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

[oceang]

That's great news! Now I need to find the "good" hacked version.

Here is the link to the German Forum where a hacked version was posted.

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/communit...n54l-microserver-752079-430.html#post21503128

If you're any good at German, you can read and decide for yourself whether you are ready to try it out.

 

[hamesy]

An intel CT is a safe bet (but a bit pricy).

Cheers.

 

[cokecan]

Thats good news about the bios update......just annoying that I've now installed and configured my virtual lab on 2012!

 

[oceang]

Guys, I'm looking for another network card to chuck in my N40L. Any suggestions?

TP-Link TG 3468 works fine in an N40L. I have it running as part of NIC Teaming with the on board NIC in a Windows Server 2012 R2 setup. You just need to cut the bracket down to low profile size unless you can get a a low profile bracket for it easily. Cost me 12AUD.

 

[easyrider]

Think this bios update has made my mind up for my NAS project.

 

[PaulC2K]

Guys, I had to wait for my registration to be validated, but good news for you.

HP released a new BIOS dated October 2013 that fixes the onboard NIC issue. I have been successfully running it in a N36L with Windows 8.1 Pro and a N40L with Windows Server 2012 R2 for nearly two weeks now.

This BIOS does not contain the hack to allow the ODD and eSata to run at full speed, but unless you really need them (eg SSD in ODD), then it works fine.

There is also one report on Homeservershow from Germany of a successful hack of this version, but if you go to the original German thread, you can see a few other users saying it is OK as well.

Its probably OK, but as I dont use a SSD in the ODD slot, I have decided to wait until a few more reports come in.

Have a look at Post #143 and later for details at the following Homeservershow link.

http://homeservershow.com/forums/in...sentials-on-a-microserver-n36ln40ln54l/page-8

Bah, i really should make more of an effort to keep checking these forums!
Glad to hear theres a fix, but i think im going to retire the N40L from server duties and use it as a media player with the option of loading it up with HDD's for additional network storage, and it can do the backup of the the server too as i've never had a large enough external hdd to do a server backup.
I ended up trying to use an old Q6600 setup i've had doing nothing for 3yrs, needing just a PSU, but after piggy-backing on one thats doing something (powering bitcoin mining hardware on 2x 6-pins, nowt else) i just couldnt get a picture from it no matter what GPU i used, even dragged a 32" tv down to try a different monitor. In the end i just spent £300 on an i3, mobo, ram, case & PSU.
The lack of SATA3 has always concerned me, although truth be told im not even entirely sure its throttling an SSD in SATA2, it just bothers me, and i've wanted to stick a HTPC for XBMC at the second TV for a while and this makes more sense than buying some mini PC thing.

Im not sure how i'll get on with Server 2012 though, with the win8 styling, its fine on my Surface tablet but i still find myself using the start button expecting it to list apps and system shortcuts, not sending me back to the tiles. Couldnt do Win8 full time on my main PC, i know that much. But it would be nice to get HDD pools back, ive missed that from WHS v1.

Anyway, thanks for letting me know.

 

[whiskycycle]

£110k is like 300 G8 Microservers, no? Now that would be an interesting little array to play with!

110 servers on initial order. Having to spec them with all HP parts to satisfy Carepaq requirements, so prices go up a fair bit once that's taken into account.

The G7 boxes we put out there weren't that much cheaper when they were filled with drives, memory, RAC and TPM as well.

 

[easyrider]

. But it would be nice to get HDD pools back, ive missed that from WHS v1.

.

Storage spaces are garbage, I just rebuilt my WHS V1 with server 2012 and storage spaces were just dreadful...terrible write speeds when using parity in testing and when duplicating server reported 2 lost drives from the pool.

Thanks goodness there are other options out there.

 

[cokecan]

Storage spaces are garbage, I just rebuilt my WHS V1 with server 2012 and storage spaces were just dreadful...terrible write speeds when using parity in testing and when duplicating server reported 2 lost drives from the pool.

