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It’s finally here – ever since HP announced last year that they would be making their v3.0 MediaSmart Server software available to all owners, I’ve had a steady stream of email (building into a torrent in recent weeks) from readers asking when it’ll be available.
As you’ll have read, the update is now available to order direct from HP. You’ll receive a new set of disks and a set of upgrade instructions helping you through the steps required to upgrade. We were fortunate enough to receive a pre-production upgrade pack at the beginning of the month, so whilst you’re waiting for your disks, let’s run you through what’s required!
Preparation
We’re going to walkthrough the process using the first generation EX475 HP MediaSmart Server. This is the lowest powered MediaSmart Server, shipping with a (mis-guided) 512Mb of memory, and an AMD Sempron 3400 processor. When it comes to using the v3.0 software, the processor is fine, but that memory will need to be upgraded. HP are advising that if you do not upgrade the memory of the EX470 series before updating the software to v3.0, your subsequent home server performance will be poor. Whilst the memory upgrade process is a little fiddly, there are some really good guides online to walk you through the process. Make sure you power up your home server with at least 1GB of memory, and then proceed.
If you’re an EX480 series owner, your machines are fine to run the update without switching out your memory.
For the record, our WGS EX475 test machine had a 2GB upgrade a while ago, and is remains nippy and responsive following the update.
You should not need to backup the data on your home server, but may wish to do so for absolute protection during the update. Do however make sure that you do not have any important data stored on the Windows Home Server system volume as this will be formatted during the update. Your shared folders are safe.
How Does The Update Work?
You’ll spot that HP will ship you a new set of discs for your MediaSmart Server – a Software Installation Disc (which you use to connect home computers to your home server), PC Restore Disc (for restoring a home computer in the event of an issue) and the star of this particular show – the Server Recovery Disc. That’s right, to update your home server, we’re going to do a Server Recovery, which will wipe and replace your Windows Home Server software installation whilst ensuring your the data in your shared folders is untouched.
Our pre-production discs looked like this (yours are likely to be a bit more colourful!)
For the EX470 series:
For the EX480 series:
Things to Bear In Mind Before You Update
Remember that whilst HP have added a lot of new functionality to the MediaSmart Server software over time, they’ve also dropped a couple of features which are detailed below. Also remember that doing a Server Recovery basically creates a fresh installation of Windows Home Server, so that means post-update, you’ll have to set-up your user accounts again, as well as re-install any add-ins you have installed. The add-in files themselves will still be in your Add-ins tab waiting for you – you’ll just have to install them again from within the Windows Home Server Console.
Okay, with regard to what changes when you install the update, the list varies a little based on whether you’re updating the EX470 or EX480 series.
What’s New?
- Second generation Video Converter
Create profiles to match your viewing device
Control how your video is converted - Enhanced Media CollectorFaster collections
Select specific media, locations, computers to collect from - Improved status feedback
- HP Media StreamerStream music, photos, and videos to any Internet connected computer
Requires a web browser and HP MediaSmart Server personal web address - HP Photo Publisher and HP Photo ViewerPublish photos to popular photo sharing sites like Snapfish, Facebook, Flickr™, and Picassa™ Web Albums.
Share photos directly from the HP MediaSmart Server using Photo Viewer and a personal web address - More MacMac Media Collection
Server Administration via Mac
Faster Mac image level backup and recovery - Improved user interfaceNew look & feel
Improved user flows
Feature overview pages in the Windows Home Server Console
Web based home page – access your media from home (local network) or away (via web) using a single easy to navigate web based user interface.
New more intuitive console – set up, configure, check status from the new server administrator console page
TwonkyMedia Server is an integrated part of the HP MediaSmart Server v.3 software. - Compatible with the HP MediaSmart Server iStream ApplicationFree download from the iTunes App Store
Securely stream music, photos, and videos from your server to an iPhone or iPod touch
So, lot of great new features, but there’s a small cost. A few features will also be removed:
- The HP MediaSmart Server Control Center is replaced by the web-based HP MediaSmart Server Home Page.
