Soldato
I'm using the HP NIC driver for my W7 x64 Pro setup and haven't had any problems with the NIC, going to see if I can find the driver and will post back.
Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD
- Thread starter dragonuk
- Start date
Looks like cashback's available on the new model? Anyone find any low prices?
http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/pro...=ex_r135_uk/en/smb/tsg/go_proliantmicroserver
http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/pro...=ex_r135_uk/en/smb/tsg/go_proliantmicroserver
Oh HP how I love thee. I've seen these for around the £260 mark from a couple of places and with the original one running so well I was planning on getting one of the newer ones at full price... I'll wait until Tuesday to order it!
Anyone been able to find it less than £263 after VAT?
Anyone been able to find it less than £263 after VAT?
Soldato
Makes you wonder how much it actually costs HP to make these machines if they can afford to give you £100 back? After all it's not as if after getting the machine you need to go and spend a few more hundreds on HP specific products unless they're expecting everybody who buys the server to also take out an extended warranty/support pack.
Associate
I think there are going to be a few happy people on here soon then
I love mine, unbelievable bit of kit for the money I really cant see how they make any money on them. I guess maybe they are loss leader to get the microserver name in circulation?
Soldato
Can we have a quick summary of issues here please from owners before new owners buy?
ISTR seeing posts from users stating
Crap network speeds
Network connection dropping out
Poor HDD speeds
Won't WOL (dealbreaker for me)
Some saying "underpowered"
Plus I'd also LOVE to know if any user with a FULL one (4/5 HDDs and/or CD/DVD) who has a power meter. Would LOVE to know usage.
Thanks guys!
ISTR seeing posts from users stating
Crap network speeds
Network connection dropping out
Poor HDD speeds
Won't WOL (dealbreaker for me)
Some saying "underpowered"
Plus I'd also LOVE to know if any user with a FULL one (4/5 HDDs and/or CD/DVD) who has a power meter. Would LOVE to know usage.
Thanks guys!
Only seems to be in windows though these issues, works fine with FreeBSD and ZFS pretty damn fast for network/disk speed.
Underpowered? well for a low spec atom what do you really expect
if it is too slow then you are obviously using it for a wrong purpose, get a real machine.
pretty damn fast for network/disk speed.Underpowered? well for a low spec atom what do you really expect
if it is too slow then you are obviously using it for a wrong purpose, get a real machine.Using Server 2008 R2:
NIC speeds for me are fine across the network
WOL is fine, change the NIC driver to "magic packet" and it wakes up fine
Feels 'fine' under the OS (also used for downloading, extracting) using 4gb ram, not rapid but perfectly fine.
I'd define mine as full. Have 5 2tb F4's in hot swap (8tb RAID 5 + 2tb hot spare), and a 2.5" 160gb drive for OS cramped into the case. Array hosted on a HP P400 512mb + BBWC.
Averages 65 - 70w with above.
Associate
- Joined
- 27 Jan 2011
- Posts
- 3
Add to that
"Hangs when doing sustained file copy over network" - I'm running Windows Home Server, and hang can happen after anything from 30 minutes to several hours of copying.
I don't have any problems with network speed, network drop outs or poor disk speeds. Pretty happy with the CPU performance too, as a server, which includes background video transcoding etc.
Think I saw WOL discussed in this thread:
http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/16427-whs-on-hp-proliant-microserver/
Sorry just pulled out 4 of my 5 drives to try and test just using one drive, if I put all the drives back in will pop the power meter on it.
- --
Rod, UK
Last edited:
Soldato
The poor HDD speed is all down the crap AMD drivers, when I had WHS and W7 with the AMD drivers I was getting at max around 12Mb/s but with W7 and the MS AHCI drivers I get around 60-70Mb/s.
As to how powerful, I've not really tested it tbh but I did get it transcoding a 720p xvid video to encode subtitles on the fly and it seemed to cope just fine. Fast forwarding or reversing when encoding is a bit his and miss but then from what I've read this is always hit and miss for dynamic encodes.
Mine hasn't had any problems with NIC disconnects, I've transferred over a Gb of data off my NAS onto this box using the crap Windows file copy so would have known if there was a problem straight away.
As to how powerful, I've not really tested it tbh but I did get it transcoding a 720p xvid video to encode subtitles on the fly and it seemed to cope just fine. Fast forwarding or reversing when encoding is a bit his and miss but then from what I've read this is always hit and miss for dynamic encodes.
Mine hasn't had any problems with NIC disconnects, I've transferred over a Gb of data off my NAS onto this box using the crap Windows file copy so would have known if there was a problem straight away.
Last edited:
Id note that the little box isnt really up to job of on the fly transcoding to ipad/iphones through AirVideo. Takes an age to start playing etc (60seconds+), and then sometimes stops to buffer. My HP ML115 takes approx 5 seconds max in the same situation. I've currently got my ML115 running AirVideo pointing to shares on the micro server.
