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

Soldato
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£383 is a tad steep at face value, Gen8 comes in circa £120 after cash back at the moment with a 1610T/4GB/iLO vs X3221/8GB (top end model), if you can live with 16GB max on a Gen8 then that leaves you able to get a decent e3 Xeon and max the RAM for similar money, or if it's just a NAS with a few light VM's stick with the 1610T or upgrade to an i3 3240 (T or standard depending on your TDP preference) for £20-50 and add more RAM. It'll be interesting to see what price point the 'lesser' models come in at, the 3218 looks OK CPU wise with only a modest reduction in clock speed and two fewer GPU cores.
 
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Soldato
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I think HP need to decide what its being used for, those that have/had a Gen8 are wondering wtf HP are doing, no CPU socket, no iLo etc.
I do see where others might use it though but its not really in the same ballpark as the Gen8, its more like a Gen7 upgrade than Gen8...
 
Soldato
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I think HP need to decide what its being used for, those that have/had a Gen8 are wondering wtf HP are doing, no CPU socket, no iLo etc.
I do see where others might use it though but its not really in the same ballpark as the Gen8, its more like a Gen7 upgrade than Gen8...

As i mentioned in an earlier post, most of the people with the gen6/7/8 microservers have been consumer focused - seems quite typical for a home NAS set up of some sort. There's literally zero money in it for HPE in this market, selling support contracts with the product etc is where the profit it made. That's why i suspect the gen10 version has been made more towards the SMB market.

Yes the missing onboard iLO is quite a downer, i suspect the decision was made based on the fact that these are not the type of servers you'd find in a data center, so if they're in an office, it should be relatively easy for someone to power them on/off etc.

I'm sure they sell iLO cards that can be plugged in, so that might be an option for anyone who does need one (don't quote me on that though).
 
Soldato
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The basic ILO does not, but the additional functionality does.

No ILO, no RAID, and hugely expensive at E581. Probably plus VAT.

Does have RAID

Storage Controller Embedded Marvell 88SE9230 PCIe to SATA 6Gb/s Controller NOTE: Supports RAID 0/1/10 only. No FBWC support.

You could easily put a p410 raid card in and connect the SAS cable to it
 
Soldato
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As i mentioned in an earlier post, most of the people with the gen6/7/8 microservers have been consumer focused - seems quite typical for a home NAS set up of some sort. There's literally zero money in it for HPE in this market, selling support contracts with the product etc is where the profit it made. That's why i suspect the gen10 version has been made more towards the SMB market.

Yes the missing onboard iLO is quite a downer, i suspect the decision was made based on the fact that these are not the type of servers you'd find in a data center, so if they're in an office, it should be relatively easy for someone to power them on/off etc.

I'm sure they sell iLO cards that can be plugged in, so that might be an option for anyone who does need one (don't quote me on that though).

It's clearly an entry level product aimed at branch offices and the S of SMB with overspill into the home market which is probably why HP keep producing them as they're like tribbles (I own 4). Technically it's a backwards a step, the loss of a socketed CPU and iLO are going to be genuinely unfortunate as the attraction with a Gen8 was it's ability to be purchased cheaply and upgraded as your needs grew. That said it's an OK little CPU from what i've seen and more than capable of the traditionally lighter workloads a branch office or small office based SMB/higher end home user has (NAS/a few light services/the odd VM). Part of the business case for the Gen8 was it's low purchase price, certification and proven reliability and the option of upgrading the CPU if you needed something more substantial in the future, just like getting a full iLO licence.

As a home user I keep looking at alternatives to my current collection, I would prefer a larger number of disk's in my Un-RAID pool and options range from a budget friendly £100 Node 804 with 10 x 3.5" drives and a pair of SSD's for cache running with LSI HBA to a Lian-Li 343B for some 30 drive goodness and 6x 5 in 3 backplanes, but the case is £350, the backplanes £95-135 a pop and i'd need 6, if i'm spending that sort of money i'd probably get a decent board and at least an i5 or i7 and run *everything* on it knowing it's not going to have any issues with PAR repairs while transcoding and torrenting etc. Then I looked at the Gen7 sat next to me using bugger all power and remembered why I like them. Small, quiet, frugal, more than capable of file server workloads and easily capable of running docker instances/VM's for most things I want to use. OK the CPU isn't that quick at PAR/RAR work and transcodes are out of the question, but that little box holds 7 drives and cost less than a single backplane and barely more than the cost of a case. Genuinely tempted to pick up a Gen8 cheap now as at least I can shove an i3 in now and an e3 in later,
 
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Soldato
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As above, the Gen8's strength was its upgradability, however depending on how broad your view is, the Gen10 does have a target audience, I just dont think it the same one that the Gen8 was aimed at..
 

maj

maj

Soldato
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After finally getting my house hard wired with ethernet, I'm now finally able to get on with getting my gen 8 that's been sat collecting dust for ages up and running and have some newbie questions. I've got 4 3TB WD Red hard drives ready to go and was thinking RAID 5. What does the Gen 8 support by default without needing something like a RAID controlled card?

I've got a E3-1220L waiting to go in and was thinking next upgrade would be the RAM. I know it needs to be Non-ECC but does anyone have any recommendations for any that they know are compatible?

I'm assuming the option to configure RAID is available during post by pressing an 'F' key.
 
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