That thing costs twice as much as the server!!!
Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD
- Thread starter dragonuk
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That thing costs twice as much as the server!!!
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I have ordered one of these too, want a NAS + Squeezebox server.
I have read all through this thread but there does not seem to be any definative answer on the best OS. I will be installing it on the 160gb hard drive in the 5.5" disc drive.
The top choices seem to be
Ubuntu - free
Red Hat - no idea but official supported...
Other linux installations
Windows 7 - 100$
Windows home server - 100$
Any advice?
I have read all through this thread but there does not seem to be any definative answer on the best OS. I will be installing it on the 160gb hard drive in the 5.5" disc drive.
The top choices seem to be
Ubuntu - free
Red Hat - no idea but official supported...
Other linux installations
Windows 7 - 100$
Windows home server - 100$
Any advice?
Soldato
FreeNAS has built-in System Shutdown Scheduling.
Not sure what BIOS the microserver uses, but I know similar dedicated NAS systems have scheduled startup and shutdown features in the BIOS, so I'd assume this does too
Thanks for the link, I was googling using terms like 'power saving' 'energy' blah blah blah couldn't find anything useful apart from spinning down the hdds.
Can anyone with this server in there possession look through the bios for the scheduled boot/shutdown options please? I'd like it to run pretty conservatively so would be good to know how easy that is to configure out of the box. Or is scheduling nightly shutdowns and the using WOL an option?
I'm lost over Raid5 too, I'm wanting to run it in Raid5 running FreeNAS, but reading elsewhere people are mentioning it can do RAID1/0 only? In this thread it mentions as it runs software raid it can do anything you like?
I am lost here, but thinking about it, the RAID setup is done in FreeNAS, so I can use any RAID I want as it's all controlled by FreeNAS right?
CentOS will probably work if RedHat is supported. It is bascially RedHat.
If freenas supports squeezebox I would give something like that a look. If you are good with Linux you could always use Ubuntu / CentOS / etc.
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Never used Linux in my life, but i am used to learnign new software. I will have a look at CentOS, i know that the squeezebox server supports ubuntu, but on here there seems to be conflicting info regarding how well ubuntu works on this....
Soldato
Red Hat is $349 at it's cheapest, and under the new license model that only gets you patches and no access to raise support calls ... You be better to go with CentOS over it for home use which should work identically.
I am lost here, but thinking about it, the RAID setup is done in FreeNAS, so I can use any RAID I want as it's all controlled by FreeNAS right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-DrhYKTFE
Youtube guide
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Thank you very much, very good to know.
Just ordered my 1.5tbh green hard drives to go into it. I will have a look at CentOS now and see what i make of it. Ubuntu looks the easyest to use for a new person....
Soldato
FreeNAS scheduled shutdown and WOL (according to the specs the system supports WOL) is definitely an option if the BIOS doesn't have scheduled startup/shutdown. Should (hopefully) be getting mine tomorrow, so will be able to have a look for you then if no one else is able to in the meantime.
There are two types of RAID; hardware and software. The server supports RAID 0/1 via hardware RAID (i.e. all the necessary calculations, etc. are performed by dedicated hardware), but you can still use RAID 5/6, etc. via software RAID (through FreeNAS, for example), meaning the necessary calculations are performed by the CPU at the software level.
I'm also looking to use the server for a FreeNAS RAID 5 array, with 4x 2TB Samsung F4EG drives, so will be experimenting with the various options (UFS and ZFS, trying out the workarounds for the 4k sector issue with the latter) and reporting back when I get the various parts
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Really? Why is that please? Would 64 bit not work better somehow? Im going to be having 4GBs of RAM in mine.
Thanks.
Edward
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Wake on LAN
I'm having problems getting wake on LAN to work on mine. I have updated to latest BIOS and checked the settings. I'm used to using WOL and so am convinced it is the server, but not sure if this is an HP firmware issue or a fault on mine. Anyone able to test WOL on theirs?
Many thanks!
By the way ... running FreeNAS (0.7.2 latest) with 2x2TB drives and works well apart from this. BIOS does not have any timed startup or shutdown. Freenas has cron entries you can add, so a timed shutdown is possible from within Freenas. I need the WOL for powering on in a remote location.
Some people may also be interested to know that the onboard NIC does NOT support jumbo frames (anything larger than 1.5k seems to fail). I'm planning on adding an Intel PCI express card to get round that.
I'm having problems getting wake on LAN to work on mine. I have updated to latest BIOS and checked the settings. I'm used to using WOL and so am convinced it is the server, but not sure if this is an HP firmware issue or a fault on mine. Anyone able to test WOL on theirs?
Many thanks!
By the way ... running FreeNAS (0.7.2 latest) with 2x2TB drives and works well apart from this. BIOS does not have any timed startup or shutdown. Freenas has cron entries you can add, so a timed shutdown is possible from within Freenas. I need the WOL for powering on in a remote location.
Some people may also be interested to know that the onboard NIC does NOT support jumbo frames (anything larger than 1.5k seems to fail). I'm planning on adding an Intel PCI express card to get round that.
I assume Windows users won't need to add a new NIC?
This might be a silly question but as there are 4 plug drive bays, could I use the first with the supplied 160GB as an OS drive and add two drives to bays 2+3 in RAID 0? Saves me mounting the 160GB at the top of the server to the second sata?
Thanks!
Soldato
Resisted getting this over the Xmas break but finally gave in and just placed an order.
What OS/media serving software would people recommend for media streaming to a PS3. I'd want it to transcode on the fly so that I can get around the lack of support for MKVs on the PS3.
What OS/media serving software would people recommend for media streaming to a PS3. I'd want it to transcode on the fly so that I can get around the lack of support for MKVs on the PS3.
oooh had no idea that was possible! will have to look into that one myself because I despise the fact I can't play MKV on my PS3!
32 bit OS's can only address 4GB of memory. Also memory allocated to the graphics cards and other devices eats into this limit, so even with 4GB RAM in there a 32bit OS can't use more than about 3.5GB.
There's really no reason not to use a 64bit OS nowadays, not only can they make use of all the RAM you put in there, but anything compiled in 64bit will run faster.
SMB (Windows file sharing) speed issues seem to be sorted anyway, not sure if its the 4GB of ram or the SMB.conf file i edited (not sure if the Solaris kernel CIFS module uses the configuration file or not)
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Ps3 Media server seems popular, just need an os and stick this on it.
http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/
Soldato
Whats the best price people are getting for the server before cashback? Will be buying one this week for NAS, downloading and streaming to PS3.
Also, can you run Windows from USB? I know you can install Windows 7 but I wanted to run it from USB and put 4x2TB for storage.
Also, can you run Windows from USB? I know you can install Windows 7 but I wanted to run it from USB and put 4x2TB for storage.
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