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

Will try media player classic when I get home.... Does that mean xbmc has no option to offload playing to the gpu guys?
Thanks.
 
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Any pictures of anyone with a 2.5" SSD in one of the normal drive bays? I wanted to install one as my boot drive. I have a 3.5 inch adaptor that came with an Intel SSD I have but looking at the screw holes, I can't see how it would line up correctly when placed in the microservers disk caddy.

I have a DVD drive installed so the SSD can't be placed in the optical drive area, and would that even run at full speed anyway?


rp2000
 
conuk said:
ah thanks. Wasnt enabled. Must have forgot after reinstall.

thanks a lot it now happily plays all I throw at it.

Great little box!
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No worries - I've got the HD6450 too and it turns it into a very capable little box. You tried the beta of XBMC "Eden"? Seems to run much better for me on the box.
 
ethos said:
So, the cashback offer has ended...
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No it hasn't :)

I've just had an email from the company I got mine from saying "I've got some good news to start the year - HP have decided to extend their popular £100 cashback offer on the HP ProLiant Microserver up until the end of January"

Might just order a second one :D
 
i think they'll keep extending the offer ad infinitum.

I am slightly stretching my usage a bit, i have whs2011 installed and run vmware win7 on the whs2011 to do a few tasks.. some apps struggle with the 1.3mhz

if anyone is interested there are some very good used hp small business servers for around the 100 quid on a well known auction site.

Some of the deals are amazing, come kitted with 8gb ram and 3GHz+ cpus..

HP Proliant DL380 G3 Dual Xeon 2.8Ghz 2U Server 4GB RAM - £78 delivered
 
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Im considering getting one of these servers for home but just wanted to run a few things by you experts first:

1. I currently run an accountancy business from home and everything is stored on a Win7 laptop which works fine currently and I back up the documents via always sync to a NAS daily (albeit I have to do it manually) however I worry that if something went wrong then its possibly a lot of down time.

Would WHS2011 on N40L Microserver be a more suitable option for me to backup everything to there and then look at an offsite backup solution on top of that? Someone recommended me to have a look at Carbonite as a cloud based solution? I dont have huge amounts of data as they are mainly word, excel etc but probably looking at 5GB or so.

I am looking at office premises in the next few months so it might even be a possibilty to look at one server for home and one for the office and RDP (or similar) into the office server.

2) I have Sage Act 2010 which runs on Mysql I believe, which never backs up properly using always sync and instead I have to go into Act and create a backup which can then be synced. Would using WHS allow everything to be backed up automatically?

3) Power useage, what sort of usage would I expect from having the server on 24/7? Currently I only have the laptop when I need it and in hibernation mode when not in use.

4) Emails, being the only "employee" I just use IMAP for my emails and Google calendar for my diary which syncs between my laptop, desktop, iphone and Ipad. Will there be any problems using this method under WHS?

5) I have recently just bought an Apple TV2 and installed xbmc on it. I assume it will be fine to store all the media on the the WHS and access it from the ATV2?

I think is everything but if you have any further advice then please fire away. My main goals is to have a solution that "just works" and doesnt need much/any tweaking and is backed up properly to ensure as little to no downtime as possible should there be any problems.

EDIT - laptop and desktop at home are both running W7 Home Premium.

Thanks, Mark
 
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See inline

Mark M said:
Im considering getting one of these servers for home but just wanted to run a few things by you experts first:

1. I currently run an accountancy business from home and everything is stored on a Win7 laptop which works fine currently and I back up the documents via always sync to a NAS daily (albeit I have to do it manually) however I worry that if something went wrong then its possibly a lot of down time.

Would WHS2011 on N40L Microserver be a more suitable option for me to backup everything to there and then look at an offsite backup solution on top of that? Someone recommended me to have a look at Carbonite as a cloud based solution? I dont have huge amounts of data as they are mainly word, excel etc but probably looking at 5GB or so.


WHS is great at acting as a centralised shared storage device and backup device for up to 10 PC's. I also use cloud storage for my most precious docs but instead of carbonite I use Crashplan which for me works out at £3.00 or so a month for UNLIMITED data storage.

I am looking at office premises in the next few months so it might even be a possibilty to look at one server for home and one for the office and RDP (or similar) into the office server.


You can do that. WHS comes with a neat remote access website for accessing files and folders and media over the internet. You can also install a remote access tool like LogMeIn free edition which is better than RDP in my opinion, for accessing the servers desktop over the internet.

2) I have Sage Act 2010 which runs on Mysql I believe, which never backs up properly using always sync and instead I have to go into Act and create a backup which can then be synced. Would using WHS allow everything to be backed up automatically?