Thanks goodness there are other options out there.

Not had any issues with Storage Spaces myself using a mirrored setup. I think its a brilliant feature. I've personally never been keen on the idea of using 3rd party drive extending tools

 

[easyrider]

Not had any issues with Storage Spaces myself using a mirrored setup. I think its a brilliant feature. I've personally never been keen on the idea of using 3rd party drive extending tools

Me neither, But once tried I'm annoyed I stayed with V1 so long.One reason I never went to WHS 2011 was lack of DE.

Stablebit Drivepool is rock solid and all the server forums like wegotserved etc...have reported horror stories of people loosing TB's of data when using Stoarge spaces.

I lost two drives when setting up a parity storage space. They just dropped from the pool.

Guess what? Installed Stablebit drivepool along with scanner and it just worked with features that enable 3 x 4 x folder duplication within the pool for added security etc... There was nothing wrong with my drives..so why did they suddendly dissapear from SS?

Scanner evens scans your drives in the background and if problems with any Disks are found it Transparently evacuates your pooled files from any drive part of the pool at the first sign of damage.

Its so much more powerful than DE and Storage spaces.

Drivepool along with scanner seems to me how microsoft should have done it.

 

[PaulC2K]

Hmm, now im a tad concerned about pooling. I'd also lean more with Cokecan in terms of thinking its not something i'd ideally want dealt with by 3rd party tools.

Are HDD's (both 5900 & 7200rpm) being throttled by the SATA2 ports of the microservers? I was rather disappointed the Gen8 didnt add that, it was the first thing i looked for. Im guessing its probably just SSDs which would benefit, SATA2 is 300Gbit or whatever the measurement is (im sure the 300 bit is correct ).
There probably wont be any improved pool write speeds through SATA3 hardware then?

With WHS2011 it didnt bother me not having Drive Extender (iirc) because i was able to put the various different type of files on different drives and it all worked out fine, and then i ended up using a drive for overspill, which wasnt great but better than nothing, and before long that was full (only the original 250Gb drive) and for the last 6mo ive been culling video files and compressing them further.
So i was looking forward to getting that feature back and probably pooling 7TB together rather than 3 drives and the issue of fitting stuff in. Now im not so sure.

I'd read about using an SSD to speed up file transfers, does anyone know if that needs to be within the a single pool with the HDDs, or if it can be done from the O/S drive if its an SSD, without it being among the pool, and also whether or not there's likely to be any real speed benefit from it.
I also picked up a 500GB 840 Evo and havent had chance to clone my 128GB M4, but it might be worth using the 128GB or the 64GB M4 currently in the N40L as a high-transfer rate go-between for sending stuff... if its worth doing. I plan on removing the HDD in my main machine which holds next to nothing in terms of regular access, and it can fit on the 500GB SSD or the server (anything important on there probably exists on the server anyway).

 

[kefan77]

those HDDS can't even saturate SATA2, definitely no bottleneck.

it's 3 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s

 

[PaulC2K]

Easyrider, im guessing these additional features are only beneficial to a setup where theres an excess of storage space so it can quietly relocate the contents away and deal with the issue if possible, else notify the admin user of the issue so they can address it?

Im very much in the 'if you've got it, fill it' mentality , and until very recently just could not justify buying a HDD as it'd cost me a significant portion of what little income i have over a year (no income, wont take handouts/benefits) and the last time i bought HDDs was when 2TB was all that was available and iirc i paid £105 for a pair of Samsung F1's (F3s maybe) and a good while before the floods impacted on prices and you still cant get 2x 2TB for under £110, maybe even 120 now.

Im not too bad for cash now, and what you describe (or at least how i understand it) seems like it'd be worth aiming for. Can i set up a basic pool and then add 4-8TB later on and implement the more secure pooling you talk about, or will i need to create a new pool and transfer everything out of the original pool into the new one? I know i can add drives to a pool, but can i modify how it protects the data, as i wouldnt be able to store everything i already have and have that protection.
Ive got 4/2/2/1TB plus 500+250GB on old drives i've had to remove due to lack of space in the N40L, plus SSD drive, and im using about 6.5TB of the 9TB available.

