WHS + Power Pack 1 + HP add-ons = Unusable server
A week ago, Paul Thurrott and I were chatting about the installation of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1, HP’s add-ons, and how he was having major issues with performance. Admittedly, I wrote it off as PE (Paul error) and went forward with the upgrade. Testing at every increment, everything seemed okay… until I installed the add-ons.
HP’s update (to be applied to PP1) comes with two additional add-ons:
- McAfee’s Total Protection Service (anti-virus/anti-malware)
- PacketVideo’s PVConnect Media Server (media sharing)
Let’s take a look at their minimum system requirements for each add-on.
McAfee’s Total Protection Service minimum system reqs. (snipped):
Intel® Pentium® processor or compatible
64MB RAM (512MB recommended for servers)
PacketVideo’s PVConnect Media Server minimum system reqs. (snipped):
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or compatible (1.6ghz+)
512MB RAM
Oh, I’m good, right? Sure, ignoring the fact that the server, after a reboot and at rest, has only about 200MB of physical memory available. Installing the add-ons, turning a blind eye, resulted in several “side effects”. Damnit, I hate when Paul is right.
- Disk performance plummeted. As a result of the Twonky Server’s (PVConnect) media indexing task, that conveniently runs after installation, compounded by McAfee’s on-access malware protection (per disk-read basis), the disks in the server were being thrashed non-stop. This brought the performance of the entire server down to a crawl. The Slowskys would be proud.
Obligatory Process Monitor screen-shot showing TwonkyMediaServer.exe reading all the media on my server
- Slow Console. By slow, I mean excruciatingly slow. Starting the Console, defined as the summary screen appears on-screen, takes an average of 1 minute, but isn’t functional for another minute+.
Console's appearance while loading. You will have to get used to this.
- Unstable Console. If you wait long enough for the Console to load, you’ll notice attempting to use the newly installed add-ons is a frustrating experience. This is because the Console, for no obvious reason, will sometimes completely disappear (crash) when clicking the add-on tabs. When using the client software to access the Console, you’ll receive a similar symptom of a nice white screen.
As I have anti-malware/anti-virus software on my client machines and have no device capable of receiving media (yet), I had no real need for these add-ons. To remove them, without using the Console which requires you restart it after each add-on uninstallation, I RDP’ed into the server and executed the following commands:
- msiexec -x d:\shares\software\add-ins\TopWHSaddin.msi
- msiexec -x d:\shares\software\add-ins\TwonkyMediaServer2.msi
- shutdown /r
If you would rather keep both add-ons installed, I strongly recommend you a) install them at night and let them dice up your disks while you sleep and pray it completes by the morning (mine didn’t after two days), b) install more RAM, and c) tweak your pagefile configuration afterwards.
I have used the MS Home Server since being a tester in the early days. I now use it effectively in my printing business and feel that it was designed for my firm only. Why is it always required that when we have a good thing that MS has to add such things as McAfee’s Total Protection Service or the PacketVideo’s PVConnect Media Server when all we want is a effective backup system that does not miss a beat. Let’s get rid of the bloatware. Although we have 1GB RAM in addition to the 7TB we ave turned our upgrade option off. Let’s see what others say before we install the Power (less) Pack
I experienced similar problems, and raised a discussion thread on the Microsoft Home Server Forum:
http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3666844&SiteID=50
What I concluded though was that some of the existing add-ins I had installed were not 100% compatable with PP1, so having uninstalled the HP upgrades, PP1 the all the add-ins, I then installed PP1, downloaded and installed the latest versions of my existing plugins then finally the HP upgrades. Once the PVConnect indexing had completed everything was running fine.
The only other issue I came across was with installing & un-installing add-ins which became extremely slow, generally taking an hour to install or un-install any add-in, the solution to this I found was to install the Microsoft WHS Toolkit and delete all the Home Server log files, which fixed it.
Russell
That would be HP –not MS–that added the bloatware
Have you installed the update to windows search 4? During the PP1 beta I had the same issues with the console and with other apps when I would use romote desktop. I found that my system was being thrashed by the indexer. I updated from MS’s download center and every thing promptly worked better. It is all still running well for me after the rtm updates, but I did pass on the McAfee (Avast family pack for me).
The EX475/EX470 *needs* to be upgraded to 2GB ram. I have no idea why they shipped it with only 512mb, that’s a corner that they shouldn’t have cut. The upgrade isn’t too hard to do. It’s still sluggish at times, even with the added ram, but certainly a lot better than it would otherwise be.
I think you are playing with fire, if you rely on the server for important data, and you aren’t going to install the Power Pack.
Not only does it include the update for the possible corruption bug, but it also has general speed-up optimisations, making the server a little more ’snappy’.
The two add-ins, are an HP abomination, and nothing to do with MS, in fact, they are even installed separately at present.
Colin
Or format it throw a simple easy to use distro of linux on it like ubuntu and be done with it. Even with 512 ram and an old AMD 2.6ghz barton I’ve yet to have any issues. Once samba/apache/mediatomb/clam AV are setup bobs your uncle and the only maintenance you’ll ever do is cleaning the fans.
@Zanzee: Thanks for the obligatory Linux remark!
@hvacengi: I have installed the update to Windows Desktop Search, but have not noticed any performance issues since. This is probably because the indexer only consumes idle cycles, as opposed to this PVConnect software…
@MrT: Agreed.
@Colin: Correct, I agree. I have installed Power Pack 1 and don’t regret it. It’ll be pushed down via Windows Update in August too. The blog post was merely to highlight HP’s goofy decision to bundle software that clearly doesn’t work with their own hardware.
@Russell Nicol: First, I apologize your comment got randomly selected to be screened. Second, thanks for the heads up. I haven’t tried any more add-ons, but if I decide to go down that road, I’ll have this in my back pocket.
Lol, PE (Paul Error) I do not think I will ever forget that. I love Paul dearly and read his site everyday, but I work with a bunch of PEs (Professional Engineers), and I found it funny. :p
So I don’t think this has anything to do with Power Pack 1. I installed the PVConnect and McAfee as they showed up as available ad ins on my server one day. McAfee was a serious pain in the ass and still isn’t working properly – Some components won’t work. PVConnect has slowed my console to a crawl.
So I decided to install Power Pack 1 (once I learned of it) hoping that this would solve all my problems….
Well no… It hasn’t. PVConnect is still a pig. McAfee is still a steaming pile of crap. And my WHS is about as fast as a Commodore 64.