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

_SBradley_ · 15 Aug 2011 at 19:33

Guys! I need some assistance.

Trying to install 4GiB of RAM into my MicroServer, but it refuses to boot.

The RAM is GeIL Ultra 2133 MHz. I know it's "too fast", but it's the only stuff I have that fits. I should be able to get this running in the MicroServer, surely? :confused:

marcus_667 · 15 Aug 2011 at 19:44

i got a cheap 4 gb corsair xms3 kit for 24 quid it works fine

Evoss · 15 Aug 2011 at 20:16

_SBradley_ said:
Guys! I need some assistance.

Trying to install 4GiB of RAM into my MicroServer, but it refuses to boot.

The RAM is GeIL Ultra 2133 MHz. I know it's "too fast", but it's the only stuff I have that fits. I should be able to get this running in the MicroServer, surely?

2100MHz!!? Full on gaming PCs don't see much performance gain after 1600MHz

ubern00b · 15 Aug 2011 at 21:06

_SBradley_ said:
Guys! I need some assistance.

Trying to install 4GiB of RAM into my MicroServer, but it refuses to boot.

The RAM is GeIL Ultra 2133 MHz. I know it's "too fast", but it's the only stuff I have that fits. I should be able to get this running in the MicroServer, surely?

Check the voltage requirements of that RAM and I am sure you will see its higher than 1.5v which is the max the Microserver will supply to the RAM slots.

Bes · 15 Aug 2011 at 22:30

tbz_ck said:
This is what I do.

ESXi on USB Stick on the internal slot. VM's on datastores as required.

Works well.

Why on earth would you run a hypervisor off a USB stick? Only advantage I can see is that if the microserver goes pop, you can port your hypervisor config to an identical machine..... but I really don't see what else? Maybe I am missing something here??

Nikumba · 15 Aug 2011 at 22:41

Bes said:
Why on earth would you run a hypervisor off a USB stick? Only advantage I can see is that if the microserver goes pop, you can port your hypervisor config to an identical machine..... but I really don't see what else? Maybe I am missing something here??

The ESXi hypervisor installed is about 50Mb in size, putting on a USB stick is more than fast enough as once it is loaded its not really used.

I have 4 HP blades that are diskless as our VM mount of SANs but ESXi is off a USB stick, its cheap, costs £10 for a stick big enough to take it, so why waste HDD space on it?

Kimbie

_SBradley_ · 15 Aug 2011 at 23:25

Parents to the rescue! (Sort of.)

I took the OCZ RAM from the PC I built for them a few months back (swapped it with some GeIL Value sticks I had (which were too tall to fit in the MicroServer)). It seems to work in the MicroServer (although perhaps I should Memtest it).

Not sure why the GeIL Ultra wouldn't work in the MicroServer. I have it back in my desktop now (running at 1.5 V). But oh well. At least I didn't destroy anything! (I was worried briefly, when I accidentally plugged in the motherboard power connector with the mains power still on. :eek:

)

Bes · 15 Aug 2011 at 23:31

Nikumba said:
The ESXi hypervisor installed is about 50Mb in size, putting on a USB stick is more than fast enough as once it is loaded its not really used.

I have 4 HP blades that are diskless as our VM mount of SANs but ESXi is off a USB stick, its cheap, costs £10 for a stick big enough to take it, so why waste HDD space on it?

Kimbie

Would you really be worried about wasting 50Mb on an average server where you have hundreds of gigabytes, or even terabytes of storage at your fingertips? Seems like a strange reason to leave a fundamental component of your server at the mercy of a USB stick rather than a RAID-ed disk...

_SBradley_ · 15 Aug 2011 at 23:48

Flippin' drat and blast! Memtest86+ fails all over the place. The RAM is coming up as DDR800 @ 6-6-6-15. WTF? It's rated at 9-9-9-24 or so. This is annoying. :mad:

_SBradley_ · 16 Aug 2011 at 00:03

What are the specs on the stock RAM stick, please? Memtest86+ reports that to be running at DDR800 6-6-6-15, too (but all tests pass).

