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

Marky · 4 Dec 2012 at 19:36

bremen1874 said:
If one drive dies (or even coughs badly) you'll loose everything on the array. There'd be not harm to the actual drives, but recreating 8TB of data could be annoying.

Ah okay that's good to know... It would definitely be annoying... I'm assuming that if I put them into RAID 1, if one drive dies, I'll be able to just swap it out for a new one and everything will go back to normal? Also how much space will I have to play with with 4x2TB drives in RAID 1?

bremen1874 · 4 Dec 2012 at 21:01

Marky said:
Ah okay that's good to know... It would definitely be annoying... I'm assuming that if I put them into RAID 1, if one drive dies, I'll be able to just swap it out for a new one and everything will go back to normal? Also how much space will I have to play with with 4x2TB drives in RAID 1?

With RAID1 there'd still be a rebuilt to go through but it wouldn't take very long (compared to RAID5)

Using the on-board RAID you'd have to create two separate RAID1 arrays of 2TB each. You could create a single 4TB RAID10 (or 0+1) array but you'd be back to software RAID for that.

If you search back through this thread you find various discussions of software options that don't fit into the straight forward RAID categories but do offer a decent level of protection.

As always RAID isn't a replacement for a decent backup strategy.

Marky · 4 Dec 2012 at 23:14

bremen1874 said:
With RAID1 there'd still be a rebuilt to go through but it wouldn't take very long (compared to RAID5)

Using the on-board RAID you'd have to create two separate RAID1 arrays of 2TB each. You could create a single 4TB RAID10 (or 0+1) array but you'd be back to software RAID for that.

If you search back through this thread you find various discussions of software options that don't fit into the straight forward RAID categories but do offer a decent level of protection.

As always RAID isn't a replacement for a decent backup strategy.

Cool

Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me

EDIT: For the ReadyNAS, they have an official forum where I can ask questions and such - Is there an official forum for the HP Proliant?

Xinn · 4 Dec 2012 at 23:44

Marky said:
Cool Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me

EDIT: For the ReadyNAS, they have an official forum where I can ask questions and such - Is there an official forum for the HP Proliant?

No Official post that I'm aware of but the "we got served" and AV forums have good threads on the N40L.

bungler · 5 Dec 2012 at 12:35

Was looking to upgrade the ram, possibly adding 4GB for 6GB in total but with the price of 8GB at the minute I might as well go for that. Does the today only kit work ok with this?

Brok · 5 Dec 2012 at 13:27

Hi folks

Looking for some help if possible. I have just put one of these together with 2 3TB drives in it. Can anyone give me a list of commands needed to partition and mount these drives in XBMCbuntu please (Based on Ubuntu 11.something I think?)

Thanks!

**EDIT** Never mind, think I've sorted it now.

Xinn · 5 Dec 2012 at 14:13

bungler said:
Was looking to upgrade the ram, possibly adding 4GB for 6GB in total but with the price of 8GB at the minute I might as well go for that. Does the today only kit work ok with this?

Not sure, it can be quite fussy with what works and what doesn't.

See here for a list on confirmed working RAM: http://n40l.wikia.com/wiki/Memory

steveo · 5 Dec 2012 at 15:20

bungler said:
Was looking to upgrade the ram, possibly adding 4GB for 6GB in total but with the price of 8GB at the minute I might as well go for that. Does the today only kit work ok with this?

look out for the XMS3 8Gb kits they work a treat in the Micro's

tadaaaa OCUK linky £30

413x · 5 Dec 2012 at 16:41

bungler said:
Was looking to upgrade the ram, possibly adding 4GB for 6GB in total but with the price of 8GB at the minute I might as well go for that. Does the today only kit work ok with this?

ill take the spare stick

i am awaiting delivery of mine, dont know if its been dispatched yet!

also is it best to go with WHS 2011 as i am new to this?
if so is it best to install it on a separate drive? ie SSD?

Xinn · 5 Dec 2012 at 16:50

al4x said:
ill take the spare stick

i am awaiting delivery of mine, dont know if its been dispatched yet!

also is it best to go with WHS 2011 as i am new to this?
if so is it best to install it on a separate drive? ie SSD?

It is possible to install it on an SSD but you have to mess about with unattended install scripts unless you have a large capacity SSD as WHS2011 won't install on a disk smaller than 160GB(?) usually. The unattended script can bypass that check though.

It depends on how often you're going to be powering it up/down though as to if it's worth it or not. It's possible to get hibernate/standby/wake on LAN working on it though which might off set the time you spend waiting for it to power up.

