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It's really amazing. I just fired up my old HP MediaSmart EX490 server (which was in fully working condition, just no longer in active duty). Then I went to \\HPMEDIASMART\Software\Home Server Connector Software folder. Installed the WHS Connector software. After a brief "Hey, you need .net framework "-installation", the client was installed., It detected my HP MediaSmart server right away and asked if it should back up the PC. I then went to the WHS Server Console, selected the PC and clicked "Backup now". And it worked! My PC is now backed up. The server is based on Windows Server 2003 and it can still back up an almost brand new Windows 10, 1909, 64-bit PC without any complaints at all. I think it is amazing.

Hi, posting other files than images is not possible in this forum. Therefore I have posted them at thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4578946 Thanks again for sharing.

Lycom DT-130 has arrived, wish me luck.

Ok, I've just completed some testing and for the benefit of others will share my findings: E2246G 64GB RAM 2 x Samsung SATA SSDs (500GB & 1TB) 2 x WD 6TB SATA HDDs HP TPM iLO Enablement HP NC365T (Quad-Port NIC) Whilst running 14 VMs, running the install of another VM, Robocopy to a NAS and viewing the video feed from 4 HD cameras hosted on one of the VMs the highest I have seen the server hit is 122.5w Under my 'normal' circumstances of 7 VMs running, the highest its hitting is 79.7w, but is generally hovering around the 70w mark. With this in mind I'm going to go ahead and order the Lycom DT-130 to install two additional NVMes (in lieu of the NC365T).

Grab a copy of memtest boot CD/USB and run that, should stress the system enough to point you in a direction.

Ha ha You do look a little sophisticated when I look at your tag line (N45L, a T20, virtualbox...) But thanks for your reply! Keep the farm going strong!

I switched to a wifi6 mesh network with wired backhaul and have been very satisfied. Fast and consistant wireless throughout the house and i still have a wired connection available in my home office on the 2nd floor to the router in my basement I went with TPLink Deco AX3600, the ASUS units you mentionrd also look very good

All credit to schoondoggy for his original idea. A shame I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic to order an SDM kit as the import duties make it an expensive option, or would have if they were still available. I had to look around to see what alternatives I could find... and managed to find the bits needed on Amazon! I must admit I am rather pleased with the end result of this project and may repeat it on the other Gen8 MicroServer. The outcome is a server with a mirrored system drive on the internal B120i, and the main drive bays connected to an HP P222 card providing a RAID-10 data volume. This is pretty much my ideal setup for a stable resilient but small server. Sabrent 3.5" to x2 SSD Internal Mounting Kit (BK-HDCC) Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/32qEVou Amazon US - https://amzn.to/3h8Blom The kit comes with all the cabling you need and all the required screws to mount the drives and bracket. Two types of power splitter cables are included along with two SATA cables. The bracket holds two SSDs and provides a small gap between them. I mounted the bracket next to the PSU but leaving a 2-3mm gap to allow for some airflow past the SSDs in case they get warmed by the P222. Tips: Put some insulating tape along the underneath of the upper chassis rail next to the PSU and drilled three small holes. I used two strips on to stop the drill bit from walking across the metal. Drill with a 2mm first then a 2.5mm bit. This leaves enough metal for screws to thread in. Check and measure each hole against the bracket as you go so that they line up. Bracket is then fixed in place using the provided screws (see photo). The final part of the puzzle is another Mini-SAS to SATA cable the same as the one connected to the internal drive bays. This is an SFF-8087 Mini-SAS [male] connector to 4 SATA [female] header cables. The 50cm cable from Jyopto works great and not too much spare to lose within the system. Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/2CXAzgb I could not find it on Amazon US site but there was one from CableCreations that same length. Just need to add your choice of SSDs and cable up to B120i port. I went with Samsung 860 Pro SSDs for the longer rated lifespan of write cycles. I decided to forget about an internal DVD/RW drive and opted for an external HP F2B56AA slimline drive that can be plugged into the USB of either system. Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/2EgSSxD Amazon US - https://amzn.to/326uFmL Sabrent also make a really good quality 2.5" to 3.5" bay converter adapter (BK-PCBS) that I have used in the EX490/X510 to convert from HDD to SSD system drives. Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/3jbYBmT Amazon US - https://amzn.to/335kXQz Hopefully this information will prove useful to some looking to update their MicroServer.

Very creative! Your cabling is much neater than any of mine! Well done!

