Summary: My environment is primarily Apple-based but I have 25+ years experience in corporate IT, so I am no stranger to Windows servers. I currently have 1.5TB of data composed of a 300GB photo library, 600GB (and growing) of video and music files to stream to an AppleTV, and 600GB of computer backups and miscellaneous files. A primary requirement of whatever server solution I implemented was its ability to run an iTunes client to stream media to the AppleTV. The device supports a redundancy feature similar to RAID 1 called folder duplication, and this sort of redundancy was another primary requirement of mine. The ability to act as a target of Time Machine backups was a secondary requirement.
Hardware
I have added 3 WD 1.5TB drives to the Seagate 1TB drive that came with the MSS. From the outset, I replaced the supplied 1TB drive with one of the 1.5TB drives before configuring the MSS. The reset and restore process constructs a private network and requires that the MSS be connected directly to the client PC. I first tried to run the reset from a Windows 7 VM running inside VMWare. I configured the VM to use the second NIC in my Mac Pro, operating in bridged mode. This was not successful and the reset process was not able to establish a connection between the client and server. I then installed Windows 7 in a Bootcamp partition, booted natively into Windows, and was able to successfully perform the reset.
I enabled folder duplication for all my shares and eventually the server balances the data in a way that the primary and duplicated data reside on different drive spindles. This seems to work well. Backing up large data volumes to external drives over USB is unacceptably slow, but I am still investigating this.
The CPU supplied with the MSS seems underpowered for the job. It had been running between 80-100% utilization and most ordinary tasks perform sluggishly assuming they complete at all. I replaced the CPU in the MSS with an Intel E6300 (major caveat: good bye warranty). This is a straightforward swap for those who can follow instructions and aren't faint of heart. Performance and responsiveness of the server is substantially improved with the more powerful CPU.
Software
HP supports OS X clients, but only to the extent they must. Unlike a Windows user, my normal connection to the server is a console session via Microsoft's Remote Desktop (RDP). I have spent hours administering corporate servers via this method so I am comfortable with it, but other might want a more controlled experience. Once connected to the server, HP's Windows Home Server Console (WHSC) is the primary administration tool. This is a brittle program and it is very vulnerable to crashing if the server's resource limits are probed.
Windows users get a native application from which they can connect to the console. In my experience, the RDP connection is faster and more reliable. Launching this Windows instance will also terminate any previously running instances of WHSC, as I just discovered. Poof, there goes the backup that I have been running for the past 18 hours.
I was able to install and run iTunes 9.02 on the MSS and the tweaks that must be performed to do this are documented on the web. Alternatively, the 8.2.1 client can be installed without tweaking the install package. Both versions throw errors on startup, but they do eventually run. My AppleTV is connected to and streaming from the iTunes library on the MSS, which solves one of my primary requirements.
Time machine requires that sufficient contiguous space exists on a single drive in the MSS to host the backup. The configuration process carves out a chunk of disk space at creation time to contain this data. Time machine seems to work, but I have yet to perform a bare metal restore. I am not yet sure I want to trust this aspect of my backup plans to the MSS rather than relying on bootable clones maintained on external drives. We'll see.
I am unable to make the media collector work with my Mac clients. Configuring it crashes the WHSC. Enabling this sort of capability is not high on my list, but if it's high on your list and you're using Macs, then keep looking. The media converter works but requires a fair bit of computing horsepower. Enabling the converter and having it run with other processes competing for resource (such as the media server, iTunes, and a server backup) can crash the WHSC.
Remote access works and I am able to browse the server from my iPhone. Configuring this service was fairly painless. My Apple wireless router required manual configuration, but the configuration process was described more than adequately in the WHSC's online help.
Bottom Line
Mac support is thin, but I expected this. As usual, HP's hardware is well designed, physically attractive, and attractively priced. The ease with which I can crash the WHSC has me concerned. Since the console is simply a window into the underlying Windows Home Server environment, it can be bypassed.
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