Cyber-Mav · 5 Dec 2012 at 19:50

got a dust filter mod going for the microserver now, the front door seperates into 2 parts, sandwiched a dust filter in there and the jobs done.

Cyber-Mav · 5 Dec 2012 at 21:28

here is some pics:

***pics removed due to lack of interest and to save bandwidth.***

a very simple mode which i dont understand why HP didnt do this as standard.
this should help block out a fair bit of dust. just a regular vaccume clean over the front of the door once a week shoudl be sufficient.

filter was a hiflow one from auction site. cheap as chips.

bungler · 5 Dec 2012 at 22:32

I was too slow on the ram anyway. Thanks for the advice, I'll have a look at the list and put
one down as an Xmas present since I can't think of anything else!

al4x said:
ill take the spare stick

Keep an eye in for sale soon. I'm sure it will be a fair price

is it best to go with WHS 2011 as i am new to this?
if so is it best to install it on a separate drive

I'm not an expert but I've found whs 2011 really simple to use and for the price you can't go wrong.

DJMK4 · 6 Dec 2012 at 19:34

Guy's I am thinking about switching my ESXi set-up on this server to Hyper-V 2008, for various reasons, work is starting to go down the hyper-v route more now than ESXi, plus I want the ability to add physical drives with data on without hassle and let my VM's see them as data store volumes. Something which I had problems sorting in ESXi.

Does the Microserver run Hyper-V OK I am assuming? What would be the best configuration path based on this server?

I have seen people just installing Server 2008 R2 and adding Hyper-V as a role.

Currently My NL36 has 8GB ram, HDD0 250GB, HDD1 500GB (with data on I do not wish to loose!) but this is only for testing purposes at the moment, this will increase.

ideally I want to be able to run the OS and VM's from HDD0 and use the second drive for data that only certain VM's (or all) can access.

Marky · 6 Dec 2012 at 23:13

I'm fairly sure I'm gunna buy this tomorrow and spend this weekend playing around with it

I just need to be pointed in the right direction...
Before setting up anything, I'd like to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and I need a video card capable of 1080p and decent sound through HDMI.

Any suggestions?

Edit1: The one I'm looking at is "HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer" is that right?

Edit2: I see you can get a "Remote Access Card Kit" for it... Why would you need this? I assumed you'd be able to remotely access your data without the need to buy anything extra?

tbz_ck · 6 Dec 2012 at 23:57

Marky said:
I'm fairly sure I'm gunna buy this tomorrow and spend this weekend playing around with it I just need to be pointed in the right direction...
Before setting up anything, I'd like to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and I need a video card capable of 1080p and decent sound through HDMI.

Any suggestions?

Edit1: The one I'm looking at is "HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer" is that right?

Edit2: I see you can get a "Remote Access Card Kit" for it... Why would you need this? I assumed you'd be able to remotely access your data without the need to buy anything extra?

1) yes

2) You don't need it. You can do remote access through whatever OS you put on it. That card probably refers to Intergrated Lights Out (iLo) which is a high end feature for remote sites where you might need remote BIOS low level access.

Marky · 7 Dec 2012 at 00:01

tbz_ck said:
1) yes

2) You don't need it. You can do remote access through whatever OS you put on it. That card probably refers to Intergrated Lights Out (iLo) which is a high end feature for remote sites where you might need remote BIOS low level access.

Excellent

Thanks a lot

I think I've found the RAM I need - just need to find a decent video card now

MeMeMeMe · 7 Dec 2012 at 05:20

Marky said:
Before setting up anything, I'd like to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and I need a video card capable of 1080p and decent sound through HDMI.

Any suggestions?

Edit1: The one I'm looking at is "HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer" is that right?

Edit2: I see you can get a "Remote Access Card Kit" for it... Why would you need this? I assumed you'd be able to remotely access your data without the need to buy anything extra?

The remote access kit allows you to access the BIOS of the server across the network. This can sometimes be handy. If you need to change BIOS settings you need to connect it up to a monitor and keyboard. With the remote access kit, you can avoid that - but it's pricey.

The graphic card: a 5450 or 6450 is the ideal card. Anything more powerful will be too demanding for the server's PSU.

Cyber-Mav · 7 Dec 2012 at 08:56

Marky said:
Excellent Thanks a lot
I think I've found the RAM I need - just need to find a decent video card now

go for 16gigs man its cheap enough these days/

413x · 7 Dec 2012 at 09:54

Cyber-Mav said:
go for 16gigs man its cheap enough these days/

im sticking with 4 personally