So if it helps anyone else, these are the updates that I uninstalled. Finally, I can delete/ignore the alerts on the Health Monitoring tab again. Very happy. Thank you Jason! KB4054566 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/4054566 Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 for Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 KB4054854 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/4054854 .NET Framework 4.7.1 Update for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows RT 8.1 (KB4054854) KB4033369 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/4033369 The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.1 for Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 KB3186539 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3186539 The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7 for Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 KB3102467 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3102467 The .NET Framework 4.6.1 for Windows Server 2012 R2 on Windows Update

Just thought that perhaps some photos of the bracket and cables I used might be useful to see alongside the finished item!

WD's '5400 RPM-Class' Drives Don't Necessarily Spin at That Speed https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-5400rpm-drive-speed-examined if it quacks like a duck, the it must be duck like😂 what sort of outfit are they running. its not like heat and noise are important to users

MS Gen8 only supports 8GB UDIMMS

7 VMs running 24x7 and the Samsung drives are operating around 50/51c which I'm happy with, will get some power usage stats tomorrow.

They even show nicely in HPE Smart Storage Administrator:

Yes they probably would, I'd however say that they probably aren't necessary. Its the chip on the card itself that gets really hot, the only reason my two have heatsinks is because they came out of a compact HP EliteDesk PC which was having issues with the drives overheating and I see no reason to take them off now.

No, it will boot from either slot. When I put the drives in one of them actually had my wife's Windows 10 build on it and it booted straight up into that. I've since changed position of the cards as I want the 250GB in port 0, boots fine.

what does disk management in Windows 10 show? you may need to initialize and assign drive letters in Windows.

The one i have just finished is for DVD Tray Needs felting up

There are readme files in the firmware zip with instructions for firmware update through the HBA: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/21686/RAID-Expander-RES2SV240-RES2CV240-RES2CV360-Firmware?product=49596

1. Back up all of your data before you do anything. 2. Theoretically everything you have listed above should work. You will need to expirement to confirm the expander works with your HBA. I would test it with drives that do not have data on them before migrating drives with data. 3. You may need to plug the Expander into a PCIe slot to update the firmware: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/motherboards/server/sb/e93121003_res2sv240_hwug.pdf

Better, no, I've got one about a foot away and the other, probs about 20 foot, I doubt they'd do 100..

Nope. I don’t think it’s supported.

It sounds like you are running FreeNAS? You would need to look at USB disk storage compatibility with FreeNAS. As to the four drive USB unit from the link above: 'Plug-and-Play and Hot-Swap compatibility with no additional drivers required on Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10, Mac OS X 10.6 or above; NOT for Linux.'

3.5" drives will not fit on the side as they are too thick. If capacity is the main issue, yes removing the bracket and running another external four drives would be a good idea. You can only run one drive on the DVD SATA port. It looks like you have a HDD attached now. I do not think a 15mm 2.5' drive will fit in the ODD bay. it is too thick. Also keep in mind the 5TB 2.5" drives performance is not great.

Oh these are old, it's under my stairs now, but this is the setup I'm using with the external pool:

The Rev3 bracket support up to four 2.5" 9.5mm drives using stackers. The largest capacity 2.5" 9.5mm drives are 2TB. Instead of four 9.5mm drives you could mount two 15mm 2.5" drives. The largest capacity 15mm 2.5" drive is 5TB. I assume you have some type of SATA or SAS card running the extra drives? It is common to use an add in card with four internal and four external drive ports. This would give you nine internal drives and four external. There are threads on external storage, SansDigital and SilverStone both make four drive external units.

Oh, thanks, that guide is great. I also found your other thread in the meantime, where you mentioned your build with 64GB. According to the article, there are no practical limits with with this system in terms of capacity, however the biggest problem is the power consumption due to the limited power supply. The one confusing thing in specs is that the average power consumption on the leaflet is usually lower than average power consumption for larger QD workloads, and much lower than peak power spikes during startup. Anyway, helium drives seem to be mostly rated at ~6.5W average, ~10W max in leaflets. Does anyone perhaps have experience with placing 4 large capacity 7200RPM HDDs in Gen10 plus? E.g. WD Ultrastar 16TB or Seagate Exos 16TB?

Ah. Had this same issue with WS202 R2. It is caused by updating the .NET version from the default 4.5 version that installs with the OS. I was able to simply rollback the server to the original version and not update it to latest future versions like 4.8, etc and everything is fine. Unfortunately the Dashboard simply isn’t compatible with the newer versions of .NET. The result is crashing Dashboard and hung up statuses as you’ve seen.