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

durbs said:
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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ive actually never used time machine which i think is a good thing. after doing some more reading i dont think id have much trouble whichever os i used.

i use carbon copy cloner to clone my mac hdd currently. every other day overnight it clones it.

it doesnt touch files which are present on the destination but not on the hdd and files which have been changed gets moved to a temp folder and the new file in its place (versioning)

i can still use this and just set a folder on the server as my location. if i use WHS then i can get Crashplan running easily so that will then make a cloud (offsite) backup of the folder i specified in CCC as my destination.

pretty sure im going to go this route now so better get on and order it.
 
Just fitted a Samsung SSD under the optical drive bay as the boot drive in my new N54L (so I can fit 2 x RAID 1 in the lower drive bays).

I remember with the N40L, a (non-HP) BIOS update was required to set the motherboard spare sata port to run at full speed - is this still the case or was it enabled by default in newer standard BIOS versions that shipped with the N54? (mine seems to be running v. 041).

Ta.
 
durbs said:
Just fitted a Samsung SSD under the optical drive bay as the boot drive in my new N54L (so I can fit 2 x RAID 1 in the lower drive bays).

I remember with the N40L, a (non-HP) BIOS update was required to set the motherboard spare sata port to run at full speed - is this still the case or was it enabled by default in newer standard BIOS versions that shipped with the N54? (mine seems to be running v. 041).

Ta.
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Yes you still need to apply the modded BIOS to get the full speed optical and esata ports. It's actually still the exact same BIOS file, do a quick google for it and there are plenty of good guides. I've just applied it to my new N54L and it worked fine.
 
nails666 said:
Yes you still need to apply the modded BIOS to get the full speed optical and esata ports. It's actually still the exact same BIOS file, do a quick google for it and there are plenty of good guides. I've just applied it to my new N54L and it worked fine.
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Cheers, hoped it would be enabled full speed as default by now.

Will update it then, the SSD works fine as it is but if there's a speed increase to be had then I may as well take advantage of it.
 
Hi,

Having a blonde moment here, I'm setting up my second server with WHS2011. I can't remember how I installed WHS2011 without a dvd-r. I know I needed a 8gb flash drive and download the Windows USB tool but then it asks for the ISO, which I don't have as I have a disc not a downloaded file. Do I need to just make a .ISO image of my install disc? I must have set my N40L up over a year ago and my mind has gone blank.

I have tried the command prompt method but it's not working.

EDIT - Think I am getting somewhere with BurnAware to create a ISO.
 
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Harvey616 said:
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?
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Depends on the card. Most of the HP ones are low profile now and you get both full-height and LP brackets which you can change yourself.
 
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.

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.
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Server 2012 "Essentials" supports MAC clients :D
 
Ash2097 said:
Hi,

Having a blonde moment here, I'm setting up my second server with WHS2011. I can't remember how I installed WHS2011 without a dvd-r. I know I needed a 8gb flash drive and download the Windows USB tool but then it asks for the ISO, which I don't have as I have a disc not a downloaded file. Do I need to just make a .ISO image of my install disc? I must have set my N40L up over a year ago and my mind has gone blank.

I have tried the command prompt method but it's not working.

EDIT - Think I am getting somewhere with BurnAware to create a ISO.
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I didn't need to create an iso to install from a usb when I did it the other day. I used this guide http://www.wegotserved.com/2012/03/09/windows-home-server-2011-step-step-part-5-installing-windows-home-server-2011/
I didn't bother with the unattended bit, just how to prep the bootable usb stick and put the WHS files on there.
 
Mid migration from WHSv1 to WHS2011 (lots of sync copies) and my old WHSv1 box decides it doesn't like the idea of being replaced and starts playing up. Seems to be failing left, right, and centre at the moment (console not working, dropping from network).

Rather frustrating to say the least!
 
gavind said:
keep in mind, you need to have a very powerful box for this.
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Please explain.
This is a Microserver thread and the article is also written in regards to the Microserver. On that basis everyone in this thread is pretty much running from the same hardware. Having very powerful hardware is not what these servers offer.
 
Some help needed. My N54L arrived today, along with 8gig ram and a Ati 5450 low profile graphics card and want to bascially do the following with it:

Media Server - I've got 4 x WD 3TB Red drives, which will be stored with my Blu-ray rips - ideally I would like to Raid them to protect the data. These drives will also be needed to stream to two of my other XBMC devices.

XBMC - I want to use the N54l to run XBMC directly as it will also be connected up to a TV.

Many thanks :)
 
Couple of questions, anything special required to hook up an additional hard drive in the optical bay (e.g. bios update)?

Also has everyone kept the bundled 250Gb drive for their O/S? I have a couple of spare 1.5/2Tb drives and leaving this smaller drive in server seems a little wasteful.
 
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