- Settings for iTunes on the Tools tab of the HP MediaSmart Server – Control Center will go away and it is replaced by the HP Media Collector. The HP Media Collector can be set up to scan network computers for music, photos, and videos and copy them to your server.
- HP Photo Webshare will go away and it is replaced with HP Photo Publisher and HP Photo Viewer. Photos in your Webshare albums will be copied to your Photos shared folder during the upgrade. See above for more information on Photo Publisher.
- If you had the HP MediaSmart Server Mac software, it will need to be uninstalled. The new HP MediaSmart Server v.3 Mac software should be installed in its place.
- If you installed the Server Online Backup add-in, it will be removed from your server during the HP MediaSmart Server v.3 upgrade. You will need to download and install the newer Server Online Backup add-in after the upgrade. It is a free download. The new Server Online Backup add-in will continue to work with your existing Amazon S3 account.
Still up for upgrading? Right, let’s get started!
27. March 2010 at 6:37 pm
I got the update installed… I, too, was having the high CPU load issue caused by Twonky. I killed it so I could finish getting everything else setup in the meantime. The new software is pretty snappy without Twonky running (I'm offloading all my media files in the meantime, hoping the Twonky issue is caused by a high amount of indexing… We'll see.
The problem I'm having now is that I can not get Remote Access to work — it keep failing saying it can't verify itself locally… Yet, I can access the server in everyway locally… Remote desktop, network shares, even via IE… It says the failure is being caused by a web server or firewall issue. I've turned off all my firewall (both locally and on the server), set my router up to let the server through via DMZ… Nothing.
Any one have a idea what could be wrong? I would hate to have to do another server recovery to try and fix the issue…
29. March 2010 at 12:56 am
I had the same issue. Then I added a user account (I forgot that the reset wiped 'em all out) and ran it again and remote access is working. However, I am unable to use the HP Photo Viewer. The Photo Publisher seems to be okay, but I'd like to use the built in Photo Viewer rather than upload all my photos to the 'net.
29. March 2010 at 1:00 am
I should add that my Photo Viewer page returns the following error: Error Message: Could not find a part of the path 'D:folders{6F8B59FA-07A0-46D2-B10C-034EA1B39AB0}PhotoViewerindex.xml'.
30. March 2010 at 2:36 am
In case anyone else was having this issue, you can find a solution here: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic….
27. March 2010 at 7:27 pm
Just got my Updgade disks and found that they are mislabled. The "Server Recovery Disk" actaully had the PC recovery software on it. The "PC Recovery Disk" has the server recovery software on it. So be aware that you may need to use the other disk to install the new OS.
27. March 2010 at 7:35 pm
My disks showed up 2 days ago. I just got around to attempting the upgrade this morning, and I have a couple of things that I'd share. I have an EX470 upgraded to 2gb ram, and am running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate on the machine that I'm attempting to run the upgrade from:
27. March 2010 at 7:36 pm
1.) My disks were also mis-labed. The PC Restore disk had the WHSRecovery.exe.
2.) On Windows 7 x64, the WHSRecovery.exe would crash after the first couple of screens
3.) I copied the contents of the entire PC Restore DVD (which was actually the Server Recovery contents, including the WHSRecovery.exe) to my computer. Before I copied the files to my machine, and tried to change the compatibilty on the CD files, the EULA wasn't showing up in the first screen.
4.) On the newly copied files on my computer, I right-clicked on WHSRecovery.exe, and chose "Troubleshoot Compatibility". I chose "Troubleshoot Program", and clicked next. I checked both "The program worked in earlier versions of Windows…" and "The program requires additional permissions", and clicked Next. In the next window, I chose "Windows Vista", and clicked next. I clicked "Start Program",and now it upgraded fine.
29. March 2010 at 3:20 pm
I was about to give up and in fact did because all 4 PC's at my house are running Win7 64x and i spent a entire night of misery trying to do the install .. but i may have to try this
28. March 2010 at 6:41 am
I'm having trouble with the online backup option. As the article described, the online backup add-in was removed during server recovery. However, I can't find a 'new' version to install. The only online backup add in I can find on hp.com is dated 4/2009. I tried downloading and installing that version, but the install fails because it's not the mediasmart server version that the add in expects.
