WHS Trial Woes

[kevine]

Well, I have WHS working and I love it. I have all my PCs backed up. Music, photos, docs and home video duplication is on. Was all ready to get another drive to turn on duplication for DVDs and found out I have to reinstall WHS again! Why? Because $%&#!* Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decided a trial cannot be converted to a licensed copy. No, that would be too easy. You must reinstall. Sage and the HDHR installs were easy. I had no problems with them. It is the drivers for my MB and other tuner cards that made it a PITA. And also converting my D to 64k clusters was also troublesome but good instructions here. This worked flawlessly. Thank you, Skacey!

There is light at the end of this tunnel though. WHS does allow you to keep your drive pool. Thank goodness for small favors because this took the longest as you might suspect with 2.5 TB of data. Plus there are a few things I can now contemplate:

1. I installed 32-bit first time around but am considering 64-bit. Pros/Cons?
2. If I am reinstalling the OS, considering a quad core since you can't just replace that and keep your OS. I do transcoding to 4 MVPs, auto conversions and comskip. Q6600 was my first choice but would be considering 1333 fsb provided the chip overclocked well.
3. Move to larger case to fit all of these drives! I have 1 sitting around with a P4 in it doing nothing.

Any suggestions?

Also, has anyone done this reinstall while keeping the drive pool? I am concerned the my boot drive (250 GB) left over 64k cluster conversion will not be possible with this type of install.

My current config is updated in my sig.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by kevine

1. I installed 32-bit first time around but am considering 64-bit. Pros/Cons?
2. If I am reinstalling the OS, considering a quad core since you can't just replace that and keep your OS. I do transcoding to 4 MVPs, auto conversions and comskip. Q6600 was my first choice but would be considering 1333 fsb provided the chip overclocked well.
3. Move to larger case to fit all of these drives! I have 1 sitting around with a P4 in it doing nothing.

Any suggestions?

Also, has anyone done this reinstall while keeping the drive pool? I am concerned the my boot drive (250 GB) left over 64k cluster conversion will not be possible with this type of install.

My current config is updated in my sig.

1. 64bit what? WHS is a 32bit OS so you have no choice there.
2. For all the transcoding, conversions and comskip and if these are all being done on the server than the fastest quad core I could afford would be my choice.
3. The more drives you have the more area you would like to have inside the case so that all the hot air can circulate and help keep the components cool. The other option is to keep the drives inside the case to a minimum and use an eSata connection to an external drive enclosure.

After you are done with a reinstall you are in the same state as you were when you did you original boot drive install. You can format your left over partition to 64k just like you originally did.

Gerry

[kevine]

Originally Posted by gplasky

1. 64bit what? WHS is a 32bit OS so you have no choice there.

Silly me. That's all I can say.

Originally Posted by gplasky

The other option is to keep the drives inside the case to a minimum and use an eSata connection to an external drive enclosure.

I have seen these drives with a single eSATA connection. Is that not a bottleneck? I have also seen the enclosures with an eSATA connection per drive as well.

Originally Posted by gplasky

After you are done with a reinstall you are in the same state as you were when you did you original boot drive install. You can format your left over partition to 64k just like you originally did.

Thank you.