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

Biz.Kid09 said:
Following on from what i asked earlier i am thinking of having the server connected to the router and then 2 laptops and a desktop pc all wireless connecting to it. Will i get good performance doing this or am i best to just cancel my order and use external disks?

Thanks
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If it is 802.11g and you try to stream HD films to all 3 machines at once it will probably not work well. Same if you are taking backups, it will be slow and slower with all 3 machines doing it.

The server can happily push ~100 Megabytes per sec out via the gigabit ethernet port, over WiFi there will be a massive bottleneck. My Wifi is not great (need a new router :) ) but I can pull about 3 megabytes a second with my "g" network. That is more than enough to stream a HD movie, but If I was doing it from 3 machines at once (or even 2) I suspect buffering/stuttering would kick in!

But, to be clear, this is more a wifi issue than a microserver issue. I think you would get this with any machine serving to multiple clients via WiFi.


rp2000
 
Mikoyan said:
Can anyone please confirm what version of Esxi 5 they are using? I see there are free variants, any ideas if this free version can still be used to create a virtual lab environment, and if so with any limitations?

I need to know so I can download :)
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ESXi is free entirely, I'm not sure what you mean by variants?
It's perfectly suited for lab environments, so crack on and start using it!

The non-free VMware stuff I guess you refer to, sort of comes under the banner of vSphere but is basically Virtual Centre.
This gives you a single place to manage multiple ESXi boxes plus giving you the facility to migrate VM's on the fly between them. There is much more to it, but it's overkill for a home or lab setup.

You can get a free trial of vSphere, but without multiple ESXi boxes, you won't be able to test it's most powerful features.
 
rp2000 said:
If it is 802.11g and you try to stream HD films to all 3 machines at once it will probably not work well. Same if you are taking backups, it will be slow and slower with all 3 machines doing it.

The server can happily push ~100 Megabytes per sec out via the gigabit ethernet port, over WiFi there will be a massive bottleneck. My Wifi is not great (need a new router :) ) but I can pull about 3 megabytes a second with my "g" network. That is more than enough to stream a HD movie, but If I was doing it from 3 machines at once (or even 2) I suspect buffering/stuttering would kick in!

But, to be clear, this is more a wifi issue than a microserver issue. I think you would get this with any machine serving to multiple clients via WiFi.


rp2000
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It is "n" network :)
Well it is only really for backup purposes and storing media. Only one PC actually uses any media and i have that stored locally anyway. So it looks like it will be perfect.

I could also get a gfx card, do HDMI to my TV and watch the media direct from the server? rather than streaming to the laptops.


Thanks

EDIT: I would like to watch media on my iPad, is this possible?
Thanks again
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
It is "n" network :)
Well it is only really for backup purposes and storing media. Only one PC actually uses any media and i have that stored locally anyway. So it looks like it will be perfect.

I could also get a gfx card, do HDMI to my TV and watch the media direct from the server? rather than streaming to the laptops.


Thanks

EDIT: I would like to watch media on my iPad, is this possible?
Thanks again
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I don't have much experience with "n" networks (I really should get a new router though!!) but it offers more bandwidth so I think it would be fine (to multiple machines simultaneously)

If you are only serving media to 1 machine it won't be a problem at all. I would whack some HDDs into the microserver and move all your media onto it.

I was streaming before, now I bought a GFX card (ATI 6450) and used HDMI, like you just mentioned! Works a treat, cards that will easily handle this cost £20-£35 quid. I use Plex to playback (it has a simple interface and can be remote controlled by smart phones). It also has a client for iPad so you could stream to that from the server as well (you could also install the PC/Mac clients on other machines and stream to them).

If you just wanted to play solely on the microserver (connected to TV) you could use XBMC as an alternative. I think it has a couple more features than Plex for local playback, but it does not have the capability to act as a server and stream to other devices. I am sure there are other bits of software available as well, I don't know a great deal about HTPC (which is sort of what you are making your microserver into).


rp2000
 
Thanks rp2000.

So i simply install WHS, get some hdd whacked in, copy my media over and then install like you say Plex? and i use that when i want it visible on the TV/iPad. Otherwise i can just use the "WHS launchpad" that you install on all the client pc's to access the server?