Note: The performance of transcoding improves if you reduce the bit rate on the client, but not to the point it would make me turn off the ML115.
Soldato
Thanks (and to MArdibloke)... Would be doing 5 of the same drives and a DVD myself. WTF does "Array hosted on a HP P400 512mb + BBWC" mean?
And 65-70w would be with all drives spinning since its RAID5? I wonder how it would be with drives spun down. This might do for me to leave on always...
I'd be using for file transfers to XBMC boxes, torrent/usenet, growl notifications and light web server duties... Sounds like it'd be fine. The 150w PSU is a worry on the new ones tho.. 5x2Tb drives is about 120w on boot up!!
Soldato
It is a make of SCSI card it is the only way to make a 5 drive raid 5 array easily, the BBWC is the battery backup option
Kimbie
Soldato
Ah, thanks for the explanation
Hi. Am trying to configure my new Microserver. I plan to install Win 7 Pro - I know I need a minimum of 2GB RAM, but is ECC OK or do I need non-ECC RAM?
I plan to start with 2 2TG WD caviar greens and the on-board RAID1. do I need to change the BIOS at all please?
Miker
I plan to start with 2 2TG WD caviar greens and the on-board RAID1. do I need to change the BIOS at all please?
Miker
As Nikumba said it's a hardware raid card which gives stable hardware acclerated raid, battery pack and write cache. This gives me a good speed and security having 10tb total, 8tb array, 6tb usable, 2tb hot spare.
65 - 70w is a high average, i've had a power meter on since i built it and max it's ever been is 100w. That was 7 x 2tb 3.5" and 160gb 2.5" + USB DVDRW. It idles in Windows for the most part at around 50w.
Atto benchmark raid card going full tilt and it was 60w:
.. edit ...
Should add the the P400 card is a really tight squeeze in the case, it fouls the drive cages due to the two sets of cables coming of the back of it. I've also mounted the 120mm fan on the rear of the case to give more room inside to the rear of the drive back plate.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 12,082
It'll work with either ECC or non-ECC memory.
If you’re using ECC memory you’ll need to make sure it’s unbuffered.
Mixing ECC and non-ECC in the same machine isn’t usually supported.
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 12,082
Sorry if this has been covered earlier, but what have you done about the wiring (or is there a version of the P400 with the required socket)?
Soldato
Finally got the bits to do my build today!
Going to start by moving the 160GB drive into the DVD drive bay to free up all the other bays for future data use. Finally decided to go with the current version of WHS might be a bit old but it's based of Server 2K3 which is where most of my experience is!
Picked up an extra GB ram stick that someone was selling off on the bay having upgraded there server which I think will be more than enough for my use.
Got a 2TB Samsung eco-green as my data disc which will be backed up once a week to an external WD Elements 2TB drive that will like in my desk draw in work. Spent ages trying to make my mind up if I was being silly going with a single drive for my data but went with it in the end as I don't require 100% uptime, I'll have the data on the backup drive and I get get a new Samsung drive in less than a day. Will definately be adding further drives as time goes by as I plan to rip my DVD collection and share that as well as my existing music, pictures and documents. Last piece of the jogsaw will be to get DLNA up and running so I can get everything running through the TV in the living room and other such devices!
Wish me luck!
Going to start by moving the 160GB drive into the DVD drive bay to free up all the other bays for future data use. Finally decided to go with the current version of WHS might be a bit old but it's based of Server 2K3 which is where most of my experience is!
Picked up an extra GB ram stick that someone was selling off on the bay having upgraded there server which I think will be more than enough for my use.
Got a 2TB Samsung eco-green as my data disc which will be backed up once a week to an external WD Elements 2TB drive that will like in my desk draw in work. Spent ages trying to make my mind up if I was being silly going with a single drive for my data but went with it in the end as I don't require 100% uptime, I'll have the data on the backup drive and I get get a new Samsung drive in less than a day. Will definately be adding further drives as time goes by as I plan to rip my DVD collection and share that as well as my existing music, pictures and documents. Last piece of the jogsaw will be to get DLNA up and running so I can get everything running through the TV in the living room and other such devices!
Wish me luck!
Last edited:
Associate
I can genuinely say I Haven't experienced a single one of these problems running server 2008 R2
Network transfers run at 70-90 Meg dependent on what I'm transferring
HDD Speeds are covered in the above, I don't use the software raid on mine which I believe is responsible for some other peoples problems. When I extend past 1 disk I will just use dynamic disks.
I Havn't tried WoL yet but since some people have got it working I can't believe this isn't just a configuration issue
Underpowered compared to a full desktop/server processor but not for what it is intended for, It's noticeably faster than my old atom 330 dual core server. The only thing I do that is slow is video transcoding but it does manage this for most non HD content without stuttering, it just has a longer buffering period.
I think quite a few of the problems here are caused by peoples first forays into running a server as much as the actual hardware.
Last edited: