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

DiCe! said:
How many disks can these take without having the modded BIOS?

Im thinking of having 2 mirrors with the OS running on a 30 gig SSD plugged into the spare sata, would that work?
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You can do 6 in total (5 without using the eSATA port). The 5th port only runs at half speed without the bios hack.

I currrently have 2 mirrors and the OS running on the 5th at half speed and for what I am doing with it, it doesn't make much difference in day to day use.
 
LFletcher said:
You can do 6 in total (5 without using the eSATA port). The 5th port only runs at half speed without the bios hack.

I currrently have 2 mirrors and the OS running on the 5th at half speed and for what I am doing with it, it doesn't make much difference in day to day use.
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You sir, get a smiley = :D

That is me sold on what im doing then, I have 2x2TB drives and I will get a cheap SSD to run my OS then add further 2x2tb drives in the future

Perfik
 
Would the microserver be powerful enough to record from ip cams? It is a plan I have to get some home cctv going..

Mine is here still in the box until cashback gets confirmed but got 8GB Kingston Lovo 1.35v to go in and just ordered a 120GB Vertex 2E for OS..
 
xibinim said:
Would this be able to run Windows 7/8 and XBMC well?
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a lot of people run Windows Home Server 2011 which is essentially the same as W7 just tweaked for more server features. If you want to use XBMC to convert video on the fly (transcode) you need to add a separate video card if it's purely serving up files then thats what this server is built for.
 
Hey guys

I just bought one of these badboys, can anyone recommend some RAM? I've tried to install SBS2011 but it needs 4GB to run, I'd like to order this today so I can have it tomorrow :) I just want to check if it has full size DIMMS or not.

Ta! :)
 
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Phate said:
How comes?

Ordered some memory anyway. 8gb for £37 delivered tomorrow, done.
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there is not a massive amount of clearance between the motherboard and the bottom of the hard drive cage so you don't want excessively tall ram.
I fired 2x4GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3 in mine without a problem.
 
Sweet, I've got for Corsairs, it's got heatspreads along the chips but not along the top of the memory so it'll be fine, cheers for the tip though!
 
Hi guys am looking for some advice about a N40L, i have never worked with servers before so this would be my first setup, this setup would be mainly used as a media server connecting to a Mac Mini for Plex on a Gigabit switch, how easy are these Servers setting up for first timers and would WHS work ok with Mac machines. am thinking of having 4 2Tb drives and putting the OS on a 120gb SSD if the SSD would be a benefit
 
steveo said:
Hi guys am looking for some advice about a N40L, i have never worked with servers before so this would be my first setup, this setup would be mainly used as a media server connecting to a Mac Mini for Plex on a Gigabit switch, how easy are these Servers setting up for first timers and would WHS work ok with Mac machines. am thinking of having 4 2Tb drives and putting the OS on a 120gb SSD if the SSD would be a benefit
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Hi mate,

Whilst I've only just got this server myself I've been working with Servers for years so I'll try to answer best I can.

WHS would work fine with the Macs, I've got 3 Macs here at home and it streams/shares files with them without issues. OSX should detect the server on your network straight away, all you need to do is 'Connect as' and either type in the Server Administrator account details, or create an account which has access to your shares with your media on so it can access those.

SSD I would say in this case you wouldn't really benefit. The architecture of a server is for it to be switched on 24/7 and most of the time it'll be sitting there doing not a whole lot as you'll be out and about. You won't need to wait for load up times as it'll be turned on all the time and it'll stream to multiple devices simultaneously without issue. What I would recommend however is spending £30 on an 8gb RAM kit, I've done that to mine and despite only having a 1.5GHZ cpu, it's nice and snappy and I'm running SBS 2011 which requires 4gb minimum.

HTH :)
Jake
 
Cheers Phate thats very helpful if i filled the bays with the 2TB for the media what options do i have for the OS (memory stick or 2.5 drive) ??
 
steveo said:
Cheers Phate thats very helpful if i filled the bays with the 2TB for the media what options do i have for the OS (memory stick or 2.5 drive) ??
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I've not had my open for some time but from memory that will leave you with the internal USB or the internal SATA port for your OS. The SATA port I understand is speed limited although can be unlocked with a (not HP) bios update.

I've found mine to be a great home and media server and with the external eSATA port it's very easy to back up to a large HD in a dock or caddy. One small issue I found was a lot of dust is pulled through the front door which gets onto the internals due to no dust filter.

Upgrade the RAM to 8gb for sure and you'll have a nice little unit for not much outlay.

Good luck
 
You can install a drive in the optical bay for the OS if you wished. Or if you wanted you could use something like Freenas and run that from a USB stick. I persoannly run 6 3.5" drives in 3 RAID1 arrays using the onboard RAID and created a partition for the whs2011 on one of the arrays.
 
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OK guys, question for you

Is it possible to run XBMC inside a VM (using ESXi) so that audio/video is passed through to a dedicated GPU/HDMI like the ones suggested in this thread?

I suspect performance may be an issue as it would be using the virtual CPU/GPU unless it can pass through to the dedicated card?
 
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