Anyone have a link to the current version of the online backup add in for v 3.0?
2. April 2010 at 12:56 pm
I can't find the new version anywhere. I did hear that HP are no longer supporting it in v3.0 despite the upgrade instructions stating "If you installed the Server Online Backup add-in, it will be removed from your server during the HP MediaSmart Server v.3 upgrade. You will need to download and install the newer Server Online Backup add-in after the upgrade."
About par for HP. Really not impressed. Looks like I may have to try Cloudberry…
28. March 2010 at 6:28 pm
Got my discs, and was worried about the mislabeling issue, but my server recover labeled disc was in fact the server recovery disc… So I think I am okay there…
Many thanks to those reporting that the upgrade had issues on a Win7 64-bit client… I decided to launch the upgrade from an older 32-bit XP Pro client just to be safe…
Instead of following the directions and holding down the power button for 4-seconds to force a shutdown, I went into RDC and shut the server down gracefully…
I am about13 minutes into the upgrade right now (so I guess it isn't going to be the swift 10 minute upgrade that WGS experienced… I am crossing my fingers as I type this!!!
28. March 2010 at 7:08 pm
Update: Active DVD ROM update took 50 minutes… This does not include any of the post-installation set up and configuration of user accounts and add-ins…
29. March 2010 at 12:47 am
I had several problems with my upgrade.
- I received the mislabeled disks as many others have also – server recovery disk was really the PC restore disk and vice versa
- the server recovery process wouldn't run properly from my Win7 (32bit) laptop. It discovered the server, but then failed to write the files to the server. I switched to an old XP machine and it ran smoothly after that (but took about 2 hours). In retrospect, I had my laptop on a wireless LAN and should have put it on the wired network (100M full duplex) for better performance.
- the client software would not install properly on my XP machine. After the server upgrade completed, the client software attempted to automatically install itself on my PC but failed to get past 0% progress. I switched back to my Win7 PC and used the Software Installation Disk with the client software to install the Connector. Interestingly enough, it seemed like it didn't use the software on the CD but instead downloaded it from the server. I haven't had a chance to troubleshoot the XP machine yet.
- now the biggest problem – my backup database was corrupted during the upgrade process and I lost all my backups. (All other data was OK). I ran the database recovery wizard immediately, and it warned me after it started that it would take several hours. It would have been nice if it warned me about this beforehand, so I could schedule it to run overnight. This failed to recover the backups though. which is disappointing, as I had a few old PC's that had been thrown away and wanted to keep their backups. Also had a "gold" backup of a PC where I backed it up after freshly installing the OS and a few apps and I didn't want to lose that.
So after these problems, I'm very disappointed so far with the quality of the HP software. I'm hoping that the features make it worth it to have gone through this.
29. March 2010 at 5:26 pm
I was able to reconfigure everything… The server was extremely slow at first… I don't know why everything is turned on by default… I went in and disabled the Twonky server, as well as some other background process intense programs, and will enable them one at a time as needed…
Also, I was able to install the client on my Win7 machines…but for some reason, I am having a very, very difficult time installing the connector on my XPPro machine… When I try and install, my keyboard and mouse stop working intermittently… And I know it is somehow tied to the installation process because when I am able to kill the installation, everything goes back to normal… Weird…
30. March 2010 at 6:06 pm
I just finished my upgrade and my discs were mislabeled as well. What kills me is there was quite a bit of data from my share folders that were missing after my upgrade so for anyone upgrading, make sure you back up your data before upgrading.
Here's something even more bizarre: I had all my music in the shared music folder organized into different sub folders like: 2004 English Songs, 2004 Chinese Songs, 2005 English Songs, 2005 Chinese Songs.. etc. and sub folders of the song groups after that. For some reason, after my upgrade, ALL my 200x Chinese Songs folders disappeared!! I still have chinese songs in a folder labeled 2009 Frank's Music so it has nothing to do with the unicode or labeling. Just all gone.. sigh
Also in my Video shared folder, I was randomly missing movie files (like the sub folder would be there but it would be empty).
I wish there were some way to recover my missing files but I have run out of ideas. If anyone can think of something it would be much appreciated..
