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

Just waiting for some funds to clear before going for this... I *love* the G8 and the stackable switch (incidentally it seems you get the switch for free with a purchase of the G8 on a certain site, which is a definite PLUS ;)) But sadly I don't think I can justify the extra cost (you don't get cashback - if you did it would work out about £200 after cashback for the G8 and the switch), so I will probably go with the N54L instead...

However I'm still trying to get inspired with what to do with it... A simple NAS solution I know I want for sure... but skimming this thread I find myself tempted to put a vm/esxi setup on it, though what that would allow me to do I'm not totally sure. It's not something I've tried out before but I like the idea of being able to mess about with different linux distros (and easily scrap them if they mess up), but could I do both this and have it as a NAS? If I bought a second network card giving me an extra gigabit lan port would I be able to have one VM running nas4free or similar and give that one lan interface, whilst the other VM/s use the other lan interface? (To ensure the NAS always has its own full connection)

On the other hand am I expecting too much with the above? My other option would be to keep it simple (stupid!) and use the N54L as a dedicated NAS only, and then someday buy or put together a more capable server machine which wouldn't need to be on 24/7 and could act as a VM server (maybe even a G8 if they ever do a deal on it!)... Hmmm :confused: it's always so hard to decide with these things - problem is it's not easy to change it around easily once it's all up and running so I like to have a clear idea what I want it to do!
 
Looked into the v4 as an SSD solution for the N54L - a lot of people saying it is very slow! Some even going back to their magnetic drives, might skip this one.
 
It’s looking like the last opportunity to grab a G7 N54L with cashback. I have been CHECKing COmpanies in the UK and can get my hands on one at £85.40 + £9.95 for next day shipping after £100 cashback. Has anybody found a better price which includes next day delivery?
 
unleashed said:
It’s looking like the last opportunity to grab a G7 N54L with cashback. I have been CHECKing COmpanies in the UK and can get my hands on one at £85.40 + £9.95 for next day shipping after £100 cashback. Has anybody found a better price which includes next day delivery?
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That is a good price, i was going to cancel my order and go here but it looks like mine will be sent out today, fingers crossed. :)
 
uncle_rufus said:
Just waiting for some funds to clear before going for this... I *love* the G8 and the stackable switch (incidentally it seems you get the switch for free with a purchase of the G8 on a certain site, which is a definite PLUS ;)) But sadly I don't think I can justify the extra cost (you don't get cashback - if you did it would work out about £200 after cashback for the G8 and the switch), so I will probably go with the N54L instead...

However I'm still trying to get inspired with what to do with it... A simple NAS solution I know I want for sure... but skimming this thread I find myself tempted to put a vm/esxi setup on it, though what that would allow me to do I'm not totally sure. It's not something I've tried out before but I like the idea of being able to mess about with different linux distros (and easily scrap them if they mess up), but could I do both this and have it as a NAS? If I bought a second network card giving me an extra gigabit lan port would I be able to have one VM running nas4free or similar and give that one lan interface, whilst the other VM/s use the other lan interface? (To ensure the NAS always has its own full connection)

On the other hand am I expecting too much with the above? My other option would be to keep it simple (stupid!) and use the N54L as a dedicated NAS only, and then someday buy or put together a more capable server machine which wouldn't need to be on 24/7 and could act as a VM server (maybe even a G8 if they ever do a deal on it!)... Hmmm :confused: it's always so hard to decide with these things - problem is it's not easy to change it around easily once it's all up and running so I like to have a clear idea what I want it to do!
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No need for NIC upgrades if it's not going to be majorly intensive use as a NAS. Memory is what you will need to upgrade, 8GB minimum for your requirements but worth looking into 16GB, lots of info out there as to what RAM works and gives the 16GB.

I have an N40L running as a NAS, it has a low profile AMD card in it connected via HDMI to my TV. Its full time job is being a NAS for all my media and other data with network shares for me and my girlfriend constantly connected to etc. It also is dedicated iSpy server so I have my webcam connected and running and recording on motion detection 24/7. Then I also have a N54L which has a regular robocopy job runs that copies all of my data from tha NAS to it, so it hosts the data and acts as a NAS like the N40L plus this wee box also hosts 3 Linux VM's all running under Server2008/HyperV.

