Upgrade to WHS 2011, talk about some time consuming work.

[PAPutzback]

There is not an upgrade option for WHS 2011, from what I have read the option is not possible due to the fact that the OS is 64 bit. I think they just did not want to mess with all the drive pooling obstacles.

So I had to go to Fry’s and rent a 3tb Hitachi drive over the weekend to move files off. Once that was filled I started using every drive and system with space on it for the rest. When I left this morning I was down to moving my last 100 some gig of movies to the server. 

The interface is not as intuitive as the old WHS as far as setting up the shares and because I have so many movies I had to create a Movies1, Movies2, TVSeries and FitnessVideo shares on 3 different drives.

Then I had to create a new  MyMovies database on my HTPC and monitor all the new shares, redirect the media libraries and I am about done. For some reason the HTPC still sees the music at the old location and is broke. I have run into that before and I think there is a wmp database that needs to be deleted.

I have it runing on a 2+ghz tricore with 4 gig of memory and it is a little sluggish when remoting in to the desktop but the remote web access works great. I tried out the streaming with a recorded tv show I had and it worked fine. I had set the quality to medium and will give high a shot tonight.

Now I am debating whether or not to return the Hitachi drive. 

[skirge01]

I’m not looking forward to my WHS “upgrade” for the same reason (lots of data to move).  However, my upgrade will be to move away from WHS entirely and I’ll happily spend the time to do so.

[umdivx]

to fix the data base go to: C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataMicrosoftMedia Index

Delete the “wmplibrary….db” file here

Restart your pc, then go ahead and rebuild your library.

Just a side not with WHS 2011 and if you are running Windows 7 you can use your homegroup now to share music, videos, photos, ect…

So basically great a home group “movies” folder on your WHS 2011 box. That home group movies folder will point to all your different drives and make it look like a single folder share.

Then add your HTPC to your WHS 2001 home group and you won’t have to manually add the folder shares.

-Josh

[PAPutzback]

I wasn’t sure what the differences were between homegroup and libraries and I disabled it a long time ago. And I was surprised that when WHS installed it recommened libraries even though homegroup was in the list of options. 

I don’t know if I can switch to a homegroup setup now that I have the WHS installed. 

Thanks for the media index path. I’ll delete that when I get home. For some reason I can’t remote in because I don’t have the latest activeX remote libraries installed and when I try to install them I get an error that the windows installer is not running. I checked and it is so it might be a group policy thing here at my work.

 

[mcewinter]

I’m in the same boat. I’ve been transferring files for over a week and resorted to the same format…movies 1…movies 2…movies 3. It is laborous and time consuming and I’m looking forward to watching movies from my collection again…after I rebuild my libraries. I foresee consuming a few more days before being at the set it and forget stage, I’ve only managed to transfer files and haven’t even tweeked anything yet.

I do feel confident in the cut over to WHS 2011 all in all though.

[RehabMan]

I see most people with large movie libraries (larger than a single hard disk) are resorting to multiple shares.  I thought I’d share my (untested) plan…

I think what might work instead is to store the movies on the separate drives (no choice there), but then create a single share with symlinks to the individual movie folders.  For example, say you have four movies on 3 different drives, e:MoviesMovie1, f:MoviesMovie2, f:MoviesMovie3, g:MoviesMovie4.  You would then create a single share on d:Movies, with the following symlinks, d:MoviesMovie1 -> e:MoviesMovie1, d:MoviesMovie2 -> f:MoviesMovie2, d:MoviesMovie3 -> f:MoviesMovie3, d:MoviesMovie4 -> g:MoviesMovie4.

Then the d:Movies folder is shared out as a single share \ServerMovies (I plan to use the same computer name for my WHS 2011 server, which will mean I will not have to change anything in the MyMovies database).

Initially, I’ll create/maintain the symlink redirecting folder with a simple Powershell script, but may investigate writing a custom service that monitors the destination folders and adds/removes symlinks as necessary to keep everything in sync.

At this point, it is only an idea/plan, as I have not yet built my new WHS 2011 server.  I’m going to use some parts (Core i3 + 1156 motherboard) from my HTPC as I plan to upgrade it to SandyBridge when I’m able to find the appropriate Intel motherboard for sale.  The Intel “media” boards w/ integrated video seem to be in short supply at this point.

// Dean

[mcewinter]

I think I’ve come to grips and decided to just keep it simple.  I truly miss DE but I’m just going to cope with it, anything else makes me nervous. 

I’d be willing to entertain a third party should one arise that simply alphabetized my collection and cut and pasted accordingly accross x amount of drives.  This might be handy before house cleaning at least.

Btw: Guess what I’m doing right now?  I’m cutting and pasting my movie collection in alphabetical order which I realize is a moot point but I couldn’t think of a better starting point.

[umdivx]

If you are running my movies or any other movie collection management then you really don’t need to care what drive, folder, location your movies are in. My Movies takes care of that. It is if you don’t use a movie collection management tool is where you’d then have to worry about where stuff is.

But with home group you again don’t need to care where your stuff is. Home Group in WHS 2011 when paired with windows 7 you can have a bunch of folders all on different drives and still make it look like a single shared folder.

-Josh

[RehabMan]

Home Group helps (in the Win7 shell), but I find the My Movies scanner usually screws something up if you leave it to autoscan — I seem to always end up with duplicate titles in the database and other oddities.  As a result, I turn it off, and maintain the titles myself.

[mcewinter]

Is anybody using any antivirus on WHS 2011? If so then what? I’m having a deja-vu moment, seems like I’ve been here before.

[PAPutzback]

[quote=RehabMan]

Home Group helps (in the Win7 shell), but I find the My Movies scanner usually screws something up if you leave it to autoscan — I seem to always end up with duplicate titles in the database and other oddities.  As a result, I turn it off, and maintain the titles myself.

[/quote]

I never had trouble with MM until the latest version 3.19 4 maybe… When I rebuilt my WHS I let it monitor all my movies folders and then disabled it. Then I went through and deleted all the dupes. And I manually add my TV series and other box sets since I can’t find definitive instructions on how to set that up when you have ripped DVD into Video_ts folders and not individual episodes ripped into a structure like TVSeriesFriendsS1E1.

 

 

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