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

Stu · 14 Jan 2013 at 16:25

enigmo said:
It's not just the UI. It's HyperV management being restricted to other 2012 boxes, Sys Centre SP1 being needed for cloud mgmt and still only in beta. Personally, I'd be a little iffy about a wholescale MS server rollout until SP1 comes along. As for what mates are telling me, they have their reasons and I'm only relaying what I've been told, and of those who will be using it, they will be going core only and PowerShelling everything they need. However, even for some server admins, having to choose between 100% CLI and 100% tiling monstrosity is too much.

I take your comments on board, but I would argue that they are not relevant in selecting an os for an N40L used at home as a media server.

I am thinking WHS is old news. Win 8 looks appealling, but I would consider Server software. If other PCs in the house run Win 8, then is Server 2012 is a fair choice?

enigmo · 14 Jan 2013 at 16:42

Stu said:
I take your comments on board, but I would argue that they are not relevant in selecting an os for an N40L used at home as a media server.

I am thinking WHS is old news. Win 8 looks appealling, but I would consider Server software. If other PCs in the house run Win 8, then is Server 2012 is a fair choice?

True, I was getting a little off topic

In that case, then yes, 2012 is fine, as is 2008. Both will do what a home 'power user' would demand of a media server.

steinooo · 14 Jan 2013 at 19:05

hi all,

I have a 3.5" 2TB Western Digital "EARS" Green drive attached to my server via USB. I figured out that it makes no sense to be attached by USB, and thought about cracking open the enclosure and putting it in the server.

It's formatted by NTFS. Would it just work? Or would the server try to boot from it or something? Or worst case - wipe it and try to initialise it?

Thanks in advance.

SoundsGood · 14 Jan 2013 at 19:11

enigmo said:
It's not just the UI. It's HyperV management being restricted to other 2012 boxes, Sys Centre SP1 being needed for cloud mgmt and still only in beta. Personally, I'd be a little iffy about a wholescale MS server rollout until SP1 comes along. As for what mates are telling me, they have their reasons and I'm only relaying what I've been told, and of those who will be using it, they will be going core only and PowerShelling everything they need. However, even for some server admins, having to choose between 100% CLI and 100% tiling monstrosity is too much.

System Centre 2012 SP1 RTM is available on Technet

Uhtred · 14 Jan 2013 at 19:24

steinooo said:
hi all,

I have a 3.5" 2TB Western Digital "EARS" Green drive attached to my server via USB. I figured out that it makes no sense to be attached by USB, and thought about cracking open the enclosure and putting it in the server.

It's formatted by NTFS. Would it just work? Or would the server try to boot from it or something? Or worst case - wipe it and try to initialise it?

Thanks in advance.

That would work perfectly fine. The file system is the same regardless of the interface you're using. It will make the drive a lot faster!

PS you would void any warranty obviously. Even if you sent the drive back to WD they would be unlikely to honour it.

steinooo · 14 Jan 2013 at 19:47

Uhtred said:
That would work perfectly fine. The file system is the same regardless of the interface you're using. It will make the drive a lot faster!

PS you would void any warranty obviously. Even if you sent the drive back to WD they would be unlikely to honour it.

got you thanks. I have windows on it at the moment, I assume it would just show up as another drive rather than a USB drive like it does at the moment?

I know it'd be faster but there's never really any time it's maxxed on IOs, I just store videos on it and watch them back pulling it from the microserver over the LAN.

Xinn · 14 Jan 2013 at 22:56

Slightly off topic does anybody know a free PDF editor I can use to edit the form as I'll never end up sending it unless I email it to them.

Stu · 15 Jan 2013 at 00:25

Xinn said:
Slightly off topic does anybody know a free PDF editor I can use to edit the form as I'll never end up sending it unless I email it to them.

Just print off and fill in using a pen! You need to sign it anyway, so you will have to print, pen and the scan either way. Then email.

alfalavala · 15 Jan 2013 at 12:51

Trying to research ESXi on the microserver with the aim of running zfs in FreeNAS/Nexenta and windows/linux vms. It seems for ZFS having passthrough is recommended for performance and if things fail, however, the N40L doesn't support passthrough.

I'm trying to work out if buying a special SAS PCI card would overcome this or whether it's other parts of the N40L that prevent this - CPU etc.?

Anyone know and know of any compatible SAS cards if so?

