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

[2013]

i3-3220T, i5-3470T, depends what you want to use it for..

I'll have a Xeon E3-1260L going in January at somepoint..

Thanks for letting me know, I may be interested in it and some ram, depending on if i still have any money left at the time.

 

[Trig]

Haha, there's a list of that I have in the price check section...
I'll probs sell the server with the stock chip, anywhere between 2-8gb RAM then sell the other bits separately...

 

[DJDaz]

What's the go to 16gb ram for a N54L ?

Cheap as possible (playing with some VMs which are not mission critical, so doesn't have to be ecc)

Thanks

This is the RAM i got for mine. x2

Kingston KVR1333D3N9H/8G RAM 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM, 240-Pin, 1.5 V

I won't link to it since i'm not sure if it will be allowed. They seem to have nearly doubled in price since i got them though.

 

[squarepusher]

Anyone got any ideas on how to speed up iLO Remote console? really laggy lately, I remember it out the box being pretty fast, that's before doing plenty of updates. More ram or a GPU would help?

 

[valve90210]

I recently got hold of a second hand N40L which I want to setup using openmedia vault to house all my media etc. Now, I've done a couple of test setups and had a few issues.

Firstly it was set up using the supplied 250GB drive which the previous owner hadn't been using, and after a few days of the server being on 24/7 it failed on me, giving me lots of errors and failed writes.

I then made a test setup using an old 2.5" laptop drive I had laying about. Now, this drive was not the best and had suffered some abuse in the past but was ok for testing. All seemed well for about a week then all of a sudden I got loads of errors, then the server restarted and couldn't even find the OS drive to boot up.

Since then I've not had a chance to look at it what with Christmas etc but I'm a little worried. I'm hoping it was just two duff used drives that have not stood up to the 24/7 usage but I'm concerned that I'm doing something wrong or there is a problem with the server that is causing these failures...

Does anyone have any advice or thoughts on this because I really would like to get it up and running but I'm loathe to buy a new drive and have it fail on me because of an issue with the server itself.

 

[KIA]

Does anyone have any advice or thoughts on this because I really would like to get it up and running but I'm loathe to buy a new drive and have it fail on me because of an issue with the server itself.

Have you tried the drives in a different machine?

 

[valve90210]

I haven't actually, not had a chance to tinker recently, it's been so busy with xmas etc.

When I get a chance I'll try to get them into my pc and see if they work there.

 

[Mel_P]

Perhaps the BIOS needs a reset (remove battery or move link). This worked on my gen 8 when I seemed to have corrupted the firmware and doing a BIOS reset and relaoding iLO etc resolved the errors like working for a while (few hrs) then crashing. Not sure if relevant to N40L though?

 

[Phate]

Hi all,

I looonng time ago I had one of these Microservers but initially didn't get on with it as it was something that needed managing and I just wanted a dumb NAS. So I sold it on and got something else.

Now I am looking into one of these for my startup business until the business grows where I will invest in better hardware.

I am looking at running a number of virtual servers on it, whats the limit of a GEN8 with 16gb of RAM. Can the CPU be upgraded in these as well?

I'd like to run it as:

- Domain Controller
- File Server
- Print Server
- 4 x Virtual servers & Up to 4 x Desktop VMs

The virtual