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

rp2000 · 23 Dec 2014 at 22:37

GDL said:
Can you PM me a link to where?

Thanks.

HP sell it direct for the price he is mentioning. Took me 2 secs to google that.

rp2000

Battery! · 24 Dec 2014 at 01:14

Question for the guys who just bought a gen8.

Are there still fan speed/noise issues with none HP disks installed?

nutcase · 24 Dec 2014 at 08:03

Battery! said:
Question for the guys who just bought a gen8.

Are there still fan speed/noise issues with none HP disks installed?

I would say yes, although not tried for a while. I have 4x 4TB WD Reds with and without a P222 it makes a right racket

Shame as no reason for it except dodgy firmware.

beavis · 24 Dec 2014 at 10:44

No problems at all here in ACHI mode. Having said that I've not put any PCI-E cards in yet and that's what caused issues with my G7 ML110.

Nutcase - what firmware (BIOS+ILO) and OS are you running?

Battery! · 24 Dec 2014 at 10:50

nutcase_1uk said:
I would say yes, although not tried for a while. I have 4x 4TB WD Reds with and without a P222 it makes a right racket Shame as no reason for it except dodgy firmware.

Ahh, no difference then.

Its not dodgy firmware as such, its that the iLO cannot read the correct temps from the disks due to not having the HP firmware on the disks, so the fans go mental as the box thinks the drives are roasting.

It was the same with the ML110 G6 but they released a firmware update that stopped this happening.

DIABLO · 25 Dec 2014 at 23:53

Can the gen 8 boot from the 5th internal sata port?

beavis · 26 Dec 2014 at 15:25

DIABLO said:
Can the gen 8 boot from the 5th internal sata ports?

Not directly no. You can however put boot loader onto the internal microSD or USB ports and redirect. There are instructions here:
http://homeservershow.com/forums/in...d-in-the-odd-bay-discussion/page-3#entry67539

DIABLO · 26 Dec 2014 at 18:54

beavis said:
Not directly no. You can however put boot loader onto the internal microSD or USB ports and redirect. There are instructions here:
http://homeservershow.com/forums/in...d-in-the-odd-bay-discussion/page-3#entry67539

Cheers, is the port a full speed port or is gimped like the gen 7?

Ozymandias · 26 Dec 2014 at 23:52

beavis said:
Not directly no. You can however put boot loader onto the internal microSD or USB ports and redirect. There are instructions here:
http://homeservershow.com/forums/in...d-in-the-odd-bay-discussion/page-3#entry67539

I did this with Server 2012 R2 Essentials (booting from microSD) and although it did boot and work ok, it would not run server backup. The server backup just started and then stopped after doing nothing with no real indication why it had failed.

In the end I installed a dual port sata card and booted from that and everything (including the server backup) now works fine.

beavis · 27 Dec 2014 at 13:22

I've not tried the onboard port, so not sure what speed it runs at. The drive bays are SATA 6Gb on bays 1&2 and SATA 3Gb on bays 3&4. If you are using SSD's, ensure you use bay 1 or 2.

Thanks for the tip Ozymandias. I've got a NIC in my PCI-E port so can't add a SATA card, guess I've have to stick to bays for now.

beavis · 27 Dec 2014 at 13:33

Browsed through the homeservershow forums, which is excellent for Microserver questions. From what I understand you can boot from the ODD port without needing the microsd/usb workaround if:
1. Set IDE mode to RAID.
2. Configure individual drives as RAID0.

Again I've not tried it and my server is already running far to many services to play with it, but might be useful to someone setting up a new box.

DIABLO · 27 Dec 2014 at 21:16

beavis said:
Browsed through the homeservershow forums, which is excellent for Microserver questions. From what I understand you can boot from the ODD port without needing the microsd/usb workaround if:
1. Set IDE mode to RAID.
2. Configure individual drives as RAID0.

Again I've not tried it and my server is already running far to many services to play with it, but might be useful to someone setting up a new box.

There is a negative to running in RAID mode which is that the drives won't spin down when not in use.

GDL · 28 Dec 2014 at 22:25

Took the plunge, and my Gen 8 arrives tomorrow along with 16GB ram.
4 x 4TB drives Wednesday.
Xeon E3 1230 v2 was ordered from the states (love the exchange rate atm) but I bet the delivery time will suck.

kefan77 · 28 Dec 2014 at 22:36

how much was 1230v2?

i bought 2 mine in US while ago, because they were crazy cheap.

there was a guy on bay selling 30 of them at really low price, i bought one immediately after he put up the listing as I had alert set up and when I wanted to buy another one about 2 hours later, all remaining 29 were bought by some dude already.

uncle_rufus · 28 Dec 2014 at 23:03

I shouldn't come in this thread... Sooo tempted by the Gen8 + Xeon setup... although my Gen7 is running along happily still at the moment

GDL · 29 Dec 2014 at 00:41

kefan77 said:
how much was 1230v2?

£110 shipped.

EDIT: I should point out it's a used CPU but I'm not that bothered as long as it works.

Nash · 29 Dec 2014 at 12:44

Very tempted to buy one of these but am a bit concerned about the small amounts of RAM it comes with as standard so I'd want to upgrade. This would only be a test box for me so I don't particularly want to splash out on ECC RAM. I've read conflicting reports about this needing ECC or not, can anyone clarify?

Timber · 29 Dec 2014 at 13:20

I think as already mentioned there's a great resource thread (and loads of other useful information) on the HomeServerShow forums: FAQ thread.

Appears it does need non-registered ECC RAM which is about £80 for an 8GB stick or very similar for 2 x 4GB sticks.

kefan77 · 29 Dec 2014 at 13:44

GDL said:
£110 shipped.

EDIT: I should point out it's a used CPU but I'm not that bothered as long as it works.

mine were $165 and $155 respectively

used too, as 99% of these come from servers or WS being stripped down.

Timber · 29 Dec 2014 at 16:45

Well after days of deliberating, I've just pulled the trigger on the HP Gen8 Microserver (G1610T), 8GB of Kingston RAM and 2 x 4TB WD RED drives.

I am planning to run it as an UnRAID box and seeing how I get on with it. I've got the option to use the SSD out of my Ubuntu server but I want to see how this runs alongside my existing setup, particularly how it appears I can easily add in an extra 4TB RED drive at a later date. No plans to upgrade the CPU initially becuase I think this might be enough but I would probably just go for the i3-3220T if I did upgrade.