HP mediasmart hardware

[rcrh]

I have an old HP mediasmart server that used to run Windows Home Server.  It seems to meet the requirements of unRAID but I don't know if it can be configured to boot from a USB drive.  So, I'm wondering if anyone in this community has tried (and hopefully succeeded) installing unRAID on this hardware.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Johnm]

I have an old HP mediasmart server that used to run Windows Home Server.  It seems to meet the requirements of unRAID but I don't know if it can be configured to boot from a USB drive.  So, I'm wondering if anyone in this community has tried (and hopefully succeeded) installing unRAID on this hardware.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Thats a very good question and i have wondered about that myself.

I know a few people with the older MSS units that are unused.

 

I believe they MSS boots from usb if it is in the top rear USB port.

the motherboards are proprietary, but they have Intel 775 chips in many of them (some are upgradeable). some can support 2GB (or more?)  of ram.

 

A good place to ask would be over at www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/

You could try booting the free version of unraid  if you can get it to boot usb.

 

the hardest part is that they are headless and you cant see any errors without a breakout cable..

 

[rcrh]

 

Thats a very good question and i have wondered about that myself.

I know a few people with the older MSS units that are unused.

 

I believe they MSS boots from usb if it is in the top rear USB port.

the motherboards are proprietary, but they have Intel 775 chips in many of them (some are upgradeable). some can support 2GB (or more?)  of ram.

 

A good place to ask would be over at www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/

You could try booting the free version of unraid  if you can get it to boot usb.

 

the hardest part is that they are headless and you cant see any errors without a breakout cable..

 

I've poked around on that site and didn't find anything.  Mostly discussions of people abandoning their hardware and starting over.

 

I may take an afternoon and try that before I toss it in the bin.

 

Thanks.

[Johnm]

It is still usable hardware in my opinion.

 

I would post your question there.

some of the mods on that site are very knowledgeable on the hardware and its limits and installing other stuff on them.

i believe that some of the people on that forum used to work for the MSS division of HP.

 

[rcrh]

OK, I'm going to give this a try since it doesn't seem that I can do any harm.  One more question though; I've downloaded the current release candidate of v5.x and need to know if there will be an upgrade path to the full version when it's finalized.  Or, should I start with the 4.7 version?

 

Thanks yet again.

[dikkiedirk]

I still have an EX490 that is my first unraid experience. Just put an unraid stick, that I prepared on my laptop, in one of the USB-ports on the back and it booted without a problem. Never changed a BIOS-setting. Even 3 TB drives worked, and the eSATA-port too. I had a Sans Digital TR5M on it and all five drives worked as data and cache drives.

 

The server was upgraded with an E5800 CPU and 4 GB DDR2.

[rcrh]

I still have an EX490 that is my first unraid experience. Just put an unraid stick, that I prepared on my laptop, in one of the USB-ports on the back and it booted without a problem. Never changed a BIOS-setting. Even 3 TB drives worked, and the eSATA-port too. I had a Sans Digital TR5M on it and all five drives worked as data and cache drives.

 

The server was upgraded with an E5800 CPU and 4 GB DDR2.

 

Oh, this makes my heart beat faster!!!!  This is almost exactly my situation (except I have an ex470 that I've upgraded the RAM in).  I even have the same eSATA chassis.

 

I'm part way through this little experiment and am hitting one problem so far.  Only drives in the first and third bays are being recognized.  I've opened the case, checked the connections to the backplane; removed the backplane and reseatted it and still have the same problem. 

 

I'm now rebuilding my USB with version 4.7.  I'm hoping the problem was with the RC version of 5.x that I was using.

 

It would be to give this old hardware new life!

 

Richard

[rcrh]

... I'm now rebuilding my USB with version 4.7.  I'm hoping the problem was with the RC version of 5.x that I was using.

 

 

Moving to version 4.7 made no difference.  I'm off to the Mediasmart forums to see if I can find any info.

[dikkiedirk]

Were all drives detected in WHS? Does the EX470 also have an Intel processor? Or is it AMD based. As far as I know the four internal SATA-ports on my machine are four channels on the ICH8 chip.

[rcrh]

Were all drives detected in WHS? Does the EX470 also have an Intel processor? Or is it AMD based. As far as I know the four internal SATA-ports on my machine are four channels on the ICH8 chip.

 

I think all of the drives were working when I pulled the plug on it.  But, that was about 18 months ago.  The CPU is an AMD Sempron 1.8 GHz. 

 

I currently have a third drive running in an eSATA enclosure so I can continue testing unRAID.  This morning I'm going to try to boot NAS4Free and I'll report back.

