Hello. I'm adding a drive to my HP ex475, with the intention of not adding it to the drive pool.
What I would like to do is add it, then share it out. I'm planning on putting a little VM on it, and to also use it to backup some of the data on WHS (using the built in methods that came with PP1).
Is it acceptable to add a drive to WHS, not add it to the pool, and then (via RDP, I guess) share it out (using the standard methods).
Any drawbacks to that? Also, why exactly would somebody add a drive to WHS, and not to the pool? I'm assuming it woud be mostly for the backup stuff in PP1.
Finally, anybody have success running virtualBox on a MediaSmart server?
What you're proposing is unsupported. It should work fine, but you run an increased risk of problems with your server, should you make a mistake with some of the tools available on the server desktop. And we may not be able to help you beyond recommending a server reinstallation.
When you install a drive for use as a backup, you "add" it to the server, but instead of putting it in the storage pool you tell the server to use it as a backup drive. So strictly speaking, a backup drive has still been added.
If you do a search in the forums I think you'll find that others have installed virtualbox. However, I would recommend against it for several reasons. First, it's a technical violation of the EULA; virtual servers are an additional server role and you're prohibited from adding server rolse that Microsoft/HP don't configure out of the box for you. Second, the HP mediaSmart line is (intentionally) low powered, in a processing sense, because it's not designed to meet the rigorous requirements of an enterprise data center, and it is designed to meet a price point for consumers.
I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