Is that correct!?!?

Thanks once again! :)
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
Thanks rp2000.

So i simply install WHS, get some hdd whacked in, copy my media over and then install like you say Plex? and i use that when i want it visible on the TV/iPad. Otherwise i can just use the "WHS launchpad" that you install on all the client pc's to access the server?

Is that correct!?!?

Thanks once again! :)
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Do you plan to use the Launchpad for the machines that need to be backed up and Plex for machines that need to play media? If so that should work fine.

I have never actually used WHS 2011 :) My understanding is it is a variant of Server 2008R2. So you should be able to install Plex on it the same way as I have easily enough.

Now if you get the HDMI graphics card, you may find that GPU decoding does not work (like I found out today, read my posts in this thread a couple of hours back). Your media will still playback (locally), albeit using 40-50% of your CPU. Streaming it to iPad will prob max out the CPU and to other windows machines 10% ish.

To enable GPU decoding on mine I installed the Desktop Experience feature. I don't know if this exists in WHS2011, maybe someone else here who has it installed can check? All this feature does is enable Windows 7 style stuff on your machine, which happens to include letting your graphics card takeover video decoding. If you don't care about CPU usage, you can ignore this and the above paragraph :)


rp2000
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
Following on from what i asked earlier i am thinking of having the server connected to the router and then 2 laptops and a desktop pc all wireless connecting to it. Will i get good performance doing this or am i best to just cancel my order and use external disks?
Click to expand...

That's exactly the sort of thing it's perfect for. The server will easily be able to handle a few connections at full Wi-Fi speed. I'd much prefer this over the external disks solution. I say go for it. :)
 
Very Very tempted with one of the N40's Currently £230 but with £100 cashback.
I currently have a full C2D E5400/4Gb RAM/on a I think 550W PSU with a 9600 GTOC in it runnign as my media server/HTPC/DL box/squeezebox server. I also have 8GB DDR3 sitting here unused which I could pop into a N40?

Firstly does normal desktop RAM fit in these or do I need laptop stuff?
Will a full size GFX card fit or would the PSU not handle a 9600GTOC?

I'm very tempted just to install windows and use it as the HTPC machine and general browsing surely this has gotta be cheaper to run thean the full blown pc?
 
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Mikoyan said:
Can anyone please confirm what version of Esxi 5 they are using? I see there are free variants, any ideas if this free version can still be used to create a virtual lab environment, and if so with any limitations?

I need to know so I can download :)
Click to expand...

Hi

I'm using vSphere hypervisor free (ESXi 5). Unless you need vMotion, DRS etc or access to the vStorage API then the free version is more than adequate. If you want vMotion you will need one of the essentials licenses to unlock it and that will cost you around £300 to £400 pounds.
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
Very Very tempted with one of the N40's Currently £230 but with £100 cashback.
I currently have a full C2D E5400/4Gb RAM/on a I think 550W PSU with a 9600 GTOC in it runnign as my media server/HTPC/DL box/squeezebox server. I also have 8GB DDR3 sitting here unused which I could pop into a N40?

Firstly does normal desktop RAM fit in these or do I need laptop stuff?
Will a full size GFX card fit or would the PSU not handle a 9600GTOC?

I'm very tempted just to install windows and use it as the HTPC machine and general browsing surely this has gotta be cheaper to run thean the full blown pc?
Click to expand...

Normal desktop RAM fits, but there is very little space above the RAM slot and the drive cage, so make sure it is not RAM with those fancy heatsinks/spreaders as they often add height to the stick which means it won't fit. Also there is no PSU connectors for graphics cards that need additional power. You need a low profile card that draws its power from the PCIE 16x slot. Most people in this thread seem to be buying ATI HD 5450 or 6450 cards.
Nick1881 said:
I just ordered one of these, I'm planning Windows Server 2008 on a SSD drive.




Also I want to get some extra RAM, people are running OcUK value RAM ok?




http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-024-OK&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1180




Might order 2 of these so I have 8Gb.




