Dissapointed with the Gen 10 HP MicroServer

[Timber]

@Stoner81 Yea, that sounds similar to the Gen8. For me it's definitely an audible system, with quite a distinct sound profile, even when the fan is at it's lowest. And very loud with full 'whooshes' when booting up. From the looks of things the Gen 10 is similar. Anyway thank you again for the replies.

 

[Stoner81]

@Timber No worries glad to help out when I can

I know a lot of folks are not happy with the removal of iLo and whatnot but if you look at it for what it is, a budget/cheap home server you can't really complain imho. OK sure it's lacking in features compared to the Gen8 but I personally would never use iLo so what's the point? (yes I know others would use it) My point being (long and convoluted as it is) is that for the price you pay it's a not that bad piece of kit for basic tasks and comes in a damn small box!

That's my 2p worth anyway

Stoner81.

 

[Timber]

Yea, I don't use iLo either and one of the reasons I never bothered obtaining the advanced license.

As an aside (but it's to make a relevant point), after a recent change of ISP (back in late Dec), I had to reconfigure the fixed IP addresses on my server and needed to login locally. Unfortunately as the Gen 8 Microserver only has a 15-pin VGA port I had to buy an adaptor to convert VGA to HDMI (about £10). I've therefore used it as an opportunity to refresh my server and add 2 unused 3.5" drives and install unRAID, rather than running Ubuntu Server. I am really impressed with unRAID and purchased the basic license.

But all this playing around has 'reignited' my interest in my home server setup and I've been looking at upgrades and new servers. It's clear the days of getting cheap £100-160+ servers are gone. Similar to the current gaming PC market there's a lot of argument for buying pre-built servers. Entry level servers like the Dell PowerEdge T30, HPE Proliant ML10 Gen9 or HPE Proliant Gen 10 are all around £400-500 mark with benefits and cons for each. The ML10 and T30 have more powerful CPU's but are older chipsets - compared to the HPE Proliant Gen 10. And actually as server/PC prices have increased, consumer NAS's have become much more competitive. The Synology DS918+ is very similar money and includes hardware transcoding for HD and UHD content that works with Plex Media Server. And the DS918+ is very likely to run quieter and be much more energy efficient than a server. One of the reasons I purchased the HPE Gen 8 Microserver back in 2015 over another Synology was the much cheaper cost of more powerful hardware.

When and if I upgrade this Gen 8 Microserver I may well consider the latest Synology units if this trend continues and if my usage remains similar. Just an observation.

 

[Stoner81]

I agree with you dude I really do...

My Gen10 cost me around £200 ish I think (it probably was more but I can't remember) and then the drives were another £400. Could I have done better for the money spent? I honestly don't think so, the drives would have been the same regardless so the only wiggle room would be the £200 ish for the server itself. Hell I probably couldn't even build one for that?

Stoner81.

 

[Timber]

@Stoner81 no, you couldn't have built a machine for that. At least not one as nice.

I did some looking back and my Gen 8 was £175 after cashback, in late December 2014. One of my favourite computer purchases ever. I have spend more on it for memory, PCI-E SATA card and unRAID, but it's been an awesome purchase.

 

[memyselfandi]

Personally I love having the ILO on my Gen8's .... I have four and all of them are just cabled with power and network cables. A couple are used as backup servers and its great that I can leave them off and then power them up remotely using the ILO from my phone from anywhere if I need to run a backup. The two that are on the majority of the time use the ILO for things like virtual media and remote trouble shooting of problems if the main network connection into the server has gone down.

 

[beh]

Similarly finding ILO very useful, particularly the remote console and virtual media. Wouldn't have played around with it half as much without it.

The pricing of the gen10 is puzzling. I recall it being around £200 after cashback when it launched and now it's almost £350 (not even including a hdd)?

 

[Stoner81]

The pricing of the gen10 is puzzling. I recall it being around £200 after cashback when it launched and now it's almost £350 (not even including a hdd)?

That's outrageous! Holy moly!

Just read some reviews on it and folks are saying that getting RAID arrays up and running are problematic. I had no issues at all finding the RAID controller and setting it up so unless HP have changed things (I think mine was bought not long after they came out) then I have no idea at all.

Stoner81.

 

[linktoinsanity]

@Stoner81 Modern ones need to use an EFI Shell plugin that you download from HP's website, there is no way of setting it up out of the box, which is a much bigger pain than the Gen8 way. I am not sure if you had to do that with yours or not? My experience was setting one up for a client, my personal home server is a gen8.

 

[Stoner81]

I don't recall doing that for mine I think it came with it already but I could be wrong (it's been a while since I did it )

Stoner81.

 

[covenantuk]

It's easy enough to set up the array but it can't be done from the BIOS so you need to have an OS on another drive or use the EFI addon.

It can be problematic to use older HP RAID cards too - only the new one is fully supported and it's expensive. My P420 works but again, no BIOS-level setup

Overall happy with mine for the money but no, I wouldn't pay full price for one but that's always been the case with the Microservers.

 

[covenantuk]

Just noted that there's a new BIOS out for Gen10.

I haven't flashed it yet, but this addition in the release notes might make some people happy:

- Integrate Marvell RAID utility into BIOS shell.

 

[mveras1972]

The Gen10 was a disappointment for me even before buying it. How do you design something these days without PCIe x16 slots? Looking to get a Gen 8 instead because I want to put a GTX 1050 and run Plex.

 

[BongoHunter]

Anyone tried rolling there own IPMI type solution for the Gen10 with this? https://github.com/Fmstrat/diy-ipmi

Could at least partially make up for the lack of ILO...

 

[covenantuk]

The Gen10 was a disappointment for me even before buying it. How do you design something these days without PCIe x16 slots? Looking to get a Gen 8 instead because I want to put a GTX 1050 and run Plex.

Because that's not HP's intended market for the server.

 

[Semple]

The Gen10 was a disappointment for me even before buying it. How do you design something these days without PCIe x16 slots? Looking to get a Gen 8 instead because I want to put a GTX 1050 and run Plex.

Lol, i think you've definitely missed the point of what a "microserver" is.

 

[mveras1972]

Lol, i think you've definitely missed the point of what a "microserver" is.

Actually, what I am saying is that it is disappointing that a newer version of a product is actually inferior to the previous version. Please don't miss my point.

Because that's not HP's intended market for the server.

So I guess the Gen8 was for that intended market? Perhaps HP changed their target market with this Gen 10?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

The Gen10 was a disappointment for me even before buying it. How do you design something these days without PCIe x16 slots? Looking to get a Gen 8 instead because I want to put a GTX 1050 and run Plex.

It's not designed for that, and you don't need an x16 slot to run Plex.

 

[mveras1972]

I think I know that pretty well. I used to run Plex on an old laptop I had years ago.

 

[covenantuk]

Awesome first 3 posts., Keep it up