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

Steveocee said:
Yes, run the Sp64420.exe, then in the folders it creates, find the flat or USB folder, then run the .exe within that to create your USB key.

Once the USB key is created I just drag and dropped the "modified" rom over and let windows replace it.

**Make sure you create at least 1 extra USB key with the standard HP BIOS on in case you have any hiccups.***
Click to expand...

nice one mate , thanks for the clarification !
 
What version of ESXi are people using on their Microservers out of interest?

I'm using the HP specific branch, and I've started to get PSoDs now. Very frustrating. :(
 
From VMware or HP?

There's a couple of versions doing the rounds. I couldn't even get the vanilla version installed. Had to use the HP affair, but even that's started playing up. I suspect my Dell H310 card to be the culprit...
 
I really enjoyed the week I used ESXI for. It's a shame I couldn't get the read/write speeds to work correctly on my then ubuntu server otherwise I'd still be using it and probably wouldn't have had to buy another lol
 
randal said:
From VMware or HP?

There's a couple of versions doing the rounds. I couldn't even get the vanilla version installed. Had to use the HP affair, but even that's started playing up. I suspect my Dell H310 card to be the culprit...
Click to expand...

it's the vanilla one from VMware's website.

I've got an N54L and upgraded the RAM to 16Gb by the way. I had an issue with ESXi when I first tried but it was due to not having installed more RAM (at that time I had only 2Gb)

My ESXi is run from a USB key installed using the internal header. I followed this guide to get the drive to be bootable: http://www.tinkertry.com/rufus-take...otable-usb-flash-drive-for-esxi-installation/

What issue are you running into?
 
Cheers for the replies chaps.

Specs are N54L, 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP, Sammy 830 64GB on internal ODD slot for ESXi plus VM boot drives, Dell H310 with:

2 X 1TB in RAID 0 (scratch space so I can move stuff from my other N40 temporarily)

2 X 500GB in RAID 0 (as above)

4 x Seagate 2.5" 7200.7 160GBs in RAID 5 ~450GB because I had them knocking about.

The machine starts to boot, loads all the lower level modules then drops on to the point where it fires up the kernel and then it PSoDs with an exception error about the checksum being worthless. I *think* it's an exception 13 or 14, need to fire it up again later to be 100% sure.
 
uncle_rufus said:
I wish I'd been able to set things up with ESXi... perhaps down the line when I can justify the cost of 16Gb of RAM I'll do a re-install
Click to expand...

i wish i could justify it to my bank balance :(

randal said:
Cheers for the replies chaps.

Specs are N54L, 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP, Sammy 830 64GB on internal ODD slot for ESXi plus VM boot drives, Dell H310 with:

2 X 1TB in RAID 0 (scratch space so I can move stuff from my other N40 temporarily)

2 X 500GB in RAID 0 (as above)

4 x Seagate 2.5" 7200.7 160GBs in RAID 5 ~450GB because I had them knocking about.

The machine starts to boot, loads all the lower level modules then drops on to the point where it fires up the kernel and then it PSoDs with an exception error about the checksum being worthless. I *think* it's an exception 13 or 14, need to fire it up again later to be 100% sure.
Click to expand...

Hmm I've not got much to offer in terms of a solution, but you could try an eliminate an issue if you have a spare USB drive knocking around to try and boot into ESXi from that (use method I linked above). at least then you'll know if your boot media is configured correctly. You meet the RAM requirements so that shouldn't be an issue at all :/
 
Last edited:
I'm half tempted to do something similar, do a fresh install of vanilla ESXi and see what happens then. The VMs on there I'm not too fussed about, there's my old 2012 test lab stuff and an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS test host stuff which can go.

Failing that I'll stick 14.04 on it natively and use Virtualbox for any virtualisation needs, which is a shame as ESXi is a superb hypervisor. Just gets a bit cranky every now and then, and in my experience is a PITA to diagnose should it go awry.
 
Steveocee said:
Yes, run the Sp64420.exe, then in the folders it creates, find the flat or USB folder, then run the .exe within that to create your USB key.

Once the USB key is created I just drag and dropped the "modified" rom over and let windows replace it.

**Make sure you create at least 1 extra USB key with the standard HP BIOS on in case you have any hiccups.***
Click to expand...

just to confirm , all done and settings changed in bios.

thanks again Steveocee :)
 
randal said:
I'm half tempted to do something similar, do a fresh install of vanilla ESXi and see what happens then. The VMs on there I'm not too fussed about, there's my old 2012 test lab stuff and an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS test host stuff which can go.

Failing that I'll stick 14.04 on it natively and use Virtualbox for any virtualisation needs, which is a shame as ESXi is a superb hypervisor. Just gets a bit cranky every now and then, and in my experience is a PITA to diagnose should it go awry.
Click to expand...

Sussed it, forehead slappingly simple. Checked through the debug logs and found it was moaning about SCSIScan devices not being found then listing target IDs. Dawned on me that I might have attached the mini-SAS connectors to the wrong channels on the H310 the last time I had the board out. Turns out I had, swapped them over and all is well again. *facepalm*

Steveocee said:
ESXI not working properly was partially my excuse to buy a 2nd microserver.
Click to expand...

It'll be my reasoning to buy a Gen8 and an E3 1230v2 before long!
 
Anybody using one of these with SSD's across the 4 main bays?
I've just put my N40 in with a Kingston V300 in Bay 1 as a boot drive and it's nippy but can't help but think what an N54 with 4 SSD's in RAID would be like?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom