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

Interesting. Moving into a new place with some friends later in the year and I have nominated myself to sort out media for our living room. Thinking of getting this, a 64GB SSD, 8GB of RAM and however many hard drives it can fit in - using Windows 7/XBMC.

Does it take normal RAM/hard drives?
 
xibinim said:
Does it take normal RAM/hard drives?
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Pretty much. You don't have to use ECC RAM and some have had success with 16GB but it seems a bit hit and miss with only certain sticks working reliably.

Regular 3.5" HDD fit in the four allocated slots, plus you can squeeze more in the ODD bay if you wish. You'll need to use the hacked BIOS to get full speed out of your SSD.
 
nails666 said:
I've got my N54l up and running with WHS2011 now but it definitely needs some extra RAM over the 2gb supplied.

Looking for cheap boost would this be ok to run alongside the existing 2gb stick for 6gb in total? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-326-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1180

I know I'd lose the ECC from the current stick but it's only a simple home server so not too fussed about that.
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Pretty certain that non-ECC and ECC still don't mix, and as the 4gb you propose is so cheap just buy two sticks and run 8gb.

I've got 8gb of kingston in my N40l with Windows 8 running great.
 
paintguy said:
I bought a matching 2GB ECC stick from some that had upgraded their microserver. Only cost me a tenner and WHS 2011 seems to be running fine on it :)
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Ah yeah that would be handy, unfortunately I don't have access to the Members Market on here but if any new N54L owners here that have upgraded their RAM and would like to sell on their spare 2gb sticks then drop me a message :)
 
Tell me about it, I thought that when I first bought my N40L since then I have added 4x 3TB reds, Windows 7, 4GB RAM and a 6450 <-Used for XBMC this one will be used with WHS2011 for system backups.
 
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Ash2097 said:
Tell me about it, I thought that when I first bought my N40L since then I have added 4x 3TB reds, Windows 7, 4GB RAM and a 6450 <-Used for XBMC this one will be used with WHS2011 for system backups.
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they do look good and are expandable which is a plus.

i currently have a 2tb wd nas drive which is full so i either need to cull media or expand.

i want to expand so think i will go the Microserver route, 8gb ram, 3tb HDD ( i will also take the 2tb out of my nas to put in there)

it will also give me some experence setting up a server.

the issues im having is that i cant seem to find a suitable OS.

i need to backup windows and mac computers
i need to be able to run crashplan on the server

its leading me towards FreeNAS (although crashplan seems hard to set up) but im really contemplating WHS11 or WS2012 (which will give me some issues with the mac backup)

in a bit of a pickle really.
 
joelk2 said:
they do look good and are expandable which is a plus.

i currently have a 2tb wd nas drive which is full so i either need to cull media or expand.

i want to expand so think i will go the Microserver route, 8gb ram, 3tb HDD ( i will also take the 2tb out of my nas to put in there)

it will also give me some experence setting up a server.

the issues im having is that i cant seem to find a suitable OS.

i need to backup windows and mac computers
i need to be able to run crashplan on the server

its leading me towards FreeNAS (although crashplan seems hard to set up) but im really contemplating WHS11 or WS2012 (which will give me some issues with the mac backup)

in a bit of a pickle really.
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Have you considered Windows Server 2012 Essentials?
 
unleashed said:
Have you considered Windows Server 2012 Essentials?
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i have yeah. i like the ease of use / add ins available for the windows servers but im having trouble figuring out how the mac backup will work.

can you format to EXFAT with WS12E?

im guessing then i could use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the macc hdd to the server every other days.
 
Hi,

I'm currently running ESXi 5.1 on a N40L (8GB ram) with x64 Ubuntu Server VM's as my NAS, sickbeard and Sab servers. Have been wondering about creating another VM for Plex or XBMC and using the method in the following link to pass a gfx card through.

http://networkingbunny.co.uk/documents/vmdirectpath

However, I don't currently have a gfx to test it... so thought I would ask if anyone here has already done it, or does/doesn't expect it to work? Also, do you think the N40L processor is actually up to the task of running Plex server/client in a VM? (or is this going to need more grunt... downloading and unpacking has been fine... but transcoding 1080p is a diff matter).
 
The N40L will transcode with Plex Server up to about 720p as me and a few others have discussed earlier in this thread. As for transcoding inside a VM....that might be pushing it a bit :(

The N54L may be a bit better suited but I'm still not sure how much difference the extra cpu speed will really make
 
I recently got an N54L and need to put a NIC in it. I am looking at an Intel Pro 1000 PT Dual port card, but it isn't low profile. Will I be alright to cut/bend the bracket to make it fit or will I run into clearance issues from the PCB?
 
Anyone running Synology OS on their N54L (preferably with an SHR array) and care to comment on performance?

Looking to replace my N36L with 6 x 2TB running unRAID with an N54L and 4 x 4TB but unsure to stick with unRAID or go Synology.
 
joelk2 said:
i have yeah. i like the ease of use / add ins available for the windows servers but im having trouble figuring out how the mac backup will work.
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Even though I've got a number of servers with space to spare for my Mac backups I keep them separate as its less hassle.

I bought a 3rd gen Time Capsule from the Bay and then picked up a cheap 3TB WD Green from OCUK's Clearance Lines section to upgrade it. That was my Mac backup sorted for not much £'s and it 'just works'.

You can apparently use the OSX Disk Utility to create a sparse bundle, copy it to your Microserver share and then use the tmutil terminal command to associate the bundle with Time Machine. Sounds like hassle though whereas a Time Machine can just be set and forgot (and works as a great extra wireless access point too!).
 
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