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

.temp · 6 Jun 2014 at 08:57

Buffalo2102 said:
Some other options here - http://n40l.wikia.com/wiki/Memory

thanks for that

I'll have a butchers. Gut instinct is to stick with the Kingston as it's proven and has such a high number of people saying it's their choice. still, will check the pricing on these though

easyrider · 6 Jun 2014 at 09:07

I got the 16gB Kingston kit

Trig · 6 Jun 2014 at 11:24

I had the 16gb kingston in mine before I moved to Gen8..

Attu90 · 6 Jun 2014 at 21:35

Well I sorted my problem out, just added a PCIe network card and WOL is working again with WIn8.1 and XBMC Gotham ...guess the combination didn't want to play nice with the onboard NIC.

nutcase · 7 Jun 2014 at 10:50

How many drives does the standard PSU let you run? I've currently got the original 250gb and 3x 4TB WD reds but want to add another 4TB but keep the 250gb (have got a bay adapter for the optical bay).

It's also running a remote management card and a hardware raid card.

Thanks

Steveocee · 7 Jun 2014 at 13:52

nutcase_1uk said:
How many drives does the standard PSU let you run? I've currently got the original 250gb and 3x 4TB WD reds but want to add another 4TB but keep the 250gb (have got a bay adapter for the optical bay).

It's also running a remote management card and a hardware raid card.

Thanks

I've heard of people running up to 8 drives so I's probably say you're in the clear for now.

nutcase · 7 Jun 2014 at 18:35

Cool thanks

uncle_rufus · 7 Jun 2014 at 18:59

Also it probably depends to some extent how your OS is managing those drives, i.e. if all your array is striped then typically all the drives will be spun up at the same time for reads/writes... whereas non-striped data will only spin up some of the drives at a time...

Not sure exactly whether that would tie into how the power demands are affected but it seems like it would in some way

.temp · 11 Jun 2014 at 08:17

RAM is being delivered today

Is it pretty straight forward to remove the mobo?

I've not used RAID on my drives (from what I know ESXi doesn't pick up software RAIDs), but I do want to have a backup of my server. What would the best eSata solution be?

I'm more concerned with being able to recover data that is damaged than about a drive failure.

Steveocee · 11 Jun 2014 at 08:36

.temp said:
RAM is being delivered today Is it pretty straight forward to remove the mobo?

I've not used RAID on my drives (from what I know ESXi doesn't pick up software RAIDs), but I do want to have a backup of my server. What would the best eSata solution be?

I'm more concerned with being able to recover data that is damaged than about a drive failure.

I'd say watch a youtube video or 2 before you dive in, removing it isn't hard but getting all the cables tucked away neatly as it goes back in can be tedious if you don't know where they came from. I also found the 2 smaller plugs near the power plug are kind of wrapped round each other in a particular way and doing this when they go back helps no end.

If you want an eSata backup I'd probably say to pick yourself up a decent caddy and make your own, you can get the exact amount of storage you want and pick something that looks reasonable as well. I personally use the optical bay with a 3TB WD Red in that I back my main filestore up to that sits in the 4 bays. It runs once per week and if the server ever fails then I can just mount that HDD into a new home and recover the data

.temp · 11 Jun 2014 at 09:15

Steveocee said:
If you want an eSata backup I'd probably say to pick yourself up a decent caddy and make your own, you can get the exact amount of storage you want and pick something that looks reasonable as well. I personally use the optical bay with a 3TB WD Red in that I back my main filestore up to that sits in the 4 bays. It runs once per week and if the server ever fails then I can just mount that HDD into a new home and recover the data

Just been looking around and I'm tempted to mount the drive internally. Either in a spare bay or in the 5.25" bay at the top using something like the Icy Box IB-168SK-B

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-037-BT

At least it'll all be self contained then

cokecan · 11 Jun 2014 at 21:15

Steveocee said:
I've heard of people running up to 8 drives so I's probably say you're in the clear for now.

You can get 11 in there without the use of a dremel or gaffa tape

I've currently got 8 in both of mine with no issues, plus a BD-rom on the esata

easyrider · 11 Jun 2014 at 21:26

.temp said:
Just been looking around and I'm tempted to mount the drive internally. Either in a spare bay or in the 5.25" bay at the top using something like the Icy Box IB-168SK-B

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-037-BT

At least it'll all be self contained then

Yeah mate I used one of them in both of my servers...do not instal system drive in the 4 x bays.

Steveocee · 11 Jun 2014 at 21:27

cokecan said:
You can get 11 in there without the use of a dremel or gaffa tape

I've currently got 8 in both of mine with no issues, plus a BD-rom on the esata

How on earth do you manage 11 drives in there?

uncle_rufus · 11 Jun 2014 at 21:48

Steveocee said:
How on earth do you manage 11 drives in there?

I'm gonna take a guess:

4 in the standard bays, a 6x2.5" adapter in the optical bay and an SSD perched on top of it?

.temp · 11 Jun 2014 at 22:32

easyrider said:
Yeah mate I used one of them in both of my servers...do not instal system drive in the 4 x bays.

why wouldn't you do that?

My current config is an internal USB running ESXi 5.5

2x 2Tb drives
1x 250Gb drive

Had an idea to run all my VM's using the 250Gb drive as the main OS drive, then have the 2x 2Tb drives available to all...if that's possible?

mctiny · 12 Jun 2014 at 00:05

.temp said:
why wouldn't you do that?

My current config is an internal USB running ESXi 5.5

2x 2Tb drives
1x 250Gb drive

Had an idea to run all my VM's using the 250Gb drive as the main OS drive, then have the 2x 2Tb drives available to all...if that's possible?

Possible - Yes

also think about putting each VM on it's own drive if you'll have multiple Vm's running at the same time.

.temp · 12 Jun 2014 at 06:42

mctiny said:
Possible - Yes

also think about putting each VM on it's own drive if you'll have multiple Vm's running at the same time.

If my budget could stretch that far I would

...in the future I'd love to have a way of having each VM on a separate drive.

Wanted to use the 250Gb drive to have my OS' installed on partitions:

WHS2011 - Main OS that will be used for all normal operations
OS X Server - Learning
1 or 2 linux distros - Learning

I just want to ensure that when I make the WHS2011 VM tonight that it will be able to access all the correct drives (installed on a partition of the 250Gb with access to all the media on the other 4Tb).

This is my first time ever using Virtual Machines so I'm learning as I go here, sorry if some of the stuff I'm asking seems obvious

Steveocee · 12 Jun 2014 at 08:07

Woop my 2nd micro turned up yesterday (thanks Nocky)

Going to put in an SSD in bay1 2 x 250GB drives (standard hp ones) in 2&3 then a hotswap in optical bay.
As I already have a linux server this will probably get windows 8.1 very stripped back and I'll use it as an at home rdp point (teamviewer) and the 250GB's will be RAID1 as a backup for my very important files.

As well as a DNS cache and possibly serving a WP site

Can't wait to get it up and running

Steveocee · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:39

Don't suppose anyone has a link to a work around for me?
Installed 8.1 but had to disable the onboard NIC in the BIOS.

Do I need a new BIOS or a new NIC driver?