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

mattyj1085 said:
The thing is these drives are identical samsung f4 2TB, and I was trying to setup a stripped array raid 0 not a mirror just using 2x2TB drives
Click to expand...

Oh !, did you think it would be faster ? I'm assuming You are not running it as a server then ?
anyhow if windows miss reports the drives there is little chance it will format them correctly (sure those f4's are advance format) there's Your speed out the window ;)
 
JAKUS said:
Oh !, did you think it would be faster ? I'm assuming You are not running it as a server then ?
anyhow if windows miss reports the drives there is little chance it will format them correctly (sure those f4's are advance format) there's Your speed out the window ;)
Click to expand...

Yep, I am running it as a file server, im not too bothered about redundancy though I have 2 other f4's with identical copies of the data backed up nightly I just wanted performance!

windows sees the drives perfectly fine if use them in IDE or ACHI mode it only screws up when I have them in Raid and try to make a stripped array using them
 
Banzai_Joe said:
Why is it that IDE mode often results in better read/write speeds than AHCI, when the hardware is geared towards AHCI usage.
I too and using SSD with ACHI and am getting lower speeds than IDE mode.
Click to expand...

I think that can be said for other setups also, not sure why. Don't forget raid is virtually AHCI also...see a pattern here !
 
mattyj1085 said:
Yep, I am running it as a file server, im not too bothered about redundancy though I have 2 other f4's with identical copies of the data backed up nightly I just wanted performance!

windows sees the drives perfectly fine if use them in IDE or ACHI mode it only screws up when I have them in Raid and try to make a stripped array using them
Click to expand...

Have You tried JBOD, if the controller supports it ?
 
ok, mines arrived. 4gb corsair on order (single simm) so far.

I am thinking of using hardware raid 1 with my 2x2tb drives for family stuff, then one of the other slots I will use for moves etc - no need for redundancy, with the other as spare, unless I can use the other slot and raid 1 the movies hdd. But I suppose if I chose that method I might aswell go down raid 5, but it will be software raid though.

I would also like to run vmware server on for the off vmware image. I will have it run cron backup jobs, along with some rss downloaders etc

I so far am looking at Amahi, based on fedora, unraid or even freenas, but am concerned I cannot get vmware server running.

Any advice appreciated.
 
mattyj1085 said:
Yep looks like im sticking with IDE mode! and just using dynamic disks in windows
Click to expand...

Me too! I've just set the Bios to IDE, and weirdly it's moved my HDD's around,
If there where showing in the Bios/Windows as 0/1/2/3/4 (0 = OS Drive on spare sata, 1-4 are the bays from left to right).. The new order is 1/3/2/4/0, I had to set the Boot Disk back to the OS drive in the bios!

But it is quicker in Windows Server! And before the 1Gb RAM fills up It's hitting 100-120MB/sec on a single simple volume NTFS disk which seems inline with everyone elses findings..
 
Sorry guys, I really don't think 100-120 MB/s is going to happen !
Please tell Me Your not going by windows 7 file transfer details :D

I don't know how to accurately measure network transfers except by timing say a 10gb mixed file, backwards and forwards because if You monitor network usage (in task manager) you will find it's not going to saturate above 60% and depending on the files can drop right down, same with a D/U meter.

You will be doing well to average over 40MB/s ;)
at 120MB/s we are talking a 4.7GB file in under 40secs :D if You tweaked everything You would not get 80MB/sec down a gigabit Lan or even the harddrive (if it's a mix of very big and very small files)

I tried IDE/AHCI and notice next to no difference ;)

Be interesting for Us to post times to up/down a mixed 10GB file
 
JAKUS said:
Sorry guys, I really don't think 100-120 MB/s is going to happen !
Please tell Me Your not going by windows 7 file transfer details :D

I don't know how to accurately measure network transfers except by timing say a 10gb mixed file, backwards and forwards because if You monitor network usage (in task manager) you will find it's not going to saturate above 60% and depending on the files can drop right down, same with a D/U meter.

You will be doing well to average over 40MB/s ;)
at 120MB/s we are talking a 4.7GB file in under 40secs :D if You tweaked everything You would not get 80MB/sec down a gigabit Lan or even the harddrive (if it's a mix of very big and very small files)

I tried IDE/AHCI and notice next to no difference ;)

Be interesting for Us to post times to up/down a mixed 10GB file
Click to expand...

