Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD

Amraam · 1 Feb 2016 at 08:08

nutcase_1uk said:
Yes - 4x the cache as well so should see a performance improvement.

Thanks dude, that's what I was thinking too. Does it contain everything I need? Sorry for being so thick, this hardware is a new experience to me...

Just trying to source the correct SAS fan out cable. Correct in saying I need mini SAS to 4 SAS? Where does power come from?

nutcase · 1 Feb 2016 at 08:32

You need the correct direction cable - they are wired differently if the individual connectors are for the controller end.

I've not looked how the existing drive connectors are but they must get power somewhere so same source?

DHR · 1 Feb 2016 at 08:34

Well my N54L HTPC has been retired so is on the members market if anyone is interested https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18716057

Amraam · 1 Feb 2016 at 08:37

nutcase_1uk said:
You need the correct direction cable - they are wired differently if the individual connectors are for the controller end.

I've not looked how the existing drive connectors are but they must get power somewhere so same source?

Yeah I realise I need a forward cable, but without a part number it seems tricky to pin down exactly which one I need. Some show power from molex, some SATA power connector.

Please remove if startech.com counts as a competitor, but here's a link to what I think I need:

EDIT Link to shop removed, just in case. Here's the tech sheet instead:
http://www.netstoredirect.com/index.php?controller=attachment&id_attachment=3016

Amraam · 1 Feb 2016 at 12:05

Woohoo, drive just arrived

It has a Mini-SAS connector on the motherboard, and confusingly, the connectors on the backpane are SAS also. I'm so confused...

EDIT: Sorry my brain obviously isn't keeping up. I reread GDL's post, so I should be good to go now when the P410 arrives. I'll simply unplug the MiniSAS connector and plug it into one of the P410 ports, and then I'll hook the SSD into the OSD SATA port. I just now need an adapter so that I can feed power to the SSD as the OSD is that small 3 pin type connector. Can I be really cheeky and ask you to check my images in the spoiler tag to double check my plan will work?

GDL said:
Yup, I think I used the same seller - FYI. The battery back cache took over a week to charge in my case. 0.o

I unhooked the SAS cable from the port on the motherboard and hooked it into that for:

A - it gets around the SATA2/3 issue.
B - Raid 5

Then I picked up a break out cable and shoved 4 SSD's in the top with some power splitters.

nutcase · 1 Feb 2016 at 13:54

As I put above - not sure if the microserver uses SAS connectors or not - now we know it does.

So the SATA limitation is the B120i in all likelyhood. So yes you might be good to go once the controller is installed.

Trig · 1 Feb 2016 at 16:36

The SATA limitation is on the B120i, thats why my data drives are on my P212, my boot drive and VM storage are on the SATA3 ports on the B120i then my temp disk is on one of the SATA2 ports....

GDL · 1 Feb 2016 at 19:35

SOB.

Given the socket the Gen8 is, I took a chance on using one of the small AIO water coolers, the pipes fit, the fans fit, even found the wiring diagram to change the fan over from 6pin to 4pin.

BUT they have used a damn custom size heatsink mount points which isn't stock to 1155.

Balls.

Captain Fizz · 2 Feb 2016 at 08:25

Zip ties?

Trig · 2 Feb 2016 at 12:28

I've seen people use zipties and 2 diagonal mounts..

Amraam · 2 Feb 2016 at 13:13

Server is online, just about to crack on with the roles and features. My P410 should be here today too, so will be able to get the array online tonight

Was really tempted to mess about with Hyper V but I think the Celeron would struggle and I don't really need two servers.

Trig · 2 Feb 2016 at 14:02

Celeron will struggle if you put any load on the VM's, I've got 2 Celeron based units running Plex Server VM's though, granted only 1 stream at a time and the servers not doing much outside of DNS/DHCP/File so that helps but will give you enough of room to play with Hyper-V, dropping your VM storage on an SSD also helps, dont forget to format NTFS and setup deduplication, will save you loads of space as well as give you performance..
Also, might be worth checking out the stablebit stuff (drivepool/drive scanner)..

Amraam · 2 Feb 2016 at 14:17

Trig said:
Celeron will struggle if you put any load on the VM's, I've got 2 Celeron based units running Plex Server VM's though, granted only 1 stream at a time and the servers not doing much outside of DNS/DHCP/File so that helps but will give you enough of room to play with Hyper-V, dropping your VM storage on an SSD also helps, dont forget to format NTFS and setup deduplication, will save you loads of space as well as give you performance..
Also, might be worth checking out the stablebit stuff (drivepool/drive scanner)..

Cheers dude, very much appreciated. I totally understand that the celeron is going to have zero transcoding grunt, but primarily it'll only really ever be serving one direct stream at a time, possibly two. Then, the limiting factor would be my upload anyway, as I'm currently only on sky 17Mbps (2Mbps up).

The server OS is on a single drive RAID0 with a 120GB SSD.

The deduplication feature looked quite interesting, will read up on that.

Trig · 2 Feb 2016 at 16:12

Both of the Celery's I setup are running single stream into the house they are in.
Depending on what device you are streaming too you can probably tweak it enough to run 2 and be fine as you can set the streaming quality on the end device from 64Kbps up to 40Mbps, should give you plenty of "wiggle" room when it comes to upload speed vs quality vs number of streams...

Amraam · 2 Feb 2016 at 20:22

Cheers dude I'll bear that in mind.

Pretty sure it's me being thick, but the P410 shows up in the bios, but not in hp provisioning tools. Should it, or does it have its own menu to use for creating drives and arrays? What about the windows driver?

Trig · 2 Feb 2016 at 20:38

Pass, not used the P410, my P212 has its own setup but is viewable and configurable from the prov tool in windows..

Have you ran the SPP?

GDL · 2 Feb 2016 at 20:54

Amraam said:
Cheers dude I'll bear that in mind.

Pretty sure it's me being thick, but the P410 shows up in the bios, but not in hp provisioning tools. Should it, or does it have its own menu to use for creating drives and arrays? What about the windows driver?

You can do it two ways.

Via the F8 menu on the controller at boot

Or via F10 -> Maintenance -> SSA (Smart Storage Admin)

If you use ESXi, remember to get the HP version as that way you get the hardware sensors for it as well.

As a side note, replacing the CPU on the older bios reads the temps just fine so I might drop back on the weekend.

nutcase · 2 Feb 2016 at 21:07

Amraam said:
Cheers dude I'll bear that in mind.

Pretty sure it's me being thick, but the P410 shows up in the bios, but not in hp provisioning tools. Should it, or does it have its own menu to use for creating drives and arrays? What about the windows driver?

The 420 is the correct generation so it may be because it's an older generation card - but as above you can do it other ways.

Amraam · 2 Feb 2016 at 21:31

Thanks guys. I managed to do it using the F8 method. I had to press F8 to get into the iLO first, then back out and press F8 again to get into the P410 array. RAID5 array created and online in moments. Should I have enabled the write cache battery override?

Funnily enough, I hadn't been into the Smart Storage Admin yet, I should check that out

Now, do I create the share and rely just on NTFS permissions, or shall I promote the server to a DC (risky as I've no room for another DC) and fully join my PC to the domain, or just use server essentials...

GDL · 2 Feb 2016 at 21:33

I enabled it on mine Amraam.

If it's just for shares, set-up ISCSI. It will be faster.