 

 

[dikkiedirk]

The EX470 will only see 4 drives in a TR5M I think. Did you have 4 drives in the EX470? Did you check the syslog?

 

[rcrh]

The EX470 will only see 4 drives in a TR5M I think. Did you have 4 drives in the EX470? Did you check the syslog?

 

I believe you are right about the TR5M but that isn't my issue right now.  My issue is trying to avoid using the TR5M by getting all four bays in the EX470 to work.

 

Any thoughts on what I'd look for in the syslog?

[jacko]

I know this topic is stale but I wanted to share how I got my MSS working. I too had problems getting all 4 drives recognised.

 

I have a video breakout board and was able to go into the BIOS and check the SiS interface chip config. I found that by changing the mode from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE) all the disks were found.

 

I have now been using the unRAID for several weeks (2x2TB data + 1TB cache + 2T parity) and am generally pleased. The only problem I  have is that the 1GB/s NIC is only working in 100Mb/s mode. I suspect this is a unRAID driver issue. Any ideas?

[Frank1940]

I know this topic is stale but I wanted to share how I got my MSS working. I too had problems getting all 4 drives recognised.

 

I have a video breakout board and was able to go into the BIOS and check the SiS interface chip config. I found that by changing the mode from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE) all the disks were found.

 

I have now been using the unRAID for several weeks (2x2TB data + 1TB cache + 2T parity) and am generally pleased. The only problem I  have is that the 1GB/s NIC is only working in 100Mb/s mode. I suspect this is a unRAID driver issue. Any ideas?

 

What speed is your router (or switch) that you are connected to?    Is the cable used at least cat5E or cat6?

 

If these are not your problem, post a syslog.

[rcrh]

I know this topic is stale but I wanted to share how I got my MSS working. I too had problems getting all 4 drives recognised.

 

I have a video breakout board and was able to go into the BIOS and check the SiS interface chip config. I found that by changing the mode from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE) all the disks were found.

 

I have now been using the unRAID for several weeks (2x2TB data + 1TB cache + 2T parity) and am generally pleased. The only problem I  have is that the 1GB/s NIC is only working in 100Mb/s mode. I suspect this is a unRAID driver issue. Any ideas?

 

Wow, this is great news.  Where did you get the video breakout board?  My MSS is still sitting around & I'd love to get it working. 

 

[bombz]

An older thread to say the least. I have had this HP system in a box brand new for years, and would love to get it working with UnRAID. Anyone finalize this project more so in the recent years?

[bombz]

On 1/11/2021 at 8:46 PM, bombz said:

An older thread to say the least. I have had this HP system in a box brand new for years, and would love to get it working with UnRAID. Anyone finalize this project more so in the recent years?

I have made progress on this (if anyone looks at this old thread)
Upgraded CPU to dual core
Upgraded RAM to 4GB stick (only detects 2GB) had a 4GB kicking around so used it
The server sees 10TB disk in BIOS 

Have yet to test Unraid on it, going to try to carve out some time to do that, and if all is well, I will be purchasing another license
Making old hardware 'new' again, or current

[bombz]

On 5/7/2013 at 5:30 AM, jacko said:

I know this topic is stale but I wanted to share how I got my MSS working. I too had problems getting all 4 drives recognised.

 

I have a video breakout board and was able to go into the BIOS and check the SiS interface chip config. I found that by changing the mode from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE) all the disks were found.

 

I have now been using the unRAID for several weeks (2x2TB data + 1TB cache + 2T parity) and am generally pleased. The only problem I  have is that the 1GB/s NIC is only working in 100Mb/s mode. I suspect this is a unRAID driver issue. Any ideas?

Thank you so much for this 

Unraid Version: 6.9.0-rc2
Currently all 4x disk (test server) are detected
I plugged in a SSD disk to the ESATA port (cache disk) on the back of the HP EX470 (modded system) and it detected
Currently started the array and waiting to test over the next month.

If all goes well grabbing another license!

LOVE YOU UNRAID!!!!

I have attached a photo of my test rig of disk I had laying around.
Glad to see this old NAS (that really sucks as a stock NAS) is working with the golden UnRaid OS, with support (tested) up to 10TB

Edited February 8, 2021 by bombz

[Maverick52]

On 5/7/2013 at 4:30 AM, jacko said:

I know this topic is stale but I wanted to share how I got my MSS working. I too had problems getting all 4 drives recognised.

 

I have a video breakout board and was able to go into the BIOS and check the SiS interface chip config. I found that by changing the mode from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE) all the disks were found.

