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

Swarfega said:
Well I can confirm that Gen 1 works. Kinda...
I can't fully test it yet but certainly I have enabled it on the cluster. I spent maybe 7 hours trying to do it as my issue is having only 2GB of RAM and somehow needing to turn off all VM's to enable EVC. That's fine but when the VC is a VM itself?
vMotions are failing during the transfer although this could be that my new server is starved of memory.

The principle is there though that vMotion is being allowed between my N36L and N54L when EVC is set to AMD Opteron Generation 1.
Click to expand...

Just to follow up on this.
vMotion is working now depsite still have crap memory installed on me new host. Trick was to move vMotion onto its VMkernel Port rather than using the Management Network :D
 
HowardRoark said:
Thanks both paintguy and Audigex: Your replies are almost consistent / similar to what I was planning.

1. Yes WHS is almost a given choice. £35 is cheapest in the UK and I don't reckon I want to wait longer to get it cheaper :rolleyes:

2. Paintguy suggested 'starting' with stock 250GB with both OS+data shares on the same (and only drive) - and 'replicating' for BOTH (?) OS and data shares for offline backup on the 500GB external WD I have. That seems a good to start as I dont have to do anymore investment than the £35 WHS, and I am good to go with offline backup strategy of both OS and data on the external 500GB. :)

3. But getting greedier- as Audi also suggested wisely- invest in 'atleast' one WD RED (2TB perhaps or strech a little 3TB) AND an external 2TB or 3TB USB external backup (depending on whether I go with 2/3TB WD Red).

That will provide data share on the WD Red + OS on the 250 GB and offline backup on the external USB brick.
(What about OS backup stragey then? Is that a must? What if OS crashes/server falls?)

I am considering below retailer for a 2TB external for £60 or 3TB for £78.
http://www.******.com/412333-toshiba-2tb-stor-e-canvio-external-hard-drive-hdwc120ek3j1

- That is, £18 extra for a TB (external).
- And for the box, WD Red's 2TB (£83) or 3TB (£113) which is £30 more for a TB, from amazon.

Which means : £190 (for a 3TB box+bak) solution or £133 for 2TB solution

4. RAM- I will see how 2GB stock goes, unless I get a £10 2GB stick soon.

Thanks for suggestions - I *know* decision is mine - whether to stick to 250GB + 500 GB (bak) solution or full blown 3TB + 3TB (bak), which is my dream if wifey gives in.
Still, more suggestions welcome...:)
But for the above I have to take permissions from wifey which is a BIG challenge. :(
Click to expand...

OS backup is down to personal preference. If you have a complex setup with lots of configuration options, you may want to back up the OS. Similarly if you require maximum uptime and availability, you want to be able to restore the OS quickly and easily.

For many people, it's enough to set up the server how you want it, back up the configuration after installation or any major changes, and leave it there. If the OS disk dies, just get a new one and re-install the OS. It takes a little longer, but if you back up the main configuration options then it's not too bad.

With the OS being relatively small in size, I usually take an image right after installation and just restore that. Any changes I make after the initial install tend to be minor - they'd be a nuisance to re-do if it went wrong, but I could live without it. Occasionally (but to no schedule) I make a new image and store this alongside the initial one - giving me the latest version with updates and smaller changes. I never really keep more than these two copies, though - if my OS dies, I don't lose anything other than a little time.
 
Just got an email back, just asking that i had read the t's & c's.

so if your emailing them, just put a line in about them :)

tbh, im very suprised at the speed they replied, 11 minutes, and that includes replying back to them and finding/typing this post!
 
davido_labido said:
Just got an email back, just asking that i had read the t's & c's.

so if your emailing them, just put a line in about them :)

tbh, im very suprised at the speed they replied, 11 minutes, and that includes replying back to them and finding/typing this post!
Click to expand...

i think everyone gets a different response from them.

this was literally my email to them

Title: Mr
First Name: Joel
Last Name: xxxxx

Company Name:xxxxx

Company Address: xxxxx

Part Number: 704941-421

Serial Number: xxxxx

Please find attached the invoice and completed claim form.

Kind Regards

Joel

i attached a copy of the completed form and a photo of the serial.
 
aaah, i didnt actually put in a completed claim form,

i just wrote it out in a email, the reply i got back was

Hi

Thank you for your mail but as you have not completed a claim form, please confirm that you have read and accepted the terms and conditions of the promotion.

Kind Regards
Click to expand...

told them that i had read them and got

Hi

Thank you for your claim.

Please allow seven days for your claim to be processed.
Click to expand...

back within 5 mins!

just to wait 7 days now :D
 
davido_labido said:
aaah, i didnt actually put in a completed claim form,

i just wrote it out in a email, the reply i got back was



told them that i had read them and got



back within 5 mins!

just to wait 7 days now :D
Click to expand...

ahh ok, that makes sense then.

mine was processed within 1 day. but at least your now on the way to the cash.
 
DiscoDave said:
Are you still running ESXi? Try performing some local benchmarks to see if it's a LAN speed issue.
Click to expand...

Yes I am. Lan itself seems fine transferring files around between different machines.

Im new to ESXi so I could be doing it wrong.. currently WHS is installed on the 250gb and Ive got 2 1TB's also in there. Assigning these to the WHS Ive made datastores on them then created a vmdk just under the size of the disk on each which gets mounted to the WHS VM.

To me that sounds abit long in the tooth but I couldnt find any other way of doing it? Is that correct or is this where my issue lies?
 
