Micro Home Server (HP ProLiant MicroServer )

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Yeah i know its not the most exciting project but thought it would share my build log for my new home server. The server is a HP ProLiant MicroServer which has 4 hard drive bays and 1 5.25 bay which i have added another driver to, gigabit ethernet, esata, 6 usb ports 200w power supply and a small foot print.

Now i know your probably bored as servers are not particulary exciting but the price of this thing is the exciting part. The cheapest you can get it online is £221.00 which i think is a good price but what makes it even better is that HP give you a 100.00 cash back when you buy this server making it only 121.00 for a full home server!!

Here are some pics:

Shot of the motherboard it looks very basic but it only has on it what it needs. I have stuck in 4gb of ddr3 ram and a 2 port sata pcie card so i can add an extra 2 hard drives in the future (they would have to be 2.5 drives though).

2011-06-28172104.jpg



The board is passivly cooled and has as mentioned above a pci express slot ( a friend of mine had put in a cheap nvidea 220 here as he using the server as his media play back box).
It also has an onboard usb port so you could install say ready nas on a usb stick and boot from that.

2011-06-28172116.jpg



View of the top of the case, the only fan in this case is the 120mm fan at the back, its pretty quiet.
I have just fasten my 2.5 drive in the 5.25 bay, could defo fit a few more in there in the future.

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Shot of the front of the case with the hard drives fitted. It is a verty tight sqeeze in there.

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Back of the case you can see the exhaust 120mm fan and the rest of the rear inputs

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Front of the case with the door shut. The hp logo has a blue led behind it which looks nice.
Towards the top off the case there is a hard drive and network indicator lights and the power button and below that you have 4 usb ports.

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And finally a shot of it in its new home.

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Im super happy with my new server, its preety quiet and looks nice and performs well.
 
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Soldato
Joined
17 Jun 2010
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London
Nice. I've just ordered mine so I'll probably post something similar. I've bought a bracket for the 5.25" bay which lets you use x2 regular drives, although I have a feeling 2x2TB won't stack due to the height, but I can get around that with some bungee cord suspension if need be. It'll be in my bedroom so if it's noisier than I'd like I'll have to swap the fan out and think about the Pico PSU mod.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jun 2010
Posts
12,406
Location
London
Somnambulist - please let us know as soon as you can... been wondering about 2x 2TB drives myself!

All I know is that it's 28mm between the centre of each hole for the HDD mounts. the screws on the HDDs aren't in the middle though, they're near the bottom, so it's hard to work if this gives enough room. I have a feeling it'll either be very tight or won't fit, but as said, if it doesn't I'll just try and get around it with suspension (see the sticky in the main case forum).
 
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Very nice dedicated server! I am looking into buying one of these myself. Through your experience, would you say it is a reliable server? I really need something dependable. Thanks.
 
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