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

I know that Synology have excellent quality and their user interface is phenomenal too (work collegues have gone through NASes from QNAP, Synology and Netgear)

I can't see what customization would separate the two to be honest. Hence the question I guess.
 
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Okay, well I've come this far without having to ask for help, but now I really have hit a brick wall, and I suspect the answer is all to obvious to most of you :)

I've purchased my N40L, modified the BIOS so that it sees the additional ports; have mounted the original 250Gb HDD to the ODD slot; and added an additional 4 2Tb WD Red HDDs. All good so far.

Then I installed ESXi 5.1, so that it boots from the original drive; but now here's my problem. Am trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 onto a VM. But try as I might I can't get it to work.

The OS comes as an ISO, and have tried 2 or 3 recommended tools to produce the image to a USB key. But then when I launch a new VM in Console mode it doesn't recognise or even see the OS. It just returns an error "OS Not Found"

I don't know whether the problem lies with the usbkey (ie, copying the image to it); or a setting in the VM properties, or perhaps both!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys :)
 
TheTechBimbo said:
Okay, well I've come this far without having to ask for help, but now I really have hit a brick wall, and I suspect the answer is all to obvious to most of you :)

I've purchased my N40L, modified the BIOS so that it sees the additional ports; have mounted the original 250Gb HDD to the ODD slot; and added an additional 4 2Tb WD Red HDDs. All good so far.

Then I installed ESXi 5.1, so that it boots from the original drive; but now here's my problem. Am trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 onto a VM. But try as I might I can't get it to work.

The OS comes as an ISO, and have tried 2 or 3 recommended tools to produce the image to a USB key. But then when I launch a new VM in Console mode it doesn't recognise or even see the OS. It just returns an error "OS Not Found"

I don't know whether the problem lies with the usbkey (ie, copying the image to it); or a setting in the VM properties, or perhaps both!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys :)
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Any reason you can't upload the ISO to one of your data stores from V Center or something like that? And then mount it to the CDROM of the VM that you are trying to install R2 on?

This is how I always install OSes on ESXi. Not used 5.1 but can't think why that functionality would have disappeared.


rp2000
 
TheTechBimbo said:
Okay, well I've come this far without having to ask for help, but now I really have hit a brick wall, and I suspect the answer is all to obvious to most of you :)

I've purchased my N40L, modified the BIOS so that it sees the additional ports; have mounted the original 250Gb HDD to the ODD slot; and added an additional 4 2Tb WD Red HDDs. All good so far.

Then I installed ESXi 5.1, so that it boots from the original drive; but now here's my problem. Am trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 onto a VM. But try as I might I can't get it to work.

The OS comes as an ISO, and have tried 2 or 3 recommended tools to produce the image to a USB key. But then when I launch a new VM in Console mode it doesn't recognise or even see the OS. It just returns an error "OS Not Found"

I don't know whether the problem lies with the usbkey (ie, copying the image to it); or a setting in the VM properties, or perhaps both!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys :)
Click to expand...

create a datastore locally
browse to it//use a client like Filezilla to access it
upload your iso
mount the iso as the cd rom drive and boot up


I have moved to windows server 2012 so i can't be more step by step i am afraid
 
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Baggins_451 said:
Love my micro server, hate anything that involves taking it apart though. Just added a two port SATA card, what a PITA :(

SSD boot, 4 x 2TB & 2 x 1.5TB :/
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I think the issue can be card size. I have a 2 porter which won't fit with my rounded SATA cables unless I replace with right angled ones but there is a similar card that happens to be a even lower profile and should fit fine. And I've seen other cards which exit the SATA ports at right angles.

So, careful choice of card is the key issue here.... ;)
 
Uhtred said:
If you use sata rdms then yes it would be fine.

If you use vm datastores then you would lose existing data.
Click to expand...