 

I have now been using the unRAID for several weeks (2x2TB data + 1TB cache + 2T parity) and am generally pleased. The only problem I  have is that the 1GB/s NIC is only working in 100Mb/s mode. I suspect this is a unRAID driver issue. Any ideas?

 

I know this is a super old post, but since the thread has been somewhat refreshed anyways I just wanted to quote you and say thank you for solving the issue I was having with my HP Mediasmart and Unraid. Unraid was only seeing two drives in specific slots, after changing this in the BIOS it now sees all four perfectly.

 

I picked up my old HP Mediasmart off Facebook, I figured it was worth a gamble for $80 and it came with 7 TB of HDD's and the video cable. Even with the super old hardware I think it's going to make a nice NAS for me.

[bombz]

On 2/14/2021 at 8:29 PM, Maverick52 said:

 

I know this is a super old post, but since the thread has been somewhat refreshed anyways I just wanted to quote you and say thank you for solving the issue I was having with my HP Mediasmart and Unraid. Unraid was only seeing two drives in specific slots, after changing this in the BIOS it now sees all four perfectly.

 

I picked up my old HP Mediasmart off Facebook, I figured it was worth a gamble for $80 and it came with 7 TB of HDD's and the video cable. Even with the super old hardware I think it's going to make a nice NAS for me.

This is great to hear!
I had one as well in a box for years never used, and I thank once again the unraid community for their awesome help.
Happy to see the ESATA port works for a SSD cache disk with unraid for docker etc. 
+1 to this thank you as well!

[lordbeavis]

On 2/6/2021 at 1:05 PM, bombz said:

Thank you so much for this 

Unraid Version: 6.9.0-rc2
Currently all 4x disk (test server) are detected
I plugged in a SSD disk to the ESATA port (cache disk) on the back of the HP EX470 (modded system) and it detected
Currently started the array and waiting to test over the next month.

If all goes well grabbing another license!

LOVE YOU UNRAID!!!!

I have attached a photo of my test rig of disk I had laying around.
Glad to see this old NAS (that really sucks as a stock NAS) is working with the golden UnRaid OS, with support (tested) up to 10TB

 How did you get the network port to run at full speed? it is super flaky and mine wont even register the trial license.

It has an SiS 191 chipset

[lordbeavis]

32 minutes ago, lordbeavis said:

 How did you get the network port to run at full speed? it is super flaky and mine wont even register the trial license.

It has an SiS 191 chipset

hmmm.....i found some info on this but i am in over my head regarding compiling a kernel

https://www.howtoforge.com/creating-the-sis191-gigabit-ethernet-driver-on-linux-2.6

[lordbeavis]

ok...

my 4gb of ddr2 ram must have failed. got the 2 blue and 2 red after pressing the pinhole button in the front

currently waiting for a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3250e to be delivered, so i needed to tear it apart anyways

but i changed to a 2gb ddr2 800mhz. havent run the memtest86+ on the new ram but my issue with not being able to activate the trial key is gone.

with 6.9.0-rc2  the link speed on my adapter 100

00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 191 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev 01)

Mar 2 14:45:43 HPSTORAGE kernel: sis190: sis190 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.4 loaded

Mar 2 14:45:43 HPSTORAGE kernel: sis190: 0000:00:04.0: Read MAC address from EEPROM

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE kernel: sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: mii ext = 0000

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE kernel: sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: mii lpa=c5e1 adv=01e1 exp=000f

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE kernel: sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: link on 1000 Mbps Full Duplex mode

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE dhcpcd[1294]: br0: carrier acquired

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE kernel: bond0: (slave eth0): link status definitely up, 100 Mbps full duplex

Mar 2 14:45:55 HPSTORAGE kernel: bond0: (slave eth0): making interface the new active one

so i am back to not connecting at 1gbit

hpstorage-syslog-20210302-2251.zip

Edited March 3, 2021 by lordbeavis

[PeterTheN00b]

I too an trying to resurrect my HP Mediasmart server (EX470) as an Unraid box.

I just upgraded to an Athlon X2 300+ CPU and 4GB of RAM after doing ymboc's bios hack.

I used the CD Creator tool to make an Unraid USB stick.

The Unraid USB is not booting on EX470.

 

I have tried all the USB slots without success. It keeps starting up and then starts up Windows.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have a VGA cable so I can get into and see the BIOS. 

[trurl]

33 minutes ago, PeterTheN00b said:

I have tried all the USB slots without success. It keeps starting up and then starts up Windows.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

UEFI or not?