If I want to put the SSD in the optical bay what will I need? I already have the Scythe 2.5 to 3.5" adapter. If OcUK sell something I can order it with the RAM.
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You will need the hacked BIOS to make the Optical Sata connection run at full speed and you will need a SATA cable (preferably right angled at one end) and also a Molex to SATA power splitter to power the drive.



rp2000
 
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tbz_ck said:
Hi

I'm using vSphere hypervisor free (ESXi 5). Unless you need vMotion, DRS etc or access to the vStorage API then the free version is more than adequate. If you want vMotion you will need one of the essentials licenses to unlock it and that will cost you around £300 to £400 pounds.
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I use the free one too. Hosts a 1 DC, 2 Exchange 2010 servers, 1 XP Pro Workstation, Windows 8 although thats turned off and a Arch Linux install.
I would say use a hypervisor anyway, even if you plan to use one OS, snapshot's are handy and if you ever needed to migrate to new hardware you can just backup the files and dump them onto the new hardware. The OS wouldn't even know its on a new host.
 
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The while process generally takes 1 to 2 months.
Has anyone experianced slow transfer speeds with the microserver?

My setup is ESXI 5 with WHS2011 and a few Linux boxes. My pc is Gigabit etc and so is the switch. Only getting 5 - 10mb/s. This is using windows explorer and i also tried ftp and its slightly faster but only a few mb/s
 
£22 for a 5450 ~£30 for a 6450
Got 8GB DDR3 HyperX Greys sitting here unused, they should fit, very minimal heatsinks.

If I do install a normal Os rather than a server OS this would still operate as my server whilst retaining desktop usability yes?

Found it for £229 delivered, £100 cashback from HP and ~£4.50 cashback for purchase too.

Getting Very tempted :(
Also it's a fair bit smaller than the Full ATX Silverstone Lascala thats currently sitting under the TV lol. USed s squeezebox, media server,squeezebox server and DL box.

The HP will easily cover all these bases I think
 
olibb said:
The while process generally takes 1 to 2 months.
Has anyone experianced slow transfer speeds with the microserver?

My setup is ESXI 5 with WHS2011 and a few Linux boxes. My pc is Gigabit etc and so is the switch. Only getting 5 - 10mb/s. This is using windows explorer and i also tried ftp and its slightly faster but only a few mb/s
Click to expand...

I was just thinking of asking about LAN speeds with ESXi5 on a N40L myself. I have 2 of them - The first runs WHS2011 natively and LAN speeds are fine, probably as fast as can be expected over Gigabit.

But I recently bought a 2nd N40L and am experimenting with ESXi5 and I too have dreadful network transfer rates similar to yours. Too slow to be of any use.

I don't know if its the NIC in the N40L not being supported by ESXi5 and falls back at 10Mbps or something else.

Would really like to run ESXi5 on this - Not a disaster if not but would like to understand why its currently so slow.
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
£22 for a 5450 ~£30 for a 6450
Got 8GB DDR3 HyperX Greys sitting here unused, they should fit, very minimal heatsinks.

If I do install a normal Os rather than a server OS this would still operate as my server whilst retaining desktop usability yes?

Found it for £229 delivered, £100 cashback from HP and ~£4.50 cashback for purchase too.

Getting Very tempted :(
Also it's a fair bit smaller than the Full ATX Silverstone Lascala thats currently sitting under the TV lol. USed s squeezebox, media server,squeezebox server and DL box.

The HP will easily cover all these bases I think
Click to expand...

By normal OS I assume you mean W7 x64? I would just install Server2008R2 (which is x64). If you install the "Desktop Experience" feature on the server it gives you all the graphical W7 stuff (Aero/Peek etc). If you then do want to do Server type stuff you don't need to reinstall. Any software/drivers that works on W7 will work on 2008R2 afaik.


rp2000
 
I've just bought another of these (N40L) for myself. Installed three for clients previously.

I'm using it to replace my 24/7 file server which is a HP ML115 G5 (AMD 2.2Ghz, 5Gb RAM) -It's been on since 2008 ;)
The reason for the replacement is to go green and save a little electricity and to reduce the noise.

I've just installed Windows 2008r2 and moved all of my hard drives over. I'm getting much better I/O from my hard drives now, the ML was never consistant. I'm using Hyper-V as part of Sever-2008 and just ordered 8Gb of OcUK Value Ram.

Just had my £100 cash back today (28/03/2012) They received by paper work on the (16/02/2012)
 
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