Finally got round to setting this up last night and after a bit of tinkering I'm very happy :)

  • I used the VMware converter to create a virtual image of my existing WHS 2011 install, excluding the RAID 5 array.
  • Shutdown the machine, upgraded the RAM to 8GB of Crucial ECC and added the USB stick to the internal port. (This part took far too long with the damn SAS connector being stuck!)
  • Installed ESXi to the USB drive and setup the network.
  • Ran VMware converter again and added the WHS 2011 image to the host
  • Added the 5 x 2TB drives using this method Link (I'm sure this is the same as many other guides on t'internet)
  • Booted the WHS 2011 image, re-imported the foreign disks (software RAID 5) and all is good in the world :)

For some reason the transfer speeds were rubbish after first setting this up, even after rebooting the VM. In the end I had to reboot the host itself and all seems to be working correctly now.

I've also added a minimal Debian install to function purely as a VPN server.

I can now tinker to my heart's content!
 
[RB];23929992 said:
Finally got round to setting this up last night and after a bit of tinkering I'm very happy :)

  • I used the VMware converter to create a virtual image of my existing WHS 2011 install, excluding the RAID 5 array.
  • Shutdown the machine, upgraded the RAM to 8GB of Crucial ECC and added the USB stick to the internal port. (This part took far too long with the damn SAS connector being stuck!)
  • Installed ESXi to the USB drive and setup the network.
  • Ran VMware converter again and added the WHS 2011 image to the host
  • Added the 5 x 2TB drives using this method Link (I'm sure this is the same as many other guides on t'internet)
  • Booted the WHS 2011 image, re-imported the foreign disks (software RAID 5) and all is good in the world :)

For some reason the transfer speeds were rubbish after first setting this up, even after rebooting the VM. In the end I had to reboot the host itself and all seems to be working correctly now.

I've also added a minimal Debian install to function purely as a VPN server.

I can now tinker to my heart's content!
Click to expand...

Glad it's working well. Where have you stored your virtual machine files if you are using 5 bays for software raid? Did you use the bracket to add a 6th drive or perhaps a 2.5 inch drive?
 
Uhtred said:
Glad it's working well. Where have you stored your virtual machine files if you are using 5 bays for software raid? Did you use the bracket to add a 6th drive or perhaps a 2.5 inch drive?
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Yeah, nexus double twin bracket in the 5.25" bay and an extra 500GB 3.5" drive. 6 x 3.5" in total :)
 
[RB];23931059 said:
Yeah, nexus double twin bracket in the 5.25" bay and an extra 500GB 3.5" drive. 6 x 3.5" in total :)
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Awesome. If you want a free method of backing up your vms, and assuming you have some suitable storage, then look into ghettovcb. If you used virtual rdms as opposed to physical then it can utilise snapshots and take the backups without having to shut down the vms. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs.
 
Not at all, I'm very much new to this :p

Cheers for your help!

On a completely unrelated note, WHS 2011 has now been hotfixed so the client backup / restore function now works on systems with UEFI.

I felt naked without having my laptop backed up automatically!

KB Article
 
I tried WHS 2011 but just found it easier to install windows 7 so i can install pretty much any application i need to. Might even throw Windows 8 as a VM on mine and give it a go
 
Dont know if this is the right place to ask this but i just put a GT610 in my n40l for mediaserver capabilities but the audio is not working via HDMI so im thinking of getting a Soundcard, would the Asus Xonar DGX be ok for this?
 
wavid said:
Dont know if this is the right place to ask this but i just put a GT610 in my n40l for mediaserver capabilities but the audio is not working via HDMI so im thinking of getting a Soundcard, would the Asus Xonar DGX be ok for this?
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I've considered getting a GFC card to take advantage of audio via HDMI. Shouldn't this work?
 
It should and does (assuming a graphics card that supports audio). I use a AMD HD5450 passive card and pipe all audio and video down the HDMI to my amp.
 
Dust is a bit a of a problem:

IMG_0435_zps82c6915b.jpg
 
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