Uhtred · 15 Jan 2013 at 13:00

alfalavala said:
Trying to research ESXi on the microserver with the aim of running zfs in FreeNAS/Nexenta and windows/linux vms. It seems for ZFS having passthrough is recommended for performance and if things fail, however, the N40L doesn't support passthrough.

I'm trying to work out if buying a special SAS PCI card would overcome this or whether it's other parts of the N40L that prevent this - CPU etc.?

Anyone know and know of any compatible SAS cards if so?

Are you sure they aren't referring to RDM passthrough of local disks? That's how I have my ZFS setup.

alfalavala · 15 Jan 2013 at 14:06

Uhtred said:
Are you sure they aren't referring to RDM passthrough of local disks? That's how I have my ZFS setup.

I've seen some posts on that. I won't ask you to explain how I do it but some concept questions:

Does this allow me to import an existing pool?
Similarly, would I be able to export this pool and import it into a baremetal installation of FreeNAS etc.?
Any issue with speed?

edit: This is the post I believe explaining how to do it.

413x · 15 Jan 2013 at 17:45

enigmo said:
Absolutely not. You can either stick it on a machine all real or virtual) and have a play till you break it, or start using it straight away and just be careful and Google anything you're not sure about. But, can't go wrong really.
As for your OS drive, would a 1TB 2.5" not be overkill? Size and cost are a lot more than a bog standard 300GB one that would happily dual boot plus have virtual machines.

Indeed they are!

Originally I was thinking of having the OS and backups of client os drives all on this drive. This would mean a simple back up of this whole drive to the external drive I have.

Seeing the cost of the drives maybe it would be better to just bung the OS driveon a small 2.5 like you say

Recommendations for a OS drive for server? I guess there is no point in am ssd?

Virtual machine would be good for me to learn. I'm particularly keen to learn about this stuff, probably going to do some courses

tbz_ck · 15 Jan 2013 at 18:22

blawford said:
Does anyone have any information as to the cashback situation? I would like to buy one...

The N40L is not on cashback and the new n54L version is only available on the HP website (by choice so I am told by an HP product manager for the EU)

That sucks to be honest...

MagicBoy · 15 Jan 2013 at 19:27

Plus the N54L is £320...

My N40L arrived today for £190. Still a decent enough deal even without cashback coming. Only £30 more than a cheap 4-bay NAS appliance.

Mr-White · 15 Jan 2013 at 19:36

MagicBoy said:
Plus the N54L is £320...

My N40L arrived today for £190. Still a decent enough deal even without cashback coming. Only £30 more than a cheap 4-bay NAS appliance.

Ouch you could have literally got 2 for that 2 weeks ago

My cash back finally turned up today

MW

MagicBoy · 15 Jan 2013 at 19:59

Mr-White said:
Ouch you could have literally got 2 for that 2 weeks ago

My cash back finally turned up today

MW

It was £190 delivered, rather than ex-VAT so it's not that bad really. I didn't have the funds available at the time, I've just spend the overtime I got today.

I'll re-use the existing HDDs from a couple of duff caddies so it'll all work out in the end.

Xinn · 15 Jan 2013 at 20:57

Stu said:
Just print off and fill in using a pen! You need to sign it anyway, so you will have to print, pen and the scan either way. Then email.

Using a drawing tablet for signature and I don't have access to a scanner otherwise that's how I'd be doing it.

Desk · 15 Jan 2013 at 22:18

I'm about to set up my N40L with a flashed BIOS, no RAID, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drivepool and two 3TB hard drives, and trying to decide on the best configuration.

i.e., should I partition the drives to fit the WHS 2TB partition backup limit, then just pool all those partitions together using Drivepool?

Or, given that I'm planning to use Drivepool to ensure copies of key folders are kept on both drives, and not use WHS for this, should I just install the drives as full, unpartitioned 3TB using disk management?

Anyone know if there is any disadvantage to having unpartitioned 3TB drives in the machine, or likely to be any if I remove them in the future?

Thanks,

Desk

dubcat · 15 Jan 2013 at 23:30

Hi all - i run ubuntu server on my n40l. I used the hard drive that came with it as my OS drive and put in 3 x 2TB drives which are set up in Raid 5. I would like to reinstall the OS from scratch as I have a bunch of junk on there. I don't want to lose all that data though.

1) would there be a benefit in moving to SSD, if so where is the best place to mount it?
2) whether I go to SSD or simply reinstall on the original HD is there a way to do this without losing my data? If so can someone point me to a guide?

Cheers,
Dub

413x · 15 Jan 2013 at 23:42

^would like to know also in regards to Hdd os options