Finally got to play with my new Micro Server N54L :)

Installing WHS on a 120Gb SSD at the moment.
Not sure what to do with the 2x 2Tb drives yet. Temporary RAID-0 or RAID-1. Think i will RAID-1 them for now until i either get more or a 4TB drive to clone them in RAID-0.
 
ChocolateStarfishRammer said:
Yes I am. Lan itself seems fine transferring files around between different machines.

Im new to ESXi so I could be doing it wrong.. currently WHS is installed on the 250gb and Ive got 2 1TB's also in there. Assigning these to the WHS Ive made datastores on them then created a vmdk just under the size of the disk on each which gets mounted to the WHS VM.

To me that sounds abit long in the tooth but I couldnt find any other way of doing it? Is that correct or is this where my issue lies?
Click to expand...

Ok getting somewhere now.. Resetup HDD's as RDM's instead which seems a lot better than it was before but just transfer a 8gb folder. First 1.30mins transferring at 80MB/s+ then slowly dropping down to finish at 30MB/s.

CPU on WHS was between 80-100% so think that might be it now :-/
 
Looking for some advice please :)

I currently have the following:
*N40L with 2x 2TB WD Red's in RAID0 - Windows 7 Pro x64 on 250GB OS drive
*N54L with 2x 2TB WD Red's in RAID0 - Windows Server 2008 Enterprise on 250GB OS Drive

All of my data is currently sitting on the N40L and my plan is to have a mirror of this data on the N54L. I will do this simply with a scheduled task which will run a robocopy job each night to copy over any changes in the folder structures so I will have 2 exact copies of my data.

I want to take images of my OS drives in each of the servers though and also an image of the OS drive in my gaming machine. The same will occur as above, the image files will sit on both my RAID arrays on N40 and N54. My question is what imaging software would you suggest or have experience with that will work well for this?

I am looking for something that will allow me to do bare metal restores, so if I have an OS drive fail, I put in the new disk, apply the image and bang, it's good to go again. Or if I make a change on the server and want to roll back and re-image, I can do this easily via the software. Any recommendations?
 
ChocolateStarfishRammer said:

Ok getting somewhere now.. Resetup HDD's as RDM's instead which seems a lot better than it was before but just transfer a 8gb folder. First 1.30mins transferring at 80MB/s+ then slowly dropping down to finish at 30MB/s.

CPU on WHS was between 80-100% so think that might be it now :-/
Click to expand...

Try giving your servers 2 vCPU's. If they have 2 already, try giving 1 each.
Might be worth turning on write cache in the BIOS to see if that makes difference.
 
Sent my email which had all the detials on the form plus I attached a picture of the invoice.

Got a reply within 5 minutes saying my cashback claim would be processed within 7 days :)
 
Has anyone got any experience of installing Synology's DSM 4.2 on a N54L? I am almost certain I'll be installing it next week. It seems to have absolutely everything I need including sabnzb & Sickbeard functionality! Amazing!
 
Audigex- Thanks again for valuable comments.
As I mentioned my requirements from the box as a NAS/fileserver for barely 200GB of existing data are pretty minimal and yours as well as PaintGuy recos have been helpful.

1. I unresrstand that there is no harm in starting 'experimenting' with stock 250GB with both OS+data shares on it and on next payday invest in WD Red's for data shares; with OS remaining on 250GB and I just move data.

However - between choosing 2TB vs 3TB paintguy commented below:
'...The "server backup" in whs also backs up the OS.I'm pretty sure that whs can only back up partitions up to 2tb so if you go for a 3tb drive it will split it up. I'm going to stick to 2tb drives for that reason.'

Can you/paintguy elaborate? Does it mean it is less cumbersome to sustain with a 2TB (bay) and 2TB (offline external) vs a 3TB solution? Perhaps if it is, I can later scale to just a 2TB (internal) and 2TB external (offline) rather 3TB and save some dough as well besides efforts.

2. You mentioned a solution (below) with OS small in size- taking a image right after first install and then periodically. Sounds Good.
If I just 'start' with 250GB and 500 GB (USB external/offline) - I hope I can 'image' the entire OS as well as the data on the 250GB to the 500GB external USB drive periodically? (Do I get it right?) Or I just need to sync the data shares between internal and external periodically. Presume WHS does both?

Thanks.

Audigex said:
OS backup is down to personal preference. If you have a complex setup with lots of configuration options, you may want to back up the OS. Similarly if you require maximum uptime and availability, you want to be able to restore the OS quickly and easily.

For many people, it's enough to set up the server how you want it, back up the configuration after installation or any major changes, and leave it there. If the OS disk dies, just get a new one and re-install the OS. It takes a little longer, but if you back up the main configuration options then it's not too bad.

With the OS being relatively small in size, I usually take an image right after installation and just restore that. Any changes I make after the initial install tend to be minor - they'd be a nuisance to re-do if it went wrong, but I could live without it. Occasionally (but to no schedule) I make a new image and store this alongside the initial one - giving me the latest version with updates and smaller changes. I never really keep more than these two copies, though - if my OS dies, I don't lose anything other than a little time.
Click to expand...
 
TheDean said:
Has anyone got any experience of installing Synology's DSM 4.2 on a N54L? I am almost certain I'll be installing it next week. It seems to have absolutely everything I need including sabnzb & Sickbeard functionality! Amazing!
Click to expand...

Installed it last week. The only real thing to be aware of is that it doesn't spin down disks when not in use. Other than that its completely unsupported (arguably illegal) so if you are going to trust it with your data just be aware of this fact.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom