board. You can find the software here ; http://www.expresspcb.com/ExpressPCBHtm/Free_cad_software.htm

I plan on making the PCB parts template and PCB design available for download. So anyone can tweak it for themselves. I have to purchase a minimum number of PCB’s to place an order so I’ll end up with extras.

Next I will have to build a cable to connect the two. I’m hoping to find a straight thru design. I’ll update this blog post as things develop.

Join me in the forums where we can discuss it .

John.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Installing Zune 4.0 on WHS

Last week on the podcast,zekan asked if it was possible to install iTunes 9 on a WHS machine, I suggested a link over at MediaSmartServer.net where  Mezo has found  out how to do it.

Here, bsieve asks if the Zune software can be installed on WHS. Dave and Chris were all into the Zune software on podcast 56 so I decided to give it a try.

Following the instructions by Mezo, I was able to get Zune 4.0.740.0 installed.

I downloaded Orca from here and installed it.  I downloaded the XP version of  Zune here and copied it to a WHS share.

Extract the zunesetuppkg-86 file, which is a 52.9 meg to a folder with the same name.  Go into that folder and open the packages folder.

Right click on Zune-x86, and if you installed Orca, you should have an option to Edit with Orca,

Here you want to select LaunchConditions and delete the conditions on the right and then save the new file.

Now RDC to that shared folder and move the complete extracted folder you created to the desktop. You must MOVE the folder to the desktop otherwise you will NOT be able to change it’s Properties, now you should have a folder that contains these files,

Right click on ZuneSetup and choose Properties and then  the Compatibility Tab and change it to run as XP. Apply.

Now you should be GOOD TO GO. Double click ZuneSetup.exe and it will install.

UPDATE: Looks like you should right click on the Zune-x86.msi in the packages folder to begin the install and bybass the warning about it needing to be on a XP system. Also if you don’t get past the zune splash screen, you should install WMP11 from this link, http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whsdevelopers/thread/e23d50e3-43d1-4007-a35f-bd30b2895986

You should change the wmfdist.exe & wmp11.exe to run as XP, and tick the box so the WHS will not reboot during the install.

 

NOTE: I installed this on my EX47x which does NOT have a sound card so I did get an error when selecting a song to play. So unless you have a USB sound card for your MSS then you should have a home build with a sound card. Also the screen resolution is not so great on the MSS, but hey, you asked for ZUNE on WHS, I delivered.

Good Luck.

John Zajdler (aka Diehard).

Popularity: 28% [?]

Diehard’s Ideal HP MediaSmart Server

With the news going round about the upcoming Lenova IdeaCentre D400 and the possible first clue to the next MediaSmart server, I thought I would chime in with what I wish HP would come out with in their next home server.

Microsoft has recently started to push WHS as an option into the SOHO market. You can see details here and HP has been the flagship home server advertised by Microsoft, so I’m thinking that maybe HP should up the ante with a server model worthy to fit nicely into the SOHO space.

A while back, I “photo-shopped” a gag on MediaSmartServer.net of my ideal HP server, the DP490.

Some details.
Dual Core ? forget about it, Quad Core.
32bit ? forget about it. it’s 64 bit.
4 drive bays ? forget about it. it’s has 8.
1 eSata drive ? forget about that too. it has 2 eSata with port   multiplier.
1 front USB and 3 rear USB, forget about that again, 2 front and 6 rear.
1 gigabit port, guess again, 2 gigabit ports.

Now I’d like to add a couple more items and make this unit a bit more Media Center friendly.

Slim slot loading DVD burner

2 sticks of ram

DVI service port

HDMI & optical audio

Replaceable Compact Flash for WHS OS.

I like to have the power supply built in, not an external brick. Maybe 2 bigger fans on the rear, bigger is quieter.

So what do you think ? What would you choose as the motherboard ?

John Zajdler (diehard).

Popularity: 2% [?]

My EX470 is now a EX480???

This is for all owners of the EX47x series hardware that would like to run the 2.5 update that HP released for the EX48x series.

Not quite as low as EX470/EX475 and not as high as a EX485/EX487 until I change the CPU then it will be a EX490.

Well, I’m one of you guys who has the 1st Gen HP MediaSmart Servers.

You have to expect to pay a premium because your an early adopter. I’m ok with that. I’m also helping out the manufacturer  by being a beta tester. They are getting feedback on their product and how it should evolve. Like Dave wrote, I would expect free software and bug fixes.

