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

challengedavid said:
ordered that n36l last night as the cashback offer was ending, thought it would e extended but did not want to chance it, but its being offered on the n40l now

the n40l is about £20 more expensive, comes with 1gb more ram, slightly faster processor, but had a 150w psu rather than the 200w in the n36l

is it worth canelling the n36l and reordering the n40l?

what do people think?
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Gutted lol. I only got my microserver a couple of weeks back. I doubt it would make much difference to my setup but its that whole "I could have had something better" feeling!

Tempted to by the N40L. I don't think I have a use for two but for some reason I really want another one
 
hiyajac said:
I believe you only need to do the RDM once because the mapping is based on disk-id. There is also an option in the ESXi to set the RDM drive to be persistent.

The RDM will not have VMFS on it. It's the direct content of your backup data and you can use any file systems. As I mentioned in the previous, I can see all my files stored on the RDM disks when I move them from non-virtualised to virtualised server. I already copied the data into these RDM disk on the previous virtualised setup. In short, this way is to make your virtualised server to 'see' the content of the RDM disk directly.

Just bear in mind this is not officially support but it runs fine on my setup.
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if anyone needs a guide on how to do this. Follow link below.
i got my rdm working , just incase i migrate away from esxi or something goes wrong with my datastores etc.
http://blog.davidwarburton.net/2010/10/25/rdm-mapping-of-local-sata-storage-for-esxi/

please can someone have a look at my previous thread and let me know what my network bottleneck is.

the speed is doing my head in
 
I just clicked the buy button on the N40L. I'm going to drop 8gb in it and use it as a NAS and also a general purpose server for playing around with (I have a few projects in mind). To be honest I think the N36L was the better deal. The N36L was cheaper and the only benefit of the newer model is extra RAM (which many people will replace) and a very slightly faster CPU (which is so marginal I doubt you'd notice it).

I am genuinely surprised how fast these are selling though. At one particular store there were 460+ on Friday. At the same store there are only 27 left today.
 
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MikeHiow said:
I have a wanted thread in MM looking for a microserver if you've got the upgrade bug ;)
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I can't get into the MM. The perils of being a serial lurker for many many years lol. I havn't even qualified for the free delivery thing yet!

I think I'm gonna keep my N36L but I tempted to buy a N40L too so that I could have one as general storage and a second one to use as my webserver and other projects that won't affect my media libraries if I break it all.
 
If I bought one of these how good would it be for running a 2-3 virtual machine on there for light testing. Say a DC, WDS Server and maybe something like SCCM for light testing etc..
 
Spooter said:
If I bought one of these how good would it be for running a 2-3 virtual machine on there for light testing. Say a DC, WDS Server and maybe something like SCCM for light testing etc..
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Stack it with 8GB of RAM and it will be fine. I've run WHS 2011, Win 7 Enterprise, 2 x Windows Server 2008 R2 and a linux Elastix server all without issue using ESXi 4 (and now 5) installed on an internal USB stick.

Disk throughput isn't going to be amazing virtualised (as no VMDirectpath) but for light testing it's great
 
Anyone here running Plex Media Server on their Microserver?

I'm curious whether if the CPU can handle the transcoding, or if not, if it will perhaps do it with the aid of a graphics card.
 
MikeHiow said:
Anyone here running Plex Media Server on their Microserver?

I'm curious whether if the CPU can handle the transcoding, or if not, if it will perhaps do it with the aid of a graphics card.
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Sold my N36L but having just installed Plex on my i5@4ghz and seen how much the SCANNING of a library takes of CPU time I'd be loath to run Plex on the N36L or the "faster" N40L myself! Even without transcoding!
 
I've just bought one of these, should arrive tomorrow. Can someone tell me if there is any point in my upgrading the 2gb of onboard ram?

I'm going to stick WHS 2011 on it and use it as a NAS system.
 
Frenzy said:
I've just bought one of these, should arrive tomorrow. Can someone tell me if there is any point in my upgrading the 2gb of onboard ram?

I'm going to stick WHS 2011 on it and use it as a NAS system.
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For WHS 2011 on it's own you are probably OK with 2GB. I'd certainly try it before investing in more.
 
tbz_ck said:
Stack it with 8GB of RAM and it will be fine. I've run WHS 2011, Win 7 Enterprise, 2 x Windows Server 2008 R2 and a linux Elastix server all without issue using ESXi 4 (and now 5) installed on an internal USB stick.

Disk throughput isn't going to be amazing virtualised (as no VMDirectpath) but for light testing it's great
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How do you present your disks to ESXi? Raw device mapping? Screenshot would be great if you get a second please!
 
guys guys,

anyone with freenas setup through esxi, please share you config setup and what performance you are receiving through vmware.

I am trying to consolidate all my server into esxi, but I am debating on freenas, because of performance ?

Is performance decent through esxi ?
 
tbz_ck said:
Not bothered with RDM. I present each disk as a separate datastore. See my website:

http://www.forza-it.co.uk
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Cheers mate. I like ur site btw , I had no idea thin provisioning had an impact on performance before I read some comments on there!

Btw, does anyone know if the n40l can take a new graphics card with it having a reportedly lower watt psu?
 
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It doesn't have a lower watt psu the later n36l had the same size psu.

The microserver will easliy take a newer graphics card 5450 etc. the whole unit loaded with drives only draws about 40w total.
 
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