Also, my VGA output keeps dimming every few seconds. It's not going too well at the moment.

bremen1874 · 16 Aug 2011 at 01:36

I haven't got the original stick to hand, but my microserver is also running with the same memory timings as yours. This isn't the sort of machine to take advantage of faster memory or tighter timings, the memory just needs to be fast enough to match what the machine expects.

FWIW my Microserver has got 8GB of Crucial PC3-10600 installed and has been completely reliable since December 2010. Slightly sad that I paid double the current price back then.

_SBradley_ · 16 Aug 2011 at 08:53

Yeah, I wasn't trying to get it to run fast -- I just wanted it to run! This is the stuff I was trying to use:

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit

That's supposed to be able to run at 1333 MHz @ 7-7-7-20, so surely it can do 800 MHz @ 6-6-6-15? :confused:

_SBradley_ · 16 Aug 2011 at 11:47

Well, it looks like my MicroServer might end up having 8 GiB of RAM. The Kingston kit was meant to go in my desktop, but, as the MicroServer refuses to play with either of my 4 GiB kits (GeIL and OCZ), I've given the 8 GiB Kingston to the MicroServer.

I'd better not speak too soon, but I've no errors after 15 minutes of Memtesting...

_SBradley_ · 16 Aug 2011 at 14:40

No errors on the Kingston RAM after 1.5 hours. Yay!

Also, my WHS 2011 just arrived. Yay again!

I have a couple of WHS questions:

What's the second disc for (pre-installed something-or-other)?

I assume I can install WHS from a USB drive (as I usually do for Win7)?

Am I right in thinking that WHS does not support ReadyBoost? (Just trying to think up a good use for the internal USB slot, now I won't be using it for FreeNAS.

)

ubern00b · 16 Aug 2011 at 15:27

Bes said:
Would you really be worried about wasting 50Mb on an average server where you have hundreds of gigabytes, or even terabytes of storage at your fingertips? Seems like a strange reason to leave a fundamental component of your server at the mercy of a USB stick rather than a RAID-ed disk...

I think you will find that most servers you buy these days with the purpose of ESX in mind (from the likes of HP, Dell etc) they supply the servers that boot from an internal USB stick just like is happening here.

Bes · 16 Aug 2011 at 16:14

edit: nvm got the answer now.

ubern00b · 16 Aug 2011 at 21:10

If anyone is interested I can confirm the RAM kit KVR1333D3N9K2/8G (8GB kit for £33, can't go wrong there!) works fine, passed Memtest without issue.

_SBradley_: Memtest detects mine as DDR800 @ 6-6-6-15 too, its probably just Memtest. Once I boot into windows (busy installing now) I will run CPU-z and see what that says.

agent_paul · 17 Aug 2011 at 09:36

Has anyone got a 3TB drive in one of these? I'd like to know if there would be any issues if I were to put one in.

If memory serves, a 64bit OS and something else is required....

ubern00b · 17 Aug 2011 at 10:13

agent_paul said:
Has anyone got a 3TB drive in one of these? I'd like to know if there would be any issues if I were to put one in.

If memory serves, a 64bit OS and something else is required....

You need a UEFI BIOS that supports GUID partitions if you want to boot from one, otherwise its just a 64bit OS required. Yes, 3TB drives work in the Microserver.

_SBradley_ · 17 Aug 2011 at 10:35

BIOS

I've received conflicting information on this.

Can anyone confirm they've installed the Russian patch/hack on top of the latest official BIOS release? The latest is called SP53393, and was released on 2nd April 2011 (version: 2011.04.02 (A) (27 May 2011)). For info, the changes since SP52016 are:

Added support for Microsoft Small Business Server 2011.

Resolved an issue where there was no error logged to the System Event Log (SEL) after entering the incorrect password 3 times.

Thanks!