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

Soldato
Joined
30 Jul 2005
Posts
19,358
Location
Midlands
and not to mention the added power draw for cooling the 15k drives. i now see your point. can probably use multiple ssd in the microserver by using those 6 x 2.5 drive racks that go into the 5.25inch bay.

so when it comes to nand wear using a ssd for say a torrent downloading drive whats the best way to go about finding a drive that can last and wont cost a fortune?
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
and not to mention the added power draw for cooling the 15k drives. i now see your point. can probably use multiple ssd in the microserver by using those 6 x 2.5 drive racks that go into the 5.25inch bay.

so when it comes to nand wear using a ssd for say a torrent downloading drive whats the best way to go about finding a drive that can last and wont cost a fortune?

Yep, that's how 4 cheap SAS drives cost you near enough £300 over 3 years without you even noticing, it's the same with older server hardware and you aren't the first and certainly won't be the last not to consider TCO when making a purchase. It can work out OK if you for example use a COLO facility that includes power/cooling, then old hardware can be a genuine bargain, or if you have solar power (or really hate the person who pays the bill), other than that it's a hidden cost.

Torrenting isn't actually that bad in terms of IO unless you are doing a lot of concurrent stuff, the issue tends to be the desire to meet seeding time requirements on private trackers requires space. News is heavier due to the RAR/PAR side of things, especially if you have a fast connection, but it's going to give you full line speed 24/7 if that's what you need. The issue with either is sooner or later you end up running out of things to download other than current/ongoing stuff. That may take a while, but with a fast connection it will happen quite quickly.

To answer your question, SLC and MLC tend to have better write endurance on paper over TLC and QLC, but it's really not that simple. For example I have a 500GB 970 Evo, it's TLC rated to 0.3 DWPD, call that 150GB every single day for 5 years, that's 54.75 TB/yr. Now compare that to QLC with 'only' 0.1DWPD, this time 2TB, that's 200GB/day or 73TB/yr, so allowing for drive size, QLC can actually be a better buy than TLC depending on the drive size and usage pattern. Also to throw a curve ball into things, I have an 1TB MLC Intel 730 series, being MLC you would expect greater durability, the 240GB version is rated at 50GB/day, the 480GB is 70GB/day (yea... twice the capacity and not twice the endurance), so at best my 960GB is 140GB/day which isn't even up to TLC levels. That said the price point of TLC is currently not far off QLC and if you can get something with .3 DWPD vs. .1 DWPD in the same capacity for minimal extra money, it makes more sense on a box that will take a hammering. I can download about something stupid like 2TB/day at home (210Mbit ish). If you're looking for heavy IO and endurance, I quite like the fusion.io drives that pop up on a well known auction site, they're fast and relatively inexpensive/low power, other than that the Samsung Pro range tends to have better endurance, but also a nasty habit of failing.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2004
Posts
2,535
Location
Kent
You can get an adapter which allows you to put it in the optical drive bay.

You can but you then you have to use RAID ( I did try this initially). I wanted all drives just to be normal ACHI drives. 3 large NAS rives are sufficient for me.

PS - nobody answered my query re win 10 compatibility / drivers?
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
You can but you then you have to use RAID ( I did try this initially). I wanted all drives just to be normal ACHI drives. 3 large NAS rives are sufficient for me.

PS - nobody answered my query re win 10 compatibility / drivers?

No, you don't, you'd use a PCIe SATA card or use the eSATA to come back into SATA and the drive(s) would show up as individual drives unless you set them to be part of a software RAID array or pool.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
I don't want to add cards - I wanted to use "as supplied" - so OS in bay 1 and NAS drives in Bat 2, 3, and 4, all ACHI, fine for me.

Then if it's only a single drive, you could just use the SATA port and have the 4 bays for whatever you want, the likes of unraid etc. boot from USB, be warned, depending on the model, you probably need to look at flashing a different BIOS from memory if you intend to use the onboard optical drive SATA for a storage drive. Either way, no need to put everything in RAID as you stated.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
Then if it's only a single drive, you could just use the SATA port and have the 4 bays for whatever you want, the likes of unraid etc. boot from USB, be warned, depending on the model, you probably need to look at flashing a different BIOS from memory if you intend to use the onboard optical drive SATA for a storage drive. Either way, no need to put everything in RAID as you stated.

But with the standard BIOS, as soon as you put a drive in bays 1 - 4 it will only boot from those bays and ignore any device in the "CD bay (5)"?
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2010
Posts
12,305
you probably need to look at flashing a different BIOS from memory if you intend to use the onboard optical drive SATA for a storage drive.

Oh will this not work with the standard BIOS? I thought it was just a bootable drive you couldn't put in bay 5 without modifying the BIOS.

This is for a N54l mind.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2004
Posts
2,535
Location
Kent
The standard BIOS has been updated. All I can say is that it works for me.

My standard BIOS is the original one from installation several years ago! So I suspect we have different "standard BIOSs"! I am very loth to update anything on mine - it's working and I want it to stay that way!!!

Thanks for comments anyway.
 
Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2009
Posts
1,753
Guys, I'm running xpenology on a n54l and it's been great for years. I now would like to add a 5th drive and I have heard there is a modded bios to enable this. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2005
Posts
3,046
Location
The South
Guys, I'm running xpenology on a n54l and it's been great for years. I now would like to add a 5th drive and I have heard there is a modded bios to enable this. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Cheers!

I used the walthrough on HomeServerShow for my N40L (i believe it's the same across N36/N40/N54L) - https://homeservershow.com/blog/byo...server-build-and-bios-modification-revisited/
However, a quick Google brings up a number of other sites outlining it for N54L, eg - http://blog.chrispomfret.com/2013/0...-guide-allow-hot-plug-sata-and-5th-sata-port/

Biggest issue i had was getting the latest official Bios as HPE requires active support; although a bit of Googling got me a working link.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2004
Posts
2,535
Location
Kent
Except you clearly state it isn't working as you want it to and it's been explained it needs an update to do so.

No, I am quite happy with Bay 1 as "OS" on an SSD and 3 NAS drives in bays 2, 3 and 4. My only query is what do I do after Win 7 is not supported? Is a Win10 OS supported for Gen 8?
 
Back
Top Bottom