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

Crikey....absolute bargain at £60 cashback/£120 overall. Mine just past 3 months old, and running well (Samba/PLEX/Madsonic). A few quirks that annoy me but generally a great buy for me.
 
The Microserver itself is just the start of your spending. Add in four drives, 16 GB RAM, a more powerful CPU, the ILO license, and you'll be spending four figures on the hardware along. And then there's the software.
 
Quartz said:
The Microserver itself is just the start of your spending. Add in four drives, 16 GB RAM, a more powerful CPU, the ILO license, and you'll be spending four figures on the hardware along. And then there's the software.
Click to expand...

I've seen this but can't find much, for the home customer what's the benefit of the ILO license that teamviewer can't do?
 
can't get license sorted for esxi...

I downloaded VMware-viclient-all-6.0.0-2502222 which is

VMware vSphere Client
2015-03-12 | 6.0.0 | 341 MB | exe

On the webpage that has this link there is a license key for 'VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6 License'

This licensekey is not working. I suspect it is because I did not use the esxi ISO from the same d/l page but a hp custom ESXi .iso. - I was following this guide.

http://xpenology.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2147

which says the b120 drivers are crucial, hence the custom image. Now I can't find out how to get a free license :(
 
as anyone got the Cheaper Celeron version & could say how they find the performance?

Tempted to get one but not if it means I have to start ploughing a lot of money into it to make it respectable
 
decmatt said:
I've seen this but can't find much, for the home customer what's the benefit of the ILO license that teamviewer can't do?
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Even without the licence, as it comes the iLO lets you connect to your server and power it on if it's off, view temps/fan speeds etc. If you had a power cut for instance and needed to reboot/power up the server, teamviewer can't do that.
 
Mp4 said:
You don't get a HDD its barebone. And 2GB has always been minimum.

Anyway what's the best way to go about installing OS on to another HHD? Like in the DVD bay etc? Do people use SSD?
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SSD in the ODD bay, sata to the ODD sata port, molex splitter to Sata power/floppy to sata power. Then set it to RAID mode with the B120i, and set the SSD to a single drive RAID 0 array (other disks have to be in RAID also, but can be in single drive arrays too).

I have a 500GB SSD in the ODD bay, and 2x 3TB drives, each in their own RAID0 array (both are used in Xpenology, in SHR).
 
Ilo is for 100% complete headless operation.
So Just think of one as a remotely attached K/M and Monitor with access to the power switch.

It also doesn't remotely check the license you apply, and you can apply Ilo2 keys so you can get them cheaper from Russia if you wanted. Mine cost me £3.

Amleto said:
can't get license sorted for esxi...
Click to expand...


ESXi is free.... VSphere is the full product. You want ESXI standalone 5.5 UP2 IIRC.
https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?productId=353&downloadGroup=ESXI55U2
 
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ANDARIAL said:
Checking out the specs on this new deal it does not seem as good as i thought
Only 2GB of ram and no HDD
mmmmmm
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It's #120 quid brand new... what more is it you were expecting?

Quartz said:
The Microserver itself is just the start of your spending. Add in four drives, 16 GB RAM, a more powerful CPU, the ILO license, and you'll be spending four figures on the hardware along. And then there's the software.
Click to expand...

Depends on your usage... I don't need more than 2GB of RAM in these systems... they're only going to be used as NASes really, although I'll probably have a fully fledged O/S on them. Upgrading the CPU? Why would you do that, if you really needed a more powerful CPU, then wouldn't you just buy a different server system to begin with?

Do you really need the ILO? What for?

You can just set "power on" from power cut within the BIOS... anything else you need?

ILO is really for datacentres where you have many servers and it's not viable/useful/timely to walk around every server and manually power it on or fault find by KVM.

It might be nice for you to play with and I've seen many people finding licenses for only a couple of quid... then sure.

But don't try to present it as "you must buy all of this".

This kind of system is 40% the price of a 4-bay synology and more fully functioned in that you can easily install a fully operational operating system and it IS powerful enough to run it without any issues... even fully fledged version of server 2008 or newer... no problem.