From the above, I still have overhead to add more load if required to both. So what you want to do = NAS and a couple VM's. Little memory upgrade and you'll be good to go.
 
xdcx said:
No need for NIC upgrades if it's not going to be majorly intensive use as a NAS. Memory is what you will need to upgrade, 8GB minimum for your requirements but worth looking into 16GB, lots of info out there as to what RAM works and gives the 16GB.

I have an N40L running as a NAS, it has a low profile AMD card in it connected via HDMI to my TV. Its full time job is being a NAS for all my media and other data with network shares for me and my girlfriend constantly connected to etc. It also is dedicated iSpy server so I have my webcam connected and running and recording on motion detection 24/7. Then I also have a N54L which has a regular robocopy job runs that copies all of my data from tha NAS to it, so it hosts the data and acts as a NAS like the N40L plus this wee box also hosts 3 Linux VM's all running under Server2008/HyperV.

From the above, I still have overhead to add more load if required to both. So what you want to do = NAS and a couple VM's. Little memory upgrade and you'll be good to go.
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Hmm... So if I set it up to run VMs would I install exsi on a USB in the internal slot, and then perhaps stick one drive in the optical bay (?) (maybe the one it comes with or some other similar small drive) to install the VMs on, and have the 4 main bays with some WD Reds or whatever. And then I could have one VM be a dedicated NAS distro like nas4free or freenas...

If I did this and then wanted to play around with other VMs how secure would the NAS VM be? i.e. If I throw a few more VMs on there to try out some other distros that take my fancy (I assume this machine is powerful enough to let me do that over a VNC viewer or similar?) but mess one of them up and decide to scrap it what are the chances of ever screwing up the VM running my NAS?

I ask because at the moment my little Intel atom NAS/server I've got running okay but I'm always a bit aprehensive to try anything out on it as if I screw it up too badly I'm then without my NAS datastore while I re-install or reconfigure things, so it seems this would be the perfect solution (but I've no experience using VMs in the past so perhaps I'm not understanding things correctly :rolleyes:)
 
irt: uncle_rufus

Exactly, you can create and blow away additional VM's very easily.
Obviously you could drunkenly right click your NAS VM and choose to delete it from disk and ignore all the warnings - but that's why you have backups, right?
(Also, you can't actually do this while the VM is powered on)

You also get the added benefit of being able to snapshot VM's. So if you need to upgrade your OS, XBMC, Plex or whatever you can just snapshot the VM. If all goes pear-shaped just revert to your snapshot. If everything goes well, then just delete the snapshot when you're happy everything works.
 
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It's all down to personal preference as well remember. You could run ESXI from USB and use 4x other drives etc. Countless possibilities. Easiest solution would be to purchase 2-4 drives to do whatever with and use the existing 250GB as your OS drive. Or like you say USB will be your ESXI drive and use the 250GB to hold your VM data and your 2-4 other drives as your NAS array.

I run server 2008 and hyper V on the 250GB drive and I have 2x2TB drives in RAID. I just sit my VHD's for the VM's on the 250GB alongside the OS as they aren't exactly crucial. But all the backed up NAS media data sits on the RAID array. So any tinkering about is completely seperate from my data.

As for deletion etc. You wouldn't manage to do this easily. If you run headerless using ESXI or virtualbox etc you could run your chosen NAS distro virtually easily enough and you could play to your hearts content with other distro's etc on seperate VHD's. You would have to specifically go out of your way to delete your good/wanted NAS VM. You wouldn't manage to accidentally delete anything or break anything it is totally seperated.

Same as if you went with an OS and HyperV or Virtualbox, the machines in the GUI are listed specifically and you could be completely anal like me and split up and organise your VHD and VM data via specific directories on the drive.
 
Cheers Little Crow and xdcx, sounds like I've got the right idea about what a VM set up will allow me to do... One last question though, what happens if the install of esxi goes wrong itself? Presumably any VMs created and managed from within it are also lost? What about the NAS data or VHD (virtual hard drive?) data? I could cope with losing the VMs especially if some of them are just testing distros or whatever, but are there any other potential problems for my data? i.e. if I was running nas4free in a VM and created a zfs pool for my NAS drives or similar - I hope you see what I'm getting at...

