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

MeMeMeMe said:
There's a spare SATA slot on the motherboard. Use that plug, and thread the cable up through the rear, above where PCIe slots are at the back, into the 5.25" compartment. This is fiddly, but once done is very neat and tidy.
There's also a molex connector for the DVD drive - you'll need an adaptor to SATA power.
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Thanks very much for the informative response. I wasn't expect so much detail but it comes greatly appreciated. At least I don't need to look too far now when it comes to picking up what I need.

One thing though, out of the two, which one would you personally go for yourself? They both look like they do the job nicely but surely one must be more beneficial than the other? I'll have a look around regarding cable size shortly and see if I can find anything shorter than 50cm.
 
I'm after some advice as I've messed mine up a bit.

I had WHS 2011 installed on the 250Gb drive and 2 x 2TB in slot 1 and 2. I've now decided that Esxi is the way forward so I've installed it on a USB stick and a different 250Gb drive for VMs and booted into it fine. I've now inserted the 2 x 2tb drives back into the N40L and they show in the bios. Next I've installed Server 2012 as a VM and that's working fine.
My issue is how do i get 2 drives to show up in Server 2012? I can see the drives in vmware but if i try to add them it wants to format the drives so i loose the data on them.

Any help would be very appreciated, thanks.
 
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SaltandSauce said:
So I'm now able to run 3TB x 4 giving me a grand total of 16GB in space? :eek:
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Maths fail, 3tb x 4 = 12tb, minus filesystem overheads and stuff and your probably down to 10.5tb of usable space.

You could quite easily install 6 x 3tb drives though to give you 18tb

Personally ive got 23tb of available space between my Microservers. One with 4x 2tb and 2x 1.5tb drives and the other with 6x 2tb drives.
 
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Do you recommend a particular type of hard drive? It looks like I'll be ordering a couple 3TB hard drives tomorrow morning to start things off! I've been looking at the WD Red are they are the only hard drive designed for NAS systems that have 1-5 drive bays. Would people agree with me here? It's just a shame OCUK are out of stock at the moment! :(
 
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SaltandSauce said:
Thanks very much for the informative response. I wasn't expect so much detail but it comes greatly appreciated. At least I don't need to look too far now when it comes to picking up what I need.

One thing though, out of the two, which one would you personally go for yourself? They both look like they do the job nicely but surely one must be more beneficial than the other? I'll have a look around regarding cable size shortly and see if I can find anything shorter than 50cm.
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I did both, using the nexustwin approach as mentioned earlier:
2011-07-16-00.14.49.jpg


If you are just using one, the internal SATA cable + single molex-Sata power cable is the tidiest. If you do the eSata cable, you'll have the cable sticking out the back (looped in through the PCIe slot window), though even then it's not going to be visible.
 
That looks ridiculous but I'm amazed you can tuck so much hardware away into such a tiny case. I'm still undecided on my plan of action. Chances are, I'll only use it for the one drive since I've purchased some Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA hard disks to make up for lost space. The thing is, I just need to keep my fingers crossed they work reliably. I've took a gamble on ordering them up without any solid evidence that they'll play ball once hooked up to the ProLant server.
 
Well I would like a peak dvb-t card in and in time hopefully a dvb-s2 card for an av project I'm investigating! I think it's this one
2113_221544.jpg
 
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SaltandSauce said:
The thing is, I just need to keep my fingers crossed they work reliably. I've took a gamble on ordering them up without any solid evidence that they'll play ball once hooked up to the ProLant server.
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I have 6x 3TB WD Red in my microserver running in a Linux software raid6 and had no problems whatsoever. Been running 24x7 for about 5 months now.
 
al4x said:
I'm guessing they aren't being accessed 24/7..guessing. Looks good for me though

As I get my head around it all its quite fancy. Can call on my media from any device, blu ray rips play fine. Backups are working as they should (although I am having issues restoring them)
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A little off topic (sorry), but what are people using for ripping DVDs and Blu-ray discs? I have all my old discs ripped to the PC, but I'm failing with newer ones due to updated copyright system. I wish Ultraviolet would cover old purchases!
 
celliott said:
I have 6x 3TB WD Red in my microserver running in a Linux software raid6 and had no problems whatsoever. Been running 24x7 for about 5 months now.
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Wow now that's some serious storage space! I can't imagine you'll be running out anytime soon. Well, that's certainly good news. I went ahead last night and bought two to see how I get on. If they work as good as they sound, I'll need to save a few more pennies and buy myself another two and get these four bays filled.l

On another note, if I begin adding files to two WD Reds, and I then decide that I want to add another two before implementing RAID5, will I or won't I lose my data? If it turns out I'm going to lose all my data, I might just have to hold the first two on ice until I can afford two more. And we all know that would be a damn shame! :mad: :p
 
MeMeMeMe said:
I did both, using the nexustwin approach as If you do the eSata cable, you'll have the cable sticking out the back (looped in through the PCIe slot window), though even then it's not going to be visible.
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MeMeMeMe, I might be asking for a lot here since you already done so much hard work digging up the links and images for both options that I could have gone with regarding my hot swappable primary drive, but it would be greatly appreciated if you could dig up the exact parts that I need in order to proceed with the cabling for the two optional bays. You said you weren't quite sure on the exact length of cabling and I can safely say I've not got the foggiest.

Could you help me out with the correct links? While I've still got cash in the bank, I'm trying to get this all out the way. I'm finally all sorted on the software side of things and everything is working fine and dandy (thank you sabnzbd) but that's only one half of the cookie.

Your help would be much appreciated man. I was surprised how much detail you handed me the first time round. Take care and have a good Sunday! :)
 
SaltandSauce said:
MeMeMeMe, I might be asking for a lot here since you already done so much hard work digging up the links and images for both options that I could have gone with regarding my hot swappable primary drive, but it would be greatly appreciated if you could dig up the exact parts that I need in order to proceed with the cabling for the two optional bays. You said you weren't quite sure on the exact length of cabling and I can safely say I've not got the foggiest.

Could you help me out with the correct links? While I've still got cash in the bank, I'm trying to get this all out the way. I'm finally all sorted on the software side of things and everything is working fine and dandy (thank you sabnzbd) but that's only one half of the cookie.

Your help would be much appreciated man. I was surprised how much detail you handed me the first time round. Take care and have a good Sunday! :)
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First is 4-pin molex to sata power adaptor: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-050-AK&groupid=1929&catid=153&subcat=

Optical HDD mount: search for "Nexus Doubletwin" and it sould come up as the top shopping result for £7.44 at the K place.

e-sata to sata cable: i got mine from ebay had to go though 3 before i got one that either worked or was'nt too bulky.
 
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