But if the 2.5 update is a free update for another machine, well, I should expect not. But come on, I was a early adopter, throw me a bone. Give me a choice to try it on my EX470 with the understanding that it would slow down my system.

Looks like no is the answer. Ok, I’ll hack it in.

Since the 2.5 update has been available for download, a few of us hackers have had success in getting the install to run on our EX470/EX475. If you try this I would recommend that until the dust settles down, use a separate hard drive for your install because you will have to get programs like Tomcat and ImageMagik running and a few services . Then once your comfortable, then you can give it a try on your main system.

So where is all the info? Check out the thread at MediaSmartServer.net.

The Media Collector and media transcoding are a great addition to have. HP has listened to the early adopters asking for  more media options and delivered it with this update. Thanks.

I got my system up and running, thanks to Cougar, Yakuza, T-Bone, chiledog, qbjack and the rest.

Diehard

Popularity: 6% [?]

Add a fan to your MediaSmart Server

Add a fan to the rear of the power supply  on the  MediaSmart Server.

A little history first about why:

I’ve been following the post on adding a Dual-Core CPU to HP’s MediaSmart EX47x models on MediaSmartServer.net here called “Saw a EX470 post with a AMD X2”. This is a great post and very popular.  It was started by Maliclipse on April 12, 2008 and as of July reached over 65 pages, 956 replies, and over 51900 views, wow.

Thanks to ymboc, a big contributor for figuring out how to modify the system BIOS to accept the dual-core processor. And a big thanks to the support of active members who have contributed and kept this post going and those who have helped other find compatible CPU’s. Way to go guys.

Following the thread, most people are getting idle temperatures around 38 to 40 degrees. Mine runs around 54. What a difference, I’m not sure if it’s because of the ambient temps, but my server runs stable. The temps were around 58 before the upgrade, so installing the dual-core has already lowered the temp by 4 degrees, could also be because I added Arctic Silver 5 to the CPU and northbridge. I have also run ORTHOS for a few hours to do a stress test. It ran for over 2 hours up to 92 degrees, no shut downs and it completed tests past the 35k mark.

With comments on adding fans inside the front cage door, I found this unacceptable. I get that sucking air in across the CPU would create air flow in and out. But it’s a tight fit. I found that if I attached the fan to the inside grill with tie wraps,  there was a whistling sound. Besides the PSU (power supply unit) is blowing its warm air into the case. I’m not sure it being forced out the grill. So I decided to try and force it out the back.

The PSU has a grill back there. So at least some air is being pulled in by the fan at the front end. You know what, I didn’t even check to see if the front fan is pulling air in or out, so I could be wrong here. Anyway, I wanted to take advantage of the rear grill. BTW, I’ve read that a Shuttle PSU with fans at both ends can be rewired to work with the EX47x models but that wiki is in the works over at MediaSmartServer.net and not ready at this time. Also, I didn’t want the added expense of purchasing a new PSU and replacing a perfectly good one. If this one blew, then I’d give it a try.

I took my EX470 apart and you can follow my tear down when I add the popcorn hour to my EX47x on YouTube here.

I completely removed the PSU from the main PCB and then took out my Dremel, and carefully cut out the read grill of the PSU the same size as the fan.

You can see here from the Popcorn Hour mod, that I removed the grill from the 2 rear fans, and I have holes along the left for the video/audio connections. Also I’ve added the VGA connector so I can run the installed version of MCE 2005 to my large screen.

The second photo shows that the fan sticks out a bit, I took the top cover off the PSU so I could run the wire neatly inside the PSU out to the front where it will connect to the 12 volt header on the main PCB.

Here is the work necessary to allow for that fan sticking out.

Since the fan is black, it’s hard to see the cut.

It has made a big difference, my temps are at least 10 degrees lower, wow. Now I’m more in speck with what others have posted in the thread. All in all it’s a tiny bit louder, but it’s a smooth sound. It also depends on the quality of fan you purchase. Maybe later I’ll add a control to lower the speed.

Diehard

Popularity: 6% [?]

Another PP3 MCE visual tweak.

Ian Dixon over at The Digital Lifestyle.com posted an article he found at hack7mc.com, that uses a tiny app to modify the Media Center start strips.

