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

deuse · 16 Jul 2013 at 14:10

maddness said:
Im 99.9% sure you cannot use that hard drive as storage

It is best to have dsm on a usb stick and keep it in the inside usb port, the other 4/5 slots can be used for storage

Thought as much

Synology is installed on the 250GB HD that's why I thought I could leave out the usb stick.

Thanks for the help

Think I'm going to get two Toshiba 3TB HDs soon.

Edit just found out Toshiba are a pain to deal with. So it's Seagate

cokecan · 16 Jul 2013 at 14:21

What are the chances of the cash back offer turning up again in August on the N54L?

My circumstances have changed and I could do with the N54L. Really REALLY wish I had pulled the trigger on a purchase last month while they were around the £80 mark

maddness · 16 Jul 2013 at 14:23

Toshiba are fine - if your thinking about the 3tb Toshibas with enclosures, these disks are made by hitachi and will work fine, I have 4 3tb of these in mine, raid 10 (giving 6tb space)

TheDean · 16 Jul 2013 at 14:44

maddness said:
Synology is very good (I've been uding it for a few weeks) but only drawback is that it does not spin down the hard drives when not in use

I have read that HD's will spin down if you take the USB out when booted. Unsure if this is correct or not...

deuse · 16 Jul 2013 at 14:49

maddness said:
Toshiba are fine - if your thinking about the 3tb Toshibas with enclosures, these disks are made by hitachi and will work fine, I have 4 3tb of these in mine, raid 10 (giving 6tb space)

It's just that I read that their RMA for OEM drives was very poor.
Will look in to more thanks for the help.

TheDean said:
I have read that HD's will spin down if you take the USB out when booted. Unsure if this is correct or not...

Will try this later. Thank you.

Maybe start a thread for synology on the HP or leave it all here?

covenantuk · 16 Jul 2013 at 20:06

cokecan said:
What are the chances of the cash back offer turning up again in August on the N54L?

My circumstances have changed and I could do with the N54L. Really REALLY wish I had pulled the trigger on a purchase last month while they were around the £80 mark

Not much hope imo, they can't have so much stock left to clear that they need to discount heavily.

I'm really happy I went for the N40L, cost me £80 net and it just sits there doing its thing, quietly. With the N54L being slightly louder I think I jumped at the right time.

cokecan · 16 Jul 2013 at 21:13

covenantuk said:
Not much hope imo, they can't have so much stock left to clear that they need to discount heavily.

I'm really happy I went for the N40L, cost me £80 net and it just sits there doing its thing, quietly. With the N54L being slightly louder I think I jumped at the right time.

Yeah I figure that's the case

I just need to find some good Samaritan willing to sell me their N54L that they don't want/need (subtle hint lol)

deuse · 17 Jul 2013 at 14:30

cokecan said:
Yeah I figure that's the case

I just need to find some good Samaritan willing to sell me their N54L that they don't want/need (subtle hint lol)

Post in the wanted section of mm. That's were I got mine.

maddness · 17 Jul 2013 at 14:42

TheDean said:
I have read that HD's will spin down if you take the USB out when booted. Unsure if this is correct or not...

well spotted mate, it indeed works

TheDean · 17 Jul 2013 at 14:49

deuse said:
Maybe start a thread for synology on the HP or leave it all here?

Probs best to start a new thread then we don't clog this one up. It would allow us to share updates, tips, tricks etc etc

maddness said:
well spotted mate, it indeed works

Good. Pleased about that, as it was really the only major concern with the release as far as I could see. How did you confirm it works out of interest?

maddness · 17 Jul 2013 at 15:50

TheDean said:
Probs best to start a new thread then we don't clog this one up. It would allow us to share updates, tips, tricks etc etc

Good. Pleased about that, as it was really the only major concern with the release as far as I could see. How did you confirm it works out of interest?

When idle for > 10 mins (lowest spindown time), if I try to access the nas from a pc you can hear it spin up / small delay, before it would instantly allow access

Prophet · 18 Jul 2013 at 16:22

I'm installing Sever 2012 onto my Microserver with the OS drive in the first slot. I'm planning on moving this OS drive to the DVD bay in the future. Are there any issues doing this after the OS has been installed with the drive in bay one?

Engram · 18 Jul 2013 at 20:55

Prophet said:
I'm installing Sever 2012 onto my Microserver with the OS drive in the first slot. I'm planning on moving this OS drive to the DVD bay in the future. Are there any issues doing this after the OS has been installed with the drive in bay one?

Only possible issue would be if you installed with AHCI and hadn't done the BIOS hack to enable AHCI on the extra internal SATA port. (Extra SATA port only supports IDE without hacked BIOS).

Changing the boot device in the BIOS is really easy, so you won't have any issues there.

Prophet · 19 Jul 2013 at 10:41

Had an issue with Server 2012 and a 3TB drive (GPT).

Moving data from NAS to server the transfer sat at 11MB/Sec as expected then slowed down to 500Kb/Sec. When I tried to cancel the move it froze the server.

Tried the same move to a MBR disk and it worked OK.

My server was built a couple of days ago and is fully windows updated however I've not loaded any HP drivers. Do I need to update drivers or is this just a bug with GPT partitions?

Nick1881 · 19 Jul 2013 at 11:59

Guys what's louder about the N54? The 120mm fan? Mine is annoying me now, never really heard the N40L and I expected the N54L to be the same. If It's just a case of changing the fan then I will, but there is also a small fan, could be that causing the noise.

cokecan · 19 Jul 2013 at 12:27

generally it will either be the small PSU fan, the 120mm fan or the HDD's. There is a guide on adding a Scythe 120mm fan to make the whole thing quieter. You could also look at replacing the PSU fan (which will void warranty) or just replacing the PSU with a Pico-PSU

Evilpaul · 19 Jul 2013 at 12:53

My N54L wasn't very quiet so I did some quick investigation to find the cause.
I took all the HDDs out and then started the server while preventing the 120mm fan from turning. The PSU fan wasn't too bad, so then I investigated the 120mm fan. Once I let the 120mm fan start then it began producing the annoying hum that I'd been looking for.

I've swapped out the 120mm fan for a BlackSilent Pro and it's got a quieter and much more pleasant sound to it. (I did have to cut the key off the 3-pin connector to fit the 4-pin MoBo connector, but no rewiring required.)

Lastly I need to get some thin material to pack between the HDDs and the caddies to try and dampen their sound.

joelk2 · 19 Jul 2013 at 14:21

Evilpaul said:
(I did have to cut the key off the 3-pin connector to fit the 4-pin MoBo connector, but no rewiring required.)
.

what do you mean by this? i thought the fan always required rewiring?

Evilpaul · 19 Jul 2013 at 14:29

The 4-pin connector used by HP has non-standard wiring, so if you use a PWM fan you will need to rewire the pins to match.
If you use a 3-pin fan (constant speed) then the 3 pins match the configuration of the 3 pins nearest the front of the MoBo. You just need to cut one of the lugs off the fan connector so that it will fit onto the MoBo connector without fouling the guide.

joelk2 · 19 Jul 2013 at 14:39

Evilpaul said:
The 4-pin connector used by HP has non-standard wiring, so if you use a PWM fan you will need to rewire the pins to match.
If you use a 3-pin fan (constant speed) then the 3 pins match the configuration of the 3 pins nearest the front of the MoBo. You just need to cut one of the lugs off the fan connector so that it will fit onto the MoBo connector without fouling the guide.

like this?