RE: Set up & questions: WHS media server

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

1: - yes, a 32 bit OS, can see all memory up to 4GB, - BUT some of it
will
be mapped out of user space for use by hardware devices / firmware etc.
Exactly how much you "lose" to this varies, and is dependant on
what
hardware you've got & what BIOS settings you choose. I have one
instance
where I ended up with 3.6GB visible to Windows after the "loss"
to
hardware... - not too bad really, and the extra 600MB is certainly
worthwhile - for me that represented at least 1 more, and potentially 2
more
VM's that could be hosted on that machine that otherwise I wouldn't have
been able to accommodate with only 3GB fitted..

Another consideration is if your mobo supports dual-channel memory (aka
memory interleaving), this will only work if you have two identical size
DIMMS fitted, so If you spec for 3GB, I guess you're going to have a 2GB
& a
1GB module fitted, and thus you won't be able to run it dual channel, and
this supposedly affects raw memory performance.

2: - In my experience, I've never observed any particular benefit to using
AHCI mode, but to be fair, I've never benchmarked it either. As you
observed, it *can* cause problems with Windows installs, depending on the
version of windows. - WHS is based on the original server 2003 product
which
is quite old now! - you *should* be able to utilise it if you do the
"Press
F6 to install additional storage drivers" option during the early text
mode
part of the install. Your mobo vendor should provide a driver that you can
then load to enable the AHCI controller support in WHS - or at least a
means
to acquire such a driver. The fun part comes when you try to load it,
because Windows 2003 ONLY supports using a floppy disk (remember those?) to
load the driver at the appropriate point in the build - no luxury of using
a
USB stick here! If this all sounds like too much hassle, - or if you try it
& the driver support is "flaky" then just stick with legacy
IDE mode on the
disk controller...

HTH

Paul G.


-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
keyvan2r
Sent: 04 November 2009 18:25
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Set up & questions: WHS media server

Hi
2 Questions:

1- RAM - Given WHS is a 32bit OS will it see memory beyond 3GB? Is there
any
point in having 4Gb installed?

2- AHCI: This is for SATA drives, the Asus manual says this is an advanced
"better / faster?" way of talking to SATA HD's but it prohibits
the port
from hosting IDE device (I assume SATA ROM drives).
When I set AHCI in BIOS for the HDs, windows gave me the blue screen of
death after copying from the OS Install DVD and then rebooting from the
hard
disk and trying to continue the install from hard disk.
Is there any advantage to using AHCI?

Thanks

K



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