1. April 2010 at 7:12 pm
Turn off your server and pull your drives out 1 at a time and hook them up to your pc through a usb or however you can. Turn on hidden folders on your computer and look through your drive. They MAy still be there. I did a factory reset after many fialed restores and found my files this way.
8. April 2010 at 3:59 pm
Wow, after reading about lost files, and the many other problems that people are having due to the upgrade, yet again all I can say is: "Thanks for going first." I'm fine with it's performance now, so I'll continue to wait to upgrade. While I have a 470 and really like it, I wouldn't buy an HP Mediasmart server again, I can honestly tell you that. I'd build my own WHS or find an alternative. Let this be a lesson to anyone who is thinking of purchasing one of these things. Just read through these threads and do some thinking before you drop $$$ coin on one of these things. HP doesn't seem to have its act together, or be that concerned about quality.
11. April 2010 at 11:04 am
Just upgraded mine last night, with some shaking nerves I must admit! Order my CD's (Sweden), got them in the mail less than a week later. No mis-labeling issue! No data-loss! No corrupted folder structures! All seems to be just fine!!!
Just thought I wanted to post a POSITIVE response here as well!
19. April 2010 at 8:26 am
I also got my CDs very fast. Buu i cant get it to work. It seems that the first part of installation work but when server should restart it hanging and client lost connection. Testet with XP and Vista client, with original system disk and with a new one.
Can there be some problem with IP number?
Very greatful if someone can give me some hint on what to do!
23. April 2010 at 5:33 pm
I just upgraded my WHS and now when I perform a remote desktop session I cannot install anything directly on the box as I receive an error saying that WindowsHomeServer cannot access the path specified. I am logged in as administrator and in the past was able install JRiver MediaCenter to use as my MP3 library streamer. Are we no longer able to install things on the server?
23. April 2010 at 8:10 pm
My 3.0 upgrade process has been a general nightmare. It would get mostly through the upgrade process (full green bar) and never return finish. After 3-4 hours on the phone with HP tech support do all usual stupid pointless stuff (like turning of virus scanning), they said the WD Caviar Green extra HD I put in was the problem- the server doesn’t support that drive. Ok, sure- unlikely, but ok.
So I pulled the 2nd drive out and tried again. Same thing. Now they said- do a factory reset install. Ok- same thing. I ran seatools on the drive and it failed. HP said they’d send a new one .. in a couple weeks. I decided to just go get a new drive and try it- they said fine, use any drive but the Caviar Green. I bought a 1Tb Hitachi. This time the OS install worked, but the connector software couldn’t find the server. The Health LED was still white, indicating it was in recovery mode still. Tech support said .. get this .. that Hitachi drives don’t work with the server either! How’s that for a pile of BS.
So – tried with their gold standard drive – Seagate. Same thing. Health LED never changes from White to Blue. Waiting to hear back from them on this one.
Now, I will say that 4 out of 5 of the techs I talked to were knowledgeable and friendly. One was a jerk that wanted to get me off the phone. So .. guess we’ll see if I ever get 3.0 installed .. or if I go get a Drobo..
26. April 2010 at 4:44 pm
I decided to upgrade my EX470 — already has 1.5GB of RAM. After reading the comments, I used my 32-bit Windows 7 machine, but have now switched to using my 64-bit Windows 7 main machine with the same results.
My server originally shipped with 2x500GB Seagate drives. Over the last two years, I've since upgraded all but the system drive with 1.5TB Seagate drives. Everything worked fine.
I decided to do a clean install and replace the 500GB Seagate drive with a 1.5TB WD Green drive on sale at Fry's for $89. Bad idea — the "advanced format" WD drives are incompatible with Windows2003 (what WHS is based upon). This is not a problem, as I can swap this drive for a 1.5TB Seagate data drive in my main computer. But for now, I figured I'd just do the clean install with the tree 1.5TB Seagate drives. So I took the 4th WHS data drives and put it into the system drive position. So the 4th slot is now empty and the server had three 1.5TB Seagate drives.
