HP Microserver G8 - media streaming

Just ordered the HP Gen 8 with the cash back offer, seemed too good to miss.

I plan on installing Plex and using it as media storage device.

I have a few questions.
Which software to go for? I prefer W7 or would a server based software be better, maybe a Linux based os?

I plan on adding another 4gb of ram, will 8gb be sufficient?

Which 3tb drives would be best? I will order one drive tomorrow based on your suggestions and another next month.

Does anyone else have the same setup and suggest the best way to use this?

I have a Roku box connected to my main tv for streaming.

I have the HP N54L. I run Windows Server 2012 on it. I have the original 4GB RAM in it, which copes just fine. I'm quite fond of WD Red HDD's, have no complaints about them at all, and seem best suited for this application. I use my microserver as a Plex server and it copes very well.

Do the RAM upgrade and run ESX. Then choose whatever OS appeals to you, I like Linux based Operating Systems, however, Windows would also work.

It would be a waste to just use it as purely a NAS. Run ESX and maybe setup something like FreeNAS or OMV. This would allow you to have a file server too. Or you could run Windows Server and run the Plex Media Server as a desktop application as you would on a PC and then use file shares too

Garyj881 said:

Just ordered the HP Gen 8 with the cash back offer, seemed too good to miss.

I plan on installing Plex and using it as media storage device.

I have a few questions.
Which software to go for? I prefer W7 or would a server based software be better, maybe a Linux based os?
This is personal preference. I personally use Linux

I plan on adding another 4gb of ram, will 8gb be sufficient?
8GB would be brilliant, it could get by on 4GB but RAM is fairly cheep these days so why not

Which 3tb drives would be best? I will order one drive tomorrow based on your suggestions and another next month.
WD RED seem to be the "go to" drive for NAS builds

Does anyone else have the same setup and suggest the best way to use this?

I have a Roku box connected to my main tv for streaming.

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I have a similar setup, Plex media server running from a Linux box with built in software RAID. You'll be fine as long as you don't need multiple transcoding.

+1 for the reds, I've had my 4x 3TB drives running 24/7 flawlessly in my Microserver for nearly 3 years now. (touches wood)

I use my Microserver as my media PC with Windows 7. It has Raids 1+0 and runs fine (I need new mechanical hard drives as the Raid sometimes craps out, but not the Microserver's fault!).
I bought a flopyp to SATA power adaptor from Ebay and mount an SSD in the slimline CD rom bay.

Remember that the ram the Microserver uses is ECC, which is way pricer than regular PC Ram (Non-ECC).

Also double and triple check your claim form for your cashback as mine got rejected first time and had a query second time!
First time they sent me a 'cashback declined' email and second time I got a personalised email awith a small query.

Just to buck the trend...

I have a Windows Server 2012R2 box as my home server. It runs a plex server, a deluge daemon, Sabnzbd, couch potato, sick beard, etc.

I use Storage Spaces to give me a mirrored, tiered storage array, that I can attach to any Windows 8.1+ or Server 2012+ machine to recover data from if the thing implodes.

SSD tier on the array makes it nice and fast. I have 2x256GB SSDs, 2x6TB WD Red Pros, and 2x2TB Seagates in it.

I'm tempted by one of these microservers for the ECC ram.

I'd quite like to turn my microserver into an ESX host and run plex/kodi from within a VM, but i just don't think the CPU has enough bang for buck and will likely struggle.

Semple said:

I'd quite like to turn my microserver into an ESX host and run plex/kodi from within a VM, but i just don't think the CPU has enough bang for buck and will likely struggle.

Click to expand...

I'm running my N54L as an ESX server with 3-4 vms running permanently. If you have 8GB ram you should be fine.