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

Rudeboy · 25 May 2011 at 15:35

What kind of network throughput are you guys able to get on yours?

I've now tried ESXi with WHS2011 and Ubuntu Server as VM's and also a native install of Windows 7 x64 to compare against and each time my network transfer speed is rubbish (30-50MB/s usually dropping off to about 14MB/s towards the end). I also updated the NIC driver in the native install of Windows 7 to the latest available from Broadcom as HP's drivers seem to be about 2 yrs out of date.

I've done some tests on the RAID5 array and that can easily hit 250MB/s write and nearly 300MB/s read with 4x 2TB WD Green drives in the array. Controller is P410 with cache and battery module. Internal file transfers between different physical LUN's are fast. No problems there.

Next step is to try and source a compatible Gigabit NIC (pref Intel) and see if that makes a difference. I know it's not just me as my boss also bought a Microserver after seeing mine and is looking at the native install route and is also struggling with getting any decent network throughput.

If you're able to hit and sustain 100MB/s or more, could you list your hardware and software config for me? Thanks.

WILD9 · 25 May 2011 at 18:27

Im getting around 80Mb/s consistently on a single 1TB disk

Ryan111 · 25 May 2011 at 21:00

Is that 80MB/s? Read or write?

WILD9 · 25 May 2011 at 22:14

Pretty similar both ways as I recall, that's primarily with large files i.e DVD iso. 5gb ish. I will check both tomorrow if you like.

Edit: ok did a quick and dirty test:

Read :
DVD iso 4.5gb - sustained 106mb/s
DVD iso 7gb -sustained 115mb/s

Write :
DVD iso 6.4gb sustained 85mb/s

Windows server 2008 r2 - 4gb non ecc - OS On 160gb drive, data on 1tb samsung f1 using onboard disk controller. Client was a windows 7 machine.

mraerosmith1981 · 25 May 2011 at 22:55

Get a nvidia GT520 , that would sort it, or it did for me, it can even play 3d blu-ray now

Ryan111 · 25 May 2011 at 23:01

WILD9 said:
Pretty similar both ways as I recall, that's primarily with large files i.e DVD iso. 5gb ish. I will check both tomorrow if you like.

Edit: ok did a quick and dirty test:

Read :
DVD iso 4.5gb - sustained 106mb/s
DVD iso 7gb -sustained 115mb/s

Write :
DVD iso 6.4gb sustained 85mb/s

Windows server 2008 r2 - 4gb non ecc - OS On 160gb drive, data on 1tb samsung f1 using onboard disk controller. Client was a windows 7 machine.

Thats what im going to have set up, 160GB OS Drive, 4GB DDR3 Non ECC but with 3 x 1.5TB drives in Raid 5 I think.

fish · 25 May 2011 at 23:17

this is driving me crazy. has anyone managed to get the rear esata port working? I have tried several different bioses now and all to no avail.

AbsenceJam · 26 May 2011 at 00:18

fish said:
this is driving me crazy. has anyone managed to get the rear esata port working? I have tried several different bioses now and all to no avail.

Works fine with the 'Russian' BIOS for me. You need to change a couple of settings after IIRC.

Rudeboy · 26 May 2011 at 01:38

AbsenceJam said:
Works fine with the 'Russian' BIOS for me. You need to change a couple of settings after IIRC.

I thought the Russian BIOS was about making the internal 5th SATA header full speed (next to the internal USB port near the front of the unit) and was nothing to do with the ESATA port on the rear of the unit?

mraerosmith1981 · 26 May 2011 at 07:18

no, with the Russian bios it also exposes some options for the e-sata, like hot plugging

fish · 26 May 2011 at 07:53

I have tried the Russian bios and cans find the options for hot Plugging etc. Is this because I am trying a esata to sata cable as I thought they were pin compatible?

mraerosmith1981 · 26 May 2011 at 07:55

I have no idea, im only using an e-sata to e-sata enclosure cable, but im sure someone will be along shortly to say

agent_paul · 26 May 2011 at 08:33

fish said:
this is driving me crazy. has anyone managed to get the rear esata port working? I have tried several different bioses now and all to no avail.

nope, i'm running on the latest bios with the latest russian bios hack. could never get it to work using a esata to sata cable

Al Vallario · 26 May 2011 at 09:20

fish said:
I have tried the Russian bios and cans find the options for hot Plugging etc. Is this because I am trying a esata to sata cable as I thought they were pin compatible?

agent_paul said:
nope, i'm running on the latest bios with the latest russian bios hack. could never get it to work using a esata to sata cable

This is intrigueing, as I am planning on doing the same thing you are attempting to do.

It might be a daft question, but you are using separate power connectors for the drives along with the ESATA data connection, right? :confused:

Al Vallario · 26 May 2011 at 09:24

Rudeboy said:
I thought the Russian BIOS was about making the internal 5th SATA header full speed (next to the internal USB port near the front of the unit) and was nothing to do with the ESATA port on the rear of the unit?

mraerosmith1981 said:
no, with the Russian bios it also exposes some options for the e-sata, like hot plugging

With regards to the Russian BIOS hack, there's one thing I've been wondering for some time now. After the hack, is there any functional difference between the internal SATA and external ESATA port?

That is to say, if I wanted a 5-drive softRAID array with a sixth disk as the system drive, would I be better off connecting the fifth RAID drive to the internal or ESATA port, or does it not matter?

PiKe · 26 May 2011 at 09:27

Is Windows XP or Windows 7 best to put on?

fish · 26 May 2011 at 09:58

agent_paul said:
nope, i'm running on the latest bios with the latest russian bios hack. could never get it to work using a esata to sata cable

That was my fear, looks like I am after a caddy then.
I am running the drive with the power from the psu with a molex to sata splitter.
I was hoping to get 5x2tb raid 5 as data storage with the hdd that came with the unit for running whs on.
It may be the case then to run exsi from USB with whs as a vm on the 5x2tb. Would this work?

Rudeboy · 26 May 2011 at 14:31

Rudeboy said:
I've now tried ESXi with WHS2011 and Ubuntu Server as VM's and also a native install of Windows 7 x64 to compare against and each time my network transfer speed is rubbish (30-50MB/s usually dropping off to about 14MB/s towards the end). I also updated the NIC driver in the native install of Windows 7 to the latest available from Broadcom as HP's drivers seem to be about 2 yrs out of date.

Looks like my problems are related to Microsoft and VMWare as a native install of Ubuntu server using the same RAID5 array gives continuous network transfer rates between 105-120MB/s

Just reloaded a native install of Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 on to the same array and transfer rates are now back down between 30-50MB/s.

I love Windows :rolleyes:

agent_paul · 26 May 2011 at 14:36

Al Vallario said:
This is intrigueing, as I am planning on doing the same thing you are attempting to do.

It might be a daft question, but you are using separate power connectors for the drives along with the ESATA data connection, right?

i've got 2 laptop hard drives both powered via the psu. one of them is connected the internal sata port and the other was intended to be connected to the esata port.

moss · 26 May 2011 at 14:45

PiKe said:
Is Windows XP or Windows 7 best to put on?

Really depends on what you want to do with it, i'd recommend 7 over XP in most situations but I would also upgrade the RAM.
If its just serving files, a linux distro might be even better. The main ones are quite simple to configure.