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

Markopolo said:
How are you finding OMV?
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Fine, it works totally fine.

The MySQL server i was trying to setup was a total ballache.
For some reason, the server was trying do a reverse name lookup on the ip address that is connecting and sending the requests which caused every XBMC client to freeze every time a request was made.

Adding this simple line to the my.cnf solved that issue though.

[mysqld]
skip-name-resolve
 
Hi chaps,

I'm running ESXi 5.5 on my N54l, used the HP customised ISO.

I've built 1 windows VM, but have noticed that when I RDP to it performance is a little slow and CPU usage on the host shoots up.

Is this normal?

Thanks.
 
DiscoDave said:
Hi chaps,

I'm running ESXi 5.5 on my N54l, used the HP customised ISO.

I've built 1 windows VM, but have noticed that when I RDP to it performance is a little slow and CPU usage on the host shoots up.

Is this normal?

Thanks.
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Have you installed the Vmware tools in the the windows guest?
 
Hmm I'm seriously tempted to buy some RAM so I can get on the ESXi bandwagon as it really seems like fun and a good learning experience, plus I can think of at least a couple of VMs I'd want to make use of

My only concern with using it for VMs and having one of those VMs be a primary fileserver is what complications can arise especially if the entire setup gets messed up

For that matter what actually is the deal with software RAID solutions? Its fairly common knowledge that hardware RAID is very dependent on the controller card and considered sort of risky as a result... but what about software RAID? If I create an array using software where are the details of how the array is setup and arranged stored? On each disk? Somewhere in the host OS? If I setup software RAID and then subsequently totally mess up the OS can I do a fresh install of the same OS and re-mount the same array?
 
I couple of days ago I stumbled across a website that had a pretty comprehensive table of NAS operating systems.

I can't find it in my web history :/

Any help?
 
uncle_rufus said:
Hmm I'm seriously tempted to buy some RAM so I can get on the ESXi bandwagon as it really seems like fun and a good learning experience, plus I can think of at least a couple of VMs I'd want to make use of

My only concern with using it for VMs and having one of those VMs be a primary fileserver is what complications can arise especially if the entire setup gets messed up

For that matter what actually is the deal with software RAID solutions? Its fairly common knowledge that hardware RAID is very dependent on the controller card and considered sort of risky as a result... but what about software RAID? If I create an array using software where are the details of how the array is setup and arranged stored? On each disk? Somewhere in the host OS? If I setup software RAID and then subsequently totally mess up the OS can I do a fresh install of the same OS and re-mount the same array?
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Yup, not sure what software raid solution you're using but you can freely move between controllers and entire hardware sets as it doesn't rely on hardware.

If you use FREENAS then you'll have to use version 8.3.2 on esxi on a Microserver as RDM doesn't work on version 9 releases
 
Attu90 said:
The main reason to use the modified BIOS is to enable AHCI mode on the sata port in the optical bay and the esata port.

If your using either of these ports for harddrives its pretty useful.

You can run 6 harddrives in a standard microserver, 4 in the bays and 2 mounted in the optical bay but you need to use an esata cable to connect one of them to the port on the back of the microserver.

Quite a few of us use the 4 normal harddrives for storage and another drive (I use a Solid-state drive) in the optical bay ..... with AHCI enabled to get maximum speed.
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Cheers. If I'm just doing humdrum server stuff though the lack of AHCI on the system drive won't bother me in the slightest (since it won't be SSD), so I might just skip tinkering with the BIOS.

Tracking shows Yodel have left me a card, why can't these people follow Neighbour instructions :(.
 
Makhaira said:
Cheers. If I'm just doing humdrum server stuff though the lack of AHCI on the system drive won't bother me in the slightest (since it won't be SSD), so I might just skip tinkering with the BIOS.

Tracking shows Yodel have left me a card, why can't these people follow Neighbour instructions :(.
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The biggest issue for me is that you can't make a MicroServer a domain controller if you boot from the on-board SATA port without the hacked BIOS. This is because the dcpromo wizard tries to set the disk cache to disabled, and for some reason, without the hacked BIOS this hangs and the dcpromo fails.
 
Frozennova said:
Yup, not sure what software raid solution you're using but you can freely move between controllers and entire hardware sets as it doesn't rely on hardware.

If you use FREENAS then you'll have to use version 8.3.2 on esxi on a Microserver as RDM doesn't work on version 9 releases
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Interesting, I haven't decided if I want to use FreeNAS or not yet, I may actually go with a straight install of Arch and setup stuff myself (maybe)

So does that mean that in software raid there must be some sort of information about how the array is setup written to the disks themselves? If a completely isolated install can understand what is on the array it must be able to read that information from the disks, right?
 
uncle_rufus said:
Interesting, I haven't decided if I want to use FreeNAS or not yet, I may actually go with a straight install of Arch and setup stuff myself (maybe)

So does that mean that in software raid there must be some sort of information about how the array is setup written to the disks themselves? If a completely isolated install can understand what is on the array it must be able to read that information from the disks, right?
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When the array is created the software raid platform writes data metadata to the drives.

If it's MDADM on Linux then it'll auto detect the array, for ZFS then it's a simple command to import the array.

ZFS works well on debian from my experience and waso_dude is running it under CentOS as well.

I posted some figures further up and found with a Raid1 array
ZFS is faster than MDADM even on Linux where ZFS hasn't matured as much as the likes of BSD
MagicBoy said:
FreeNASon 9 uses ZFS, which is voodoo magic stuff. :D
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So did all the previous versions of freenas :)
 
Installing Windows 8 on my N54L as we speak :D. Much excitement.

2x 3Tb WD Reds and 2x 2Tb WD Greens going in there, with a random 5400rpm laptop drive I had kicking around for the OS.

There's some black tape going over that annoying HP logo soon though...
 
Frozennova said:
Yup, not sure what software raid solution you're using but you can freely move between controllers and entire hardware sets as it doesn't rely on hardware.

If you use FREENAS then you'll have to use version 8.3.2 on esxi on a Microserver as RDM doesn't work on version 9 releases
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Sauce? It was working fine for me until I migrated to a physical install.

Since then I expanded the array and during the rebuild another disk went offline and then an URE on the next disk :o

Good thing it was RAIDZ2 :cool:
 
Are there Windows 8 drivers? The only ones I can find on the HP site are for WHS 2008. I realise that the inbuilt W8 drivers detect everything, but from experience the standard drivers are often massively slower than specific drivers, so I'm keen to update if I can.

Thanks for any help.
 
Makhaira said:
Are there Windows 8 drivers? The only ones I can find on the HP site are for WHS 2008. I realise that the inbuilt W8 drivers detect everything, but from experience the standard drivers are often massively slower than specific drivers, so I'm keen to update if I can.

Thanks for any help.
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Depends what drivers you want, try looking at each manufacturers websites to find them...
 
Okay mines working perfectly. Just ordered 4x now tv boxes to put plex onto for the family/gf :)

Centos 7 x64
ZFS installed
Plex
8GB Ram (non ecc)
60gb SSD for OS + Apps
Currently only 2TB drive. Soon to be some more.

And during film playback it doesn't touch about 5% cpu. Thats over the internet too so its converting down a lot.

These boxes are amazing. Well impressed with mine., I couldn't get to grips with Freenas. If you know linux, you will get annoyed with it to quickly like I did and soon I just installed what I needed and admin it thought SSH, and web interfaces.
 
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