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

Hades said:
A question for those who have upgraded the graphics: I am running the server headless and don't have any way of plugging it into a screen (my tft only has a dvi input). If I add a gfx card with dvi would it default to using it, or would I still need to go into the bios to switch it to use that gfx card?
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Yes, it will default to the discrete GPU so just whack it it, connect it to your display and away you go.
 
Anyone ever had a problem with the onboard RAID controller not being bootable (or indeed not even showing it's option ROM on boot) when a PCIe network card is installed?

I've got a dual port NIC in the 1x PCIe slot (closest to the middle of the box), and with that inserted, I lose the ability to access the RAID controller's BIOS, or indeed lose the ability to boot from RAID (or install Windows to the RAID volumes).

If I remove the NIC it's OK again! :confused:
 
Sorted it, had to disable the option ROM for the onboard Broadcom NetXtreme NIC, by invoking the Option-ROM setup during boot [CTRL]+ (couldn't disable for the add-in PCIe card, Dual-Port Intel PRO/1000 PT).

Would appear that the N36L's BIOS is pretty limited to the number of boot options it can parse.
 
I'm thinking of buying an N40L. I already have a N36L, so I'll put that to work as my backup server and make the N40L my primary server.

Question: Do the N36L and N40L use the same BIOSes? If not, is there a hacked version for the N40L (to enable AHCI on the additional SATA ports)? (I'll run WHS 2011 from the supplied drive in the top bay, as with my N36L.)

Thanks!
 
AFAIK, they are identical except the faster CPU, so I imagine even if the BIOSes aren't interchangable as standard, it's nothing that a forced flash wouldn't resolve.

We're ordering an N40L at work next week, so I can always give it a go.

However this is the first I've heard of this "BIOS hack", so I'd like to try it on one of my N36Ls first, got a link?
 
Only very early 160gb N36Ls had the 200w power supply

Later 250gb N36Ls had the same 150w power supply as the N40L

It doesn't really matter either way as no ones posted more than 60-70w fully populated with 6 disks
 
EMM386 said:
Only very early 160gb N36Ls had the 200w power supply

Later 250gb N36Ls had the same 150w power supply as the N40L

It doesn't really matter either way as no ones posted more than 60-70w fully populated with 6 disks
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Thanks! That's very useful to know. Do you perhaps know if those 6 disk microservers had a gfx card installed like the HD5450 or HD6450?
 
I'm pretty sure they did

People have also managed to squeeze 5x3.5 hds and 6x2.5 hds so I dont think power is all that BIG a deal although it will obviously increase your leccy bills if you leave it on 24/7
 
hi guys,

anyone had a chance to test freenas v7 or v8 vs open filer 2.99

what are the performance speeds for transferring ?

and what protocol is recommended cifs/nfs/iscsi?

I know cifs is used for windows share and nfs is for unix* , but what is iscsi i hear its a much more faster protocol that transfers in blocks
 
iSCSI gives you access to the disk at block level. A low cost means to a SAN really.

It's not really a suitable means to share data between multiple computers though.
 
lixxus said:
hi guys,

anyone had a chance to test freenas v7 or v8 vs open filer 2.99

what are the performance speeds for transferring ?

and what protocol is recommended cifs/nfs/iscsi?

I know cifs is used for windows share and nfs is for unix* , but what is iscsi i hear its a much more faster protocol that transfers in blocks
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My own experience of iSCSI in the home is that performance is significantly WORSE than a normal CIFS/SMB share.

With enough tweaking I got 80-90MB/s out of CIFS shares on *nix OS's. Bit less once I ran everything on ESXi, but my microserver is only a backup for my main file server so i can live with that.
 
ordered my n40l, questions though

not sure if I should use freenas or whs2011
only really want to backup files atm but may want more in the future

what kind of standby is the best, will only really access the drive several times a week and I want it to be as energy saving as possjble , would it just be worth switching it on when I need it only? or can someone suggest somthing more efficent
 
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challengedavid said:
ordered my n40l, questions though

not sure if I should use freenas or whs2011
only really want to backup files atm but may want more in the future

what kind of standby is the best, will only really access the drive several times a week and I want it to be as energy saving as possjble , would it just be worth switching it on when I need it only? or can someone suggest somthing more efficent
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whs is dirt cheap and works well. You could also set up a few VMs and have a play...
 
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