I like how in a previous build of PP3 beta, both icons are on the Main MCE Page. So I used this app to delete the “Home Server” strip and make a new” “MediaSmart Server” strip with both icons on the Main Page. You can Do the same and call it whatever you like, Aspire, Tranquil, Home Build Server.

This is what I got;

This was done in less than 5 minutes. You can do much more with this app, so get creative.

Thanks to Ian Dixon & Hack7mc.

Follow the link and enjoy.

John Zajdler (Diehard).

Popularity: 1% [?]

Changing the text in PP3 icons

From this;                                                                        To this;

Change the text for PP3 icons to Camel Case. (or media capitals),   This requires a registry edit but is very simple.

Open your Registry Editor and change the title to Camel Case in all 3 registries.

Read more

Popularity: 1% [?]

Installing the Subsonic Web Based Media Streamer on your MediaSmart Server

Subsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing ubiquitous access to your music. Use it to share your music with friends, or to listen to your own music while at work. You can stream to multiple players simultaneously, for instance to one player in your kitchen and another in your living room.

Subsonic is designed to handle very large music collections (hundreds of gigabytes). Although optimized for MP3 streaming, it works for any audio or video format that can stream over HTTP, for instance AAC and OGG. By using transcoder plug-ins, Subsonic supports on-the-fly conversion and streaming of virtually any audio format, including WMA, FLAC, APE, Musepack, WavPack, Shorten and OptimFROG.

It’s also very easy to install on HP’s MediaSmart Server running HP’s 2.5 update.

On podcast 48 we spoke a bit about mp3 streamers Subsonic & FirePlay.  Cougar from MediaSmartServer.net updated his addin here.  I’m also trying Subsonic.  They have a WAR version, this is like a ZIP or RAR compressed folder that is recognized by Tomcat and can be selected to deploy. Since you have HP’s 2.5 update installed, adding Subsonic through Tomcat is very easy.

If you don’t have Tomcat, you can also go the .EXE route or decide to install Tomcat from here.

HP decided to switch from using Jetty to Tomcat when they built the EX48x line. Tomcat runs apps for IIS much better than Jetty and does more. HP uses Tomcat & Java to run the PhotoPublisher & PhotoViewer apps also, so you get an idea of what Tomcat can do. So since it’s there, why not take advantage of it ?

Once you have Tomcat installed, here’s what to do,

Download the WAR and place it in the Software share, then remote into your MSS and look for Tomcat Manager.

You will be asked for a user name and password, use admin and leave the password blank, unless you changed it, then use what you choose, click OK. You should then get the Tomcat Manager screen. At the bottom it says WAR file to deploy in yellow, point the the Subsonic.WAR file you downloaded to the Software share.

and click deploy. If you did this right you should have,

click on start if it didn’t start, or restart it from the 

Now add the port 8089 to the exception list on the firewall settings.

That’s it, point your browser to http://myhomeserver:8089/subsonic.

I’ll be looking for more WAR apps to deploy with Tomcat, if you find one, let me know, thanks.

If your using Whiist, you can add it as a personal link.

Have fun.

John Zajdler (aka Diehard).

Popularity: 18% [?]

Quick & Easy Windows Home Server OS Backup and Restore. | 4Hak3rs

There is finally a quick and easy solution to backing up your MediaSmart server’s Operating System.

One big option I thought that Microsoft wrongly omitted from the WHS software is to backup the OS. Yes there is a way to backup your shares, but not the OS. I have looked into options like Acronis Echo Server Backup, but that is expensive and complicated.

I did install Drashna’s System Restore here. Great option BTW. But not exactly what I wanted.

The process below is similar  to doing a Server Recovery on your HP MediaSmart server but instead of writing the HP image found on the Server Recovery Disk, you use an image of your existing setup including all the installed software and add-ins.

You start off by downloading a few small files to the PC you want to copy the WHS OS to, create a folder name for the backup, reset your MediaSmart server without installing any extra software, into Server Recovery mode, then run the small app to begin downloading the image from your server.

Now you have your image, you can then run the other small app to restore the image you created.

If your image is small enough, you can have everything you need on a 8 or 16 gig flash drive. Test on a PC first to check the size of the image.

Follow the link below to get started. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Quick & Easy Windows Home Server Backup and Restore. | 4Hak3rs

Popularity: 14% [?]

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