 

[PaulC2K]

those HDDS can't even saturate SATA2, definitely no bottleneck.

it's 3 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s

I preferred my 300Gb/s
Thanks

 

[uncle_rufus]

Why not give unRAID a try? You get pools effectively, in a 3rd-party way, but there's no striping so each disk is just a normal disk to all intents and purposes.

It can survive and recover from 1 drive failure just like RAID-5, giving you some redundancy, but if more than 1 drive fails at once you still won't have lost everything (just the files on the drives that go).

It's also great for an expandable server because you can add any drive of any size at any time to the pool (although your parity disk must always be the largest).

Been using it on my N54L for a while and couldn't be happier. Once I exceed the limit of drives on the free version (3 drives) I'll probably pay for the pro version

 

[nails666]

Im not too bad for cash now, and what you describe (or at least how i understand it) seems like it'd be worth aiming for. Can i set up a basic pool and then add 4-8TB later on and implement the more secure pooling you talk about, or will i need to create a new pool and transfer everything out of the original pool into the new one? I know i can add drives to a pool, but can i modify how it protects the data, as i wouldnt be able to store everything i already have and have that protection.
Ive got 4/2/2/1TB plus 500+250GB on old drives i've had to remove due to lack of space in the N40L, plus SSD drive, and im using about 6.5TB of the 9TB available.

Yes with Drivepool you can set the duplication at a folder level so you can pick and choose what you have multiple copies of. You can add an extra drive to an existing pool and change the duplication settings at any point and will just re-balance the pool in the background. There are a few additional addons available to allow more precise control over how it uses drives a well. Things like whether it balance drive usage equally based on space (ie with 4TB of data, no duplication, and 4 drives, put 1TB on each drive) or fill up one drive first then use the next. Setting one drive as the most active drive so all data goes on there first with other drives being used for duplication etc depending on your usage of the pool. If you really want you can also write your own addons to have complete control over how it behaves but that's way more than I need from it.

 

[PaulC2K]

Cheers for the replies guys, i think i'll give Drivepool a go. Being able to pick and chose drives for duplication is definitely a benefit, and it also means i could just be selective with whats more secure when space is relatively tight, but if i add another 4TB or 2 in the future i can let it manage the whole lot.

Hopefully i'll get this new system up and running tomorrow and see what i think of S2012.

I also still have the option of leaving WHS2011 on the N40L, i wouldnt get anything extra out of installing Win7 and theres a license tied to it so might as well leave it and it gives me the option of providing backup at that end too at a later date.

 

[easyrider]

Anyone managed to boot windows off a USB drive...My microserver is here and everytime I try to boot it says read error

The USB boots fine in my other pc?

 

[easyrider]

Easyrider, im guessing these additional features are only beneficial to a setup where theres an excess of storage space so it can quietly relocate the contents away and deal with the issue if possible, else notify the admin user of the issue so they can address it?


Im not too bad for cash now, and what you describe (or at least how i understand it) seems like it'd be worth aiming for. Can i set up a basic pool and then add 4-8TB later on and implement the more secure pooling you talk about, or will i need to create a new pool and transfer everything out of the original pool into the new one? I know i can add drives to a pool, but can i modify how it protects the data, as i wouldnt be able to store everything i already have and have that protection.
Ive got 4/2/2/1TB plus 500+250GB on old drives i've had to remove due to lack of space in the N40L, plus SSD drive, and im using about 6.5TB of the 9TB available.

Yeah, You can add remove set do what you want with pool...

Plus you can unplug the pool from one pc or reinstall windows install stablebit and voila your pool instantly appears. You could not do this in WHS v1

 

[Hades]

Happy 3rd birthday to this thread. That's three years on the front page of this forum. Quite an achievement.