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

By the looks of things that should be fine.

I just bought some cheap DDR3 for mine and it works (mixed with the standard 2GB stick). Mine are similar spec as well
 
Are there any issues in running "green" drives in raid 0?
I want to back up all my music and digital photos, but don't want to lose it all through a disk error.

Was looking at either Samsung or Western Digital drives.

If Green drives are a problem, can someone please recommend a suitable drive that won't break the bank.

Thanks.
 
CageyH said:
Are there any issues in running "green" drives in raid 0?
I want to back up all my music and digital photos, but don't want to lose it all through a disk error.

Was looking at either Samsung or Western Digital drives.

If Green drives are a problem, can someone please recommend a suitable drive that won't break the bank.

Thanks.
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You dont backup onto a raid 0 you need either raid 10 (RAID 0 + 1), Raid 1 or Raid 5, 50, 6, or 60.

Just not RAID 0
 
No RAID level is backup!!

If you want backup you need a different mechanism to RAID. RAID 1 mirroring won't help you if you if you corrupt your operating system for example as the RAID controller will copy the dodgy sectors to your mirrored disk!!

RAID 1 or 10 or 5 or 6 protect against particular disk failure levels that is all and should be used together with a proper backup solution.
 
tbz_ck said:
No RAID level is backup!!

If you want backup you need a different mechanism to RAID. RAID 1 mirroring won't help you if you if you corrupt your operating system for example as the RAID controller will copy the dodgy sectors to your mirrored disk!!

RAID 1 or 10 or 5 or 6 protect against particular disk failure levels that is all and should be used together with a proper backup solution.
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True but in most cases it's the data that's important not the operating system. When's the last time you saw a fully corrupted data drive?
 
Ok - what I should have said is that I want two seperate drives in the N36L, where I can copy my data across.

The OS will run on the 250Gb drive. I was thinking of running 2 identical 2Tb disks in Raid 1 (Sorry - said raid 0 earlier after reading this massive, informative thread). That way, if one of my drives goes down, I still have my photos. Some are irreplacable...
By mirroring the data, I stand the best chance of not losing anything.
I also want to store them in a central place on the network, so I can get them from any device.

Which disks are suitable for this?
I have read that the green disks are dodgy in Raid, so just want to make sure before I part with any hard earned cash, that I buy something suitable.

I'll investigate a true back-up solution.
 
I've been looking at one of these bad boys for a while and i think i might finally take the purchase.

Couple of queries though, i read online a few issues with WOL/Hibernation not working. Is now a good time to buy as i hear they might be releasing a new build?
 
CageyH said:
I am looking at either:
Hitachi Deskstar 7k3000
Seagate Barracuda XT
Western Digital Caviar Black
Western Digital RE4 GP
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RE4 if you're looking for reliability.

Also, it's been mentioned many a time in this thread, but use VortexBox - it has a "backup" option in there, whereby you can plug in a USB disk, and it'll dump your shiz onto that. Easily modifiable to include other things if you know how to dick about with Linux. Plus it's a damn awesome media\file server backend with built in ripping functionality. I'm also looking at writing some modifications for VBox on how to switch up from using their default methods of ripping DVDs (full 1:1 copy to MKV with mp4 mirroring) to compressed handbrake driven rips. Once done I plan to post the modified files onto their site.
 
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TD24 said:
I've been looking at one of these bad boys for a while and i think i might finally take the purchase.

Couple of queries though, i read online a few issues with WOL/Hibernation not working. Is now a good time to buy as i hear they might be releasing a new build?
Click to expand...

If you go by the "they might be releasing a new X Y and Z" you'd never buy anything, as there's always something new around the corner. :)
 
Guys,
got 4 1tb WD Green drives in RAID 5. Had a brainfart and for some reason i created a 2nd partition when installing WS2008R2 Ent.
Now that its all installed i wanted to extend the original partition to swallow up the smaller one, but it won't let me, saying:
"only the first 2TB are usable on large MBR disks. Cannot create partitions beyond 2TB mark, nor convert the disk to dynamic."

I deliberately installed the OS on the larger partition, thinking that i could extrend it and swallow the smaller one later.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Would a BIOS update (NL36) or Service Pack install help?
 
Bugger! Cos i can't do anything with the smaller partition either, can't initialise it so its unusable, and its 700gb!

Maybe i should have created 2 arrays when i configure the raid in the bios
 
Guys im having a problem with Freenas 8. All my CIFS share works etc all fine. But the transfer speeds are very slow (2mb/s). Ive tried giving the vm freenas more ramm etc (6gb) and it didnt help. I can transfer between other computers at nearly gigabit speeds - but with sftp / cifs to freenas its very slow. Any ideas? I have the N40L MS. My Volume partition is ZFS thin provisioned. Im not sure if thats why the transfer is so slow?
 
Banzai_Joe said:
4 x 1tb drives
in raid 5 (single group)
2 partitions in windows:
2047GB (NTFS) = OS
743GB (unallocated)

Can't extend the OS partition beyond what it is (for the reason mentioned before) and cannot actually do anything with the 743Gb partition either.
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If I were you, I'd find a way either eSATA, or putting it in the 5.25" bay, installing OS on the 250Gb, and then having the RAID5 as pure storage and making it GPT so you can use the entirety of your space.
 
MasterPlan1 said:
If I were you, I'd find a way either eSATA, or putting it in the 5.25" bay, installing OS on the 250Gb, and then having the RAID5 as pure storage and making it GPT so you can use the entirety of your space.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...i did originally think about doing that tbh, using the original disk as it's already setup with WHS on it as a VM.
I'd have to do away with the dvd drive then then i should need that anymore. Plus i do have an external dvd drive.

There's no other way to do it? The storage has to be GTP as MBR cannot exceed 2TB if i'm correct? and yo cannot boot from GPT drive?
 
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