No. It doesn't have a database aware agent as such. It's primary usage is disc image backups using VSS technology.


3) Power useage, what sort of usage would I expect from having the server on 24/7? Currently I only have the laptop when I need it and in hibernation mode when not in use.

Not sure to be honest. Not measures it, but its on 24/7 for me.

4) Emails, being the only "employee" I just use IMAP for my emails and Google calendar for my diary which syncs between my laptop, desktop, iphone and Ipad. Will there be any problems using this method under WHS?

Yes this will work fine (although I struggle to see why you'd want to!). Install whatever imap client you want on the server.

5) I have recently just bought an Apple TV2 and installed xbmc on it. I assume it will be fine to store all the media on the the WHS and access it from the ATV2?

Yes, streaming is very good. It acts as a DLNA server for anything that can see it.

I think is everything but if you have any further advice then please fire away. My main goals is to have a solution that "just works" and doesnt need much/any tweaking and is backed up properly to ensure as little to no downtime as possible should there be any problems.


This is the beauty of WHS. It will back up whatever machines are on - every day between times you set automagically :) And with Crashplan anything inside of folders/drives you specify will get automatically uploaded to the web either immediately or on a schedule you dictate.

Works great for my small business


Thanks, Mark
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Mark M said:
1. I currently run an accountancy business from home and everything is stored on a Win7 laptop which works fine currently and I back up the documents via always sync to a NAS daily (albeit I have to do it manually) however I worry that if something went wrong then its possibly a lot of down time.
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1. Make sure the NAS/homeserver is on UPS and RAID protected. If it has remote access via the net then it's less secure than one that's blocked out from connections from the net.

2. Consider remote backup, you need that, if you have a flood or fire you will lose all your data so it's better to be safe and use an online backup. You will need to comply with EU data regulations which state that data must be encrypted before sent and also be hosted within EU. Not all backup companies support this so do your research.

3. Save a local copy backup on a flash drive. ideally fireproof. Keep the flash drive locked in a fireproof safe. It doesnt have to be a vault or anything, but you can get fireproof cash boxes that resist fire damage for up to 30 minutes. plenty of time for any firecrew to come and extinguish a fire.


This is the minimum you should keep for backing up your business data.
 
hello again.... please dont run, lol...

well, i can make this little thing go into hibernation...

once its in hibernation, how can i wake it up?

i have lights-out installed in whs2011, & have set it so, if its in use, it will stay alive, once its not in use, it will go into hibernation, but this is the part i cant get passed..

i have probs 7/8 devices that can access the microserver, even all at the same time...

but i have been to each & everyone, & none of them wake it up.... i thought thats what WOL is? once theres a signal or anything trying to access it, it will come out of hibernation....

please please help....

i do know it does wake up, as i have googled & found some crappy app/things, i have to intup the ip/mac bla,bla & press a button.. but thats just not appropriate to put onto the liks of kids laptops etc....
 
m^ke said:
but i have been to each & everyone, & none of them wake it up.... i thought thats what WOL is? once theres a signal or anything trying to access it, it will come out of hibernation....

please please help....

i do know it does wake up, as i have googled & found some crappy app/things, i have to intup the ip/mac bla,bla & press a button.. but thats just not appropriate to put onto the liks of kids laptops etc....
Click to expand...


That's not what WOL is.

It shouldn't be too difficult to make a script to do the packet sending for you, so all your kids would have to do is double click it.
 
m^ke said:
hello again.... please dont run, lol...

well, i can make this little thing go into hibernation...

once its in hibernation, how can i wake it up?

i have lights-out installed in whs2011, & have set it so, if its in use, it will stay alive, once its not in use, it will go into hibernation, but this is the part i cant get passed..

i have probs 7/8 devices that can access the microserver, even all at the same time...

but i have been to each & everyone, & none of them wake it up.... i thought thats what WOL is? once theres a signal or anything trying to access it, it will come out of hibernation....

please please help....

i do know it does wake up, as i have googled & found some crappy app/things, i have to intup the ip/mac bla,bla & press a button.. but thats just not appropriate to put onto the liks of kids laptops etc....
Click to expand...

Go on the Lights out setup guide and follow it all exacly as it says.

I have lights out setup to wake up and wake all my machines one at a time do their backups then turn the pc off. Then after all the backups it turns off. Every one of my PCs can wake the server from hibernation. Lights Out seems to all work OK. The only thing is if it is not setup All OK it will wake the server all the time.
 
Thinking of buying the N40L, does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade the processor? I'm sure 1.5GHz will be plenty but would like to know if it could be upgraded in the future if required.

Scott.
 
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