WOL working fine here. I use my Tomato router to wake the microserver up. Can't remember if I had to set anything up on it though (seem to think I checked the bios and also the advanced settings in the network device under device manager but not sure if I changed anything)
Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD
- Thread starter dragonuk
- Start date
WOL working fine here. I use my Tomato router to wake the microserver up. Can't remember if I had to set anything up on it though (seem to think I checked the bios and also the advanced settings in the network device under device manager but not sure if I changed anything)
I'm trying it out in server 2012 essentials beta now, and have found a couple of worrying things about storage pools.
1) Mirror / parity: you need to choose this when you first create the pool. You cant create a pool with one drive, then decide to add a second drive as a mirror. You must start with a two drive pool and declare one of them a mirror immediately.
Likewise, if you want to set 2 drives as mirrors, it looks like you need 3 drives to start with - you cant convert the pool from a no mirror pool to a one mirror pool, and then to a 2 mirror pool.
2) You can add drives to a pool easily, but you cant remove them. So, say you have 4 1TB drives in your server, and want to replace one of those drives with a 2TB drive. At present there is only one way to do it: manually remove one of the drives, triggering a failure, and then add the new drive and let it copy the
If you aren't using one of the mirror or parity options, this process kills the entire storage pool. Remove one drive, you lose the lot.
But even with mirror, this is kind of uncertain. There is no built in way to migrate the data off a drive before you remove it, the way you could with WHS v1.
To be honest, I kinda see that as the usual way to upgrade the drives in a pool. Yank the old drive, drop the new one in and let the data copy over.
It is annoying that you need at least 2 drives to create a mirror to start with (OS needs to be on a separate drive, which makes 3 needed in total) and at least 3 drives to setup a parity pool (as before, 4 in total as OS needs to be on a separate drive). I was going to go for a parity based pool in the Beta so I didn't loose out on as much space as mirroring but I only had 2x2tb drives so had to go for mirroring. When the full release is out I may get a 3rd drive for Parity
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Associate
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- Aberdeen
FreeNAS is easy to setup and use. Runs of USB stick so keeping all the bays. Of course you could add a drive using the SATA port onboard - but to unlock max speed you'll need the BIOS mod...
Regular Ubuntu works nicely, and is free and effectively windows interface.
Regular Ubuntu works nicely, and is free and effectively windows interface.
Well i've just finished setting mine up, installed Ubuntu 12.04 Server on a 16GB USB stick, I must say I wasn't expecting to find an internal USB host on the motherboard that is very nice.
Currently got a 2TB drive in the first bay which is my only storage but will be installing mdadm once my new hard drives arrive.
I've won an EVGA GT520 off the bay so once thats installed i'll be looking at getting xbmc on it. I don't suppose anyone has a link to a half height blanking plate for these do they? I'm sure i've seen one but now I can't find it.
But yes overall very impressed and will definately be a fitting replacement for my ML110
Cheers
B
Currently got a 2TB drive in the first bay which is my only storage but will be installing mdadm once my new hard drives arrive.
I've won an EVGA GT520 off the bay so once thats installed i'll be looking at getting xbmc on it. I don't suppose anyone has a link to a half height blanking plate for these do they? I'm sure i've seen one but now I can't find it.
But yes overall very impressed and will definately be a fitting replacement for my ML110
Cheers
B
If you want the client backup feature, there's still nothing to compare with WHS v1, but it's very hard to find. A technet subscription might be the only way.
I am sure you can create a Parity set with 2 drives (plus system) and might be able to with just 1. But write performance is a fraction of a mirror or non-redundant set. It's good for media files (as long as you don't have a multi-TB set to create in the first place, since read performance is apparently very good).
A mirror set can have multiple mirror drives. If you have 1 mirror, then you can lose one drive and data is safe. if you have 2 mirrors, you can lose 2 drives, and so on. But you lose the storage of that many drives.
At least with the Beta I'm using, it wouldn't allow me to create any storage pools using the system disk
Finally took the plunge. Just need to find some RAM for it now
I've got some Kingston at £25 per 4gb (ECC) stick. It has KTD-PE313E/4G written on it. Claims to be intended for Dell systems. Running beautifully.
Windows doesn't let you turn a single drive into a mirror? Poor show
Thats the same as all windows software RAID i've ever tried to use.
That's correct. Storage Pools aren't supported at boot yet, so the system disk cant be part of one.
lol sorry, I think we've gone round in circles here. My original post was referring to W8/Server 2012 storage pools about the apparent "minimum requirements" for mirrored disks and parity as that's what we were talking about? I was agreeing with you that this feature was annoying and that it would be nice to create a storage pool in any way we want only using 1 drive to start with and adding more at a later stage.
I don't know if anything has changed in the RC but at least in the Beta, it would not let me create a parity disk with 2 empty drives.
Hi,
Quick question, I've got an N40L with 2 x 250 GB disk in it. I've setup the 2 HDD in raid1, but when I then install esxi on my internal usb and try to add the 250GB raid drive as a datastore in esxi its showing BOTH drives? (I would expect the onboard raid controller to only present 1 x 250gb to esxi).
Am I doing something wrong? or do I need to flash my bios or get a propper raid controller or something?
Quick question, I've got an N40L with 2 x 250 GB disk in it. I've setup the 2 HDD in raid1, but when I then install esxi on my internal usb and try to add the 250GB raid drive as a datastore in esxi its showing BOTH drives? (I would expect the onboard raid controller to only present 1 x 250gb to esxi).
Am I doing something wrong? or do I need to flash my bios or get a propper raid controller or something?
Soldato
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It's just firmware RAID so without suitable drivers you will see the separate drives. I think you’ll need a real hardware RAID controller that’s on the EXSi compatibility list.
Ok thanks, I think I'll scrap the raid idea then... and do some local backups/redundancy another way. Cheers.
Soldato
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Am I better off with a XFX 6450 or 5450 card in this? I take it the passive ones do fit?
Or would a Nvidia 210 be better?
Or would a Nvidia 210 be better?