If you're desperate to use it as a virtual host or something... then surely this is not the system you would buy?

That's what my own-built home server is for... it has 32GB ram & a fast ivy bridge quad core... along with about 10 disk drives.

Intended use is logical... think about what you want and get what's most appropriate...

decmatt said:
I've seen this but can't find much, for the home customer what's the benefit of the ILO license that teamviewer can't do?
Click to expand...

ILO is a connection to lower level hardware interaction.

Teamviewer only runs when the system is powered on and logged in.

If the system is powered off, you can turn it on remotely, or hardware reset it if it locked up during operation... you can't do that with teamviewer.

If you have network or other O/S issues, you can use it like a KVM over IP... connect to it like you plugged in a mouse, keyboard and screen and fix the problem... you can't do that with teamviewer.

That's basically it.

Very useful for business/datacenter applications but not much use for home use.
 
mnc fear said:
as anyone got the Cheaper Celeron version & could say how they find the performance?

Tempted to get one but not if it means I have to start ploughing a lot of money into it to make it respectable
Click to expand...

I bought mine just before New Years Eve (posted in this thread) and it's been rock solid in every aspect. Performance wise the G1610T is a slight improvement over my old AMD A4 5300K Ubuntu Server box, but noticeably more responsive when looking through my media library (although probably more to do with my NAS setup then).

I just added 8GB of RAM and 2 x 4TB WD REDs along with an existing 64GB Crucial SSD I already owned. It's running Ubuntu Server 14.04 with Webmin/PLEX/Samba and Madsonic and it's more than enough power for transcoding one 1080p stream or serving up files and media. I did play around with Owncloud and SFTP for PhotoSync but had issues with accessing my mounted RAID folders so stopped particularly when I realised I could just upload to the cloud.

As already mentioned it depends on what you are intending to do with it. Will very likely add at least one more WD RED drive and I am tempted to buy more memory at some point although I don't need it. Not particularly bothered about upgrading the CPU but if I did it would be to an i3 3220T rather than anything more.

Bargain for the money.
 
TallPaul_S said:
SSD in the ODD bay, sata to the ODD sata port, molex splitter to Sata power/floppy to sata power. Then set it to RAID mode with the B120i, and set the SSD to a single drive RAID 0 array (other disks have to be in RAID also, but can be in single drive arrays too).

I have a 500GB SSD in the ODD bay, and 2x 3TB drives, each in their own RAID0 array (both are used in Xpenology, in SHR).
Click to expand...

Thanks for that but mind blown with splitters and b120i?? No idea where to start or how big ssd I will need.

My first server so all new to me
 
GDL said:
ESXi is free.... VSphere is the full product. You want ESXI standalone 5.5 UP2 IIRC.
https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?productId=353&downloadGroup=ESXI55U2
Click to expand...

You either are not entitled or do not have permissions to download this product.
Check with your My VMware Super User, Procurement Contact or Administrator.

If you recently purchased this product through VMware Store or through a third-party, try downloading later.
Click to expand...
uhm :(

http://serverfault.com/questions/105432/vmware-esxi-free

^^ pretty sure I need a license key for esxi, but since I have a custom hp image, not one from vmware, the (free) license doesn't work.
 
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Mp4 said:
Thanks for that but mind blown with splitters and b120i?? No idea where to start or how big ssd I will need.

My first server so all new to me
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It's pretty simple really - B120i is the HP Smart array controller the Gen8's come with - i.e. the RAID controller. Set the SATA controller to RAID mode instead of AHCI mode.

When you take off the cover, you'll see a floppy power cable in the ODD bay, also tucked out of sight a few cm away, connecting the backplane power to the PSU, is a Molex connector. Just buy a cable with a male to female molex with a female SATA power connector so you can tap into the PSU molex cable.

The Smart Array utility is very simple, it's just a case of creating the arrays with your chosen disks. 3-4 clicks and you're done. :)
 
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