My installation experience is the same: the install finds the server and appears to go fine (taes about 10 minutes on either 32-bit Vista or 64-bit Windows 7), but when the second window appears where it's "looking for the server", it never finds it. I tried entering HPSTORAGE, HPSERVER without success. If I ping the server's IP (192.168.1.102), it says that it's MININT-88AD384 (this changes). Go figure! But entering that name doesn't help either.
I should add that the drive lights are off. I would think that this would indicate that the drives aren't working, but when I put the original, unchanged 500GB drive back into the bottom slot and rebooted, the server came up fine. The drives didn't light up for a long time, but I do believe that they are fine.
Also, the red light is on the front of the server, and the blue light is flashing. I never get to a flashing white light. So I don't know if the software actually installed anything or not although it appears to have gone through the motions.
One thing I wonder about: with this "server recovery", I assume that it's installing a new copy of WHS. Where is the license for this — or is this tied to the hardware, so no license key is required because it's going onto an HP EX470?
I have now copied the (mislabeled) server recovery disk to my hard drive, and I'm gong to try the install again after telling Windows 7 to pretend it's Vista (as described in another post above). I figure that it'll save wear and tear on my DVD drive as I repeatedly try to get this #*!^$@ thing to work.
26. April 2010 at 4:52 pm
One question — should the drive lights be on during the "rebuilding server" installation step? Mine are not on but the "Please wait… (this may take up to 60 minutes.) seems to go ok.
27. April 2010 at 8:48 pm
After two on-and-off days of trying, I finally got the v3 software installed. The solution was simple: I had a E-SATA drive attached to the server that I had forgotten about. I unplugged it, and for good measure, yanked the 500GB original main drive (I had settled on a complete factory reset) and replaced it with one of the 1.5TB data drives.
I then went for broke and restarted the upgrade from my 64-bit Windows-7 Ultimate machine where I had copied the "server recovery" DVD to the hard drive. I had previously set the "run as adminstrator option on WHSRecovery.exe and also set it to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 3). Not sure either of those is required. I then goosed the server back into recovery mode with the paper clip.
This time the upgrade ran like a champ. No glitches at all. The drive lights came on after the first automated reboot and stayed on.
For the record, I found the info about disconnecting any external drives here:
http://www.mediasmarthome.com/article/10014/How-T...
So now there are 3×1.5TB drives in the server. I have two 1.5TB Seagate drives in my main Windows7/64 machine, so I'll swap one of those with the WD "advanced format" drive and add it to the WHS drive pool.
27. April 2010 at 9:46 pm
Just in case someone didn't drill down into my previous posting — if you're having trouble with the WHS re-install, be sure that no USB or E-SATA devices are connected before reinstalling. If I'd known that, I could have saved two on-and-off days of screwing around with it.
27. April 2010 at 11:18 pm
I'm somewhat confused… I thought I ordered the EX470 disks but have received the EX48X series disks… is this correct?
29. April 2010 at 4:00 am
My mis-labeled disks do each say "HP EX470" series. Specifically, the server recovery disk says:
HP MediaSmart Server with
Microsoft Windows Home Server
Server Recovery Disk
Version 3.0 Upgrade with Patch 1
HP EX470 Series
27. April 2010 at 9:46 pm
Just in case someone didn't drill down into my previous posting — if you're having trouble with the WHS re-install, be sure that no USB or E-SATA devices are connected before reinstalling. If I'd known that, I could have saved two on-and-off days of screwing around with it.
10. May 2010 at 9:20 pm
My 3.0 software installed in about one hour on a 475 / 2Gb. HOWEVER the database was corrupted and the subsequent database repair could not recover any of my PC backups. Subsequently performing an immediate manual backup of each computer worked but I still lost two old computer backups. The data (photos, video etc) was okay.
18. July 2010 at 1:39 am
Has anyone reported/had any problems performing the upgrade on their EX475? Performed the System Restore using the 3.0 disc successfully but when at the end of the process the WHS connector setup cannot find the server. Lights on front of unit?: network periodically goes out… status light goes from blinking blue to alternating blue & red several times then repeats the process. Appears to me it’s in a reboot loop. Anyone got any ideas? BTW, I have performed the restore twice.