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

Guru said:
Just to clear up my confusion, what is all this about fakeraid? I'm running server 2008 enterprise. If one drive fails I was assuming I could not lose anything and that I can just bang another drive in and it will rebuild the array? Is this not the case?

Thanks,

G
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No your data is safe (or rather you have the extra safety which RAID provides).

FakeRAID is sort of like a WinModem. Instead of offloading the RAID functionality to a dedicated processor, FakeRAID lets the CPU do the work. In the case RAID 1 & 1 that's not really a big deal, but in the case of RAID 5, RAID 10 etc., the overhead can make quiet a difference / load the CPU heavily.

The other problem is that FakeRAID required drivers which are generally only supplied for Windows.
See for instance:
FakeRAID on WikiPedia
 
Does anyone have any idea what the CPU upgrade path is like on this? What is currently the most powerful CPU that could be put into this box? Many Thanks
 
Seeing as though this is FakeRaid I'm not liking it so much (yes should have checked further but still a good price).

I'm now thinking about getting a RAID card as it still all works out OK on price.

Can anyone think of one which would fit and work fine so it does full hardware RAID?

Any of these:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=49&subid=424


Specifically maybe this one? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-004-SR


Any idea which would work and fit?
 
andytrey10 said:
Seeing as though this is FakeRaid I'm not liking it so much (yes should have checked further but still a good price).

I'm now thinking about getting a RAID card as it still all works out OK on price.

Can anyone think of one which would fit and work fine so it does full hardware RAID?

Any of these:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=49&subid=424


Specifically maybe this one? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-004-SR


Any idea which would work and fit?
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As far as I can see none of the cards you have linked will fit as they don't have the correct connector for the backplane cabling.

Additionally none of them are hardware RAID controllers in the first place. Where RAID is supported it’s ‘FakeRAID’ which is what you are presumably wanting to avoid.

FakeRAID is a rather pejorative term for a technology that’s been successfully used for years. For RAID 0 or 1 there’s no need for hardware RAID as there’s no significant processing overhead to offload.

A real hardware RAID card is almost certainly going to cost more than the server. If you actually need hardware RAID then the Microserver is probably the wrong machine for you and I’d cut my losses.
 
I'm sure this has been asked before, but can this do raid 10 onboard? And how much difference am I going to see between 5400rpm and 7200rpm on spinpoints?
 
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Aww spent yesterday transfering files at 60-70mb/sec, now back to 25mb/sec which I had all last week.
Wish I knew how to toggle it back to full speed lol.

Only thing I did different recently was plug in a monitor and login directly rather than over RDP. :/
 
Nikumba said:
Since the Adaptec 3405 is like silly price on the bay, can you plug standard SATA cables into the drives and plug them into a normal much cheaper SATA raid card?

Kimbie
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Not sure what you're asking. No you don't have to use the Adaptec 3405, you can use others. I'll be using my Adaptec 1430 later today.
 
Nikumba said:
That card does not do RAID 5, also it has standard SATA ports on it, so how are you connecting the drives to it?

Kimbie
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You can remove the backplate from the server where the drives connect to. You'd then need to connect power and sata cables directly to the drives within there caddies.
 
Oops posted in the other thread.... why is there 2 threads...

I did some setup on my microserver over the holiday period, and thought i'd share for everyone elses benefit.

Hardware purchased and all working fine:-

2 x Corsair Value 2GB PC10666
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MY-296-CS

4 x Samsung Spinpoint F4 Ecogreen 2tb disks
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-097-SA

1 x Pioneer 24x Internal S19LBK DVDRW
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=10&subcat=951
(Dont forget you need a molex>sata power adapter and a 45cm SATA cable. Anything less than 45cm wont fit)

I've been messing about ubuntu desktop/server 10.10 and couldnt get either of them working as I wanted with software RAID (mdRAID/LVM arrrrrgghhh) etc so ended up running to mamma and installing win7 home premium 64bit which works like a charm.

I've got the following partitions, which seems to be OK for now.

Disk0 - 100mb System
Disk0 - 500Gb OS
Disk0 - 1.2tb BACKUP with compresion ON

Disk 1 - 2tb DATA in Stripe set
Disk 2 - 2tb DATA in Stripe set
Disk 3 - 2tb DATA in Stripe set

I've got my folders arranged as follows on the DATA volume (5.7tb IIRC)

/Music (shared)
/Photos (shared)
/Movies (shared)
/Kids Movies (shared)
/Recently Downloaded (shared)
/Torrents/WIP
/Torrents/Complete

In terms of software i'm using the following:

AirVideo - For Ipad/Iphone streaming on LAN and Internet. It is configured against all those folders above.

AnyDVD - For making DVD backups from my collection.

TwonkyServer - For streaming music to my Pure Avanti Flow radio downstairs

MS SyncToy - For doing backups between the data drive and the backup volume. Also intend using this to do the same to an external HDD for critical stuff (photos/music)

Logmein/utorrent etc

In terms of TV streaming I use Zotac Zbox running XBMC Live which works great on the latest revision.

Pretty happy so far.
 
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