Presumably I could create backups of any important VMs too, either on the data drives or on an external drive or machine, so I could restore them if I had problems with the esxi install?
 
uncle_rufus said:
Cheers Little Crow and xdcx, sounds like I've got the right idea about what a VM set up will allow me to do... One last question though, what happens if the install of esxi goes wrong itself? Presumably any VMs created and managed from within it are also lost? What about the NAS data or VHD (virtual hard drive?) data? I could cope with losing the VMs especially if some of them are just testing distros or whatever, but are there any other potential problems for my data? i.e. if I was running nas4free in a VM and created a zfs pool for my NAS drives or similar - I hope you see what I'm getting at...

Presumably I could create backups of any important VMs too, either on the data drives or on an external drive or machine, so I could restore them if I had problems with the esxi install?
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Well ESXI itself be running from the USB drive so a trashed install of that results in a trashed install. Your media data would be sitting on your array so not touched, and your VM data sitting on the 250GB drive, again not touched. Re-install ESXI on new USB drive or same drive if it OK, point it back at your data. Done.

Obviously if you had ESXI running from the 250GB and had all your VM data etc sitting on that same 250GB drive and you trashed the drive or it died then your VM's are gone also.

It all really depends on how you want personally to set it up but going by what you are talking about I think you are eyeing up something as follows:

ESXI running from USB drive.
Included 250GB HP drive to hold VM data files.
2/4 WD Red array to hold personal/media data.

So yeah good practice here would be to take backup of your valued VM's (NAS distro running on 250GB) to your WD Red array. this way a loss of your 250GB drive just means replacement of that drive but most importantly you just tell ESXI to point at the VM data now sitting on your array and with minimal effort even with loss of your 250 you are back running your NAS distro from your backup. Make sense? :cool:

Your OS VM data is not going to take much space on your array really, the chunk of your media data is on the array. It's backup of this data that's the next big step for your decision really whether it be from RAID options or copying off to another box/attached storage etc.
 
If ESXi goes wrong, or the USB stick it's installed to fails, you just put in a new one and reinstall ESXi.
You will likely have to re-register your VM's (Browse to the datastore and right click the vmx file and select 'add to inventory') but you won't lose anything (As long as you weren't mad enough to create a VM on the same USB stick)
 
Where is the cheapest price to get the last ones at sub £100?

I have an N34 but I notice some lag when playing Youtube on the browser in certain resolutions.

I have the silent 6450 card so I assume it is a CPU botteneck.

Changing to a N54 a good move? (0.9ghz faster CPU, everything else will be the same as I will switch the RAM/HDD/GPU between machines).


rp2000
 
is it worth spending the extra £ for the Reds or will normal low RPM/green disks survive?

My current server has been running 3x1.5TB Samsung drives for a few years non-stop now and I only had one fail (DOA). Data content is almost exclusively media and steam/non critical backups
 
I've done some cost analysis on the current G7 and Gen8 cash-backs. If you are after a switch (which I am), then there may be some debate about whether it is worth getting the Gen8 (still almost £100 more than the G7). However, for £87.88 more (if you bought the Gen8), you would get 8 ports instead of 24, 1 year vs 3 year warranty, and potentially louder (there are quite a few complaints about the idle fan speed of the Gen8), vs the more powerful CPU (not really needed for a file server). For a VM host, I think an ML310e Gen8 is much more practical, and can be had for not that much cash -- I just don't see the point in spending loads of additional money beefing up a MicroServer (a guy on a forum spent $1600 -- crazy).

The ONE thing I love about the Gen8 is the ILO, but I can live without it. Don't get me wrong, it looks like an awesome little box, but if it's louder than the G7 then I don't want it, and that's the bit I'm not clear on. It's also worth a lot more money (currently).

Update: if you don't go for the 3 year warranty, it becomes £246.68, which is just even more compelling. And if you aren't after a switch at all, then there's no competition currently.

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