I'll test tonight
 
JAKUS said:
Sorry guys, I really don't think 100-120 MB/s is going to happen !
Please tell Me Your not going by windows 7 file transfer details :D

I don't know how to accurately measure network transfers except by timing say a 10gb mixed file, backwards and forwards because if You monitor network usage (in task manager) you will find it's not going to saturate above 60% and depending on the files can drop right down, same with a D/U meter.

You will be doing well to average over 40MB/s ;)
at 120MB/s we are talking a 4.7GB file in under 40secs :D if You tweaked everything You would not get 80MB/sec down a gigabit Lan or even the harddrive (if it's a mix of very big and very small files)

I tried IDE/AHCI and notice next to no difference ;)

Be interesting for Us to post times to up/down a mixed 10GB file
Click to expand...

I appreciate the concern, but some of us have an ounce of common sense!

I used internal drive to drive transfer rates of a single 5Gb compressed zip files to confirm the 'raw' internal perfomance, I time the transfers to double check any 'reported' transfer rates. This is all done using Windows Server 2008 R2. Obviously I'm looking at the drive interface, I didn't want to use the network performance as the indicator for that.

In SATA Mode, the transfers start at a reported 80-90MB/s but as the memory saturates (I only have 1Gb) this drops to ~50MB/s, the timed average is 58MB/s
In IDE Mode, the transfers start at 100-120MB/s and slowly fall to ~65MB/s with a timed average showing 74MB/s.
I am awaiting my 4Gb RAM turning up so I can check if that helps sustain the transfers or not, the CPU certainly isn't bound..
Looking at this, http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_barracuda_green_2tb_review_st2000dl003 I don't see my figures being anything other then realistic, the CPU isn't remotely max'd out etc, and it's on newly formatted drives..

It may be the AMD AHCI driver, I've seen people complain that the performance dropped after they installed the AMD driver on WHS and uninstalled to verify and sure enough this was an issue for them..
 
Last edited:
Methanoid said:
errr why WS2008R2 rather than plain W7. APart from IIS and a few other "goodies" that I don't want.. what does it have over W7?
Click to expand...

It's more the other way around, it's much more lightweight then W7, you effectively get a very very limited features set installed (Standard version installation), and you add features/roles such as file services, IIS etc, etc as you want..

And I like that.. I much prefer starting with bare-bones and adding just what I want etc..

Plus you'd think that if anything it's fractionally more optimised for file serving etc?

Luckily it's a no cost option whichever way I go, so it's fine, I'm going to put WHS2011 on the other box and trial that when my RAM turns up!
 
Demon said:
It's more the other way around, it's much more lightweight then W7, you effectively get a very very limited features set installed (Standard version installation), and you add features/roles such as file services, IIS etc, etc as you want..
Click to expand...

All features that Win7 doesn't have as standard either? Server is no more lightweight than 7.

That said, I'm using it because I will be needing these features.
 
Am I right, from ready upto post 6, that the connectors for the dvd drive, in the spare bay are pata speeds? I was thinking of using this port as my OS drive. Or is there another sata port on the board not used?
 
Burnsy2023 said:
All features that Win7 doesn't have as standard either? Server is no more lightweight than 7.

That said, I'm using it because I will be needing these features.
Click to expand...

Really? There seems to be a degree less things installed/services running etc in Server 2008 as a base install then any Windows Box I have, it has the barebones desktop with no glitz, it has no media services, and lots of other things that you have no choice over in Windows 7..

You have to add virtually every server 'feature' and 'role' manually, they aren't installed by standard..

Sounds and looks much more lightweight to me..
 
Last edited:
slewis1972 said:
Am I right, from ready upto post 6, that the connectors for the dvd drive, in the spare bay are pata speeds? I was thinking of using this port as my OS drive. Or is there another sata port on the board not used?
Click to expand...

There is no connector in the 5.25" bay, there is just a spare SATA connector on the Motherboard, you can hook up a SATA HDD or ODD to it..

The original bios did put this SATA connection in IDE mode , but the latest and patched bios' where supposed to have fixed that..

And the transfer rates to it seem fine to me, it works well as an OS drive..
 
Demon said:
Really? There seems to be a degree less things installed/services running etc in Server 2008 as a base install then any Windows Box I have, it has the barebones desktop with no glitz, it has no media services, and lots of other things that you have no choice over in Windows 7..

Sounds and looks much more lightweight to me..
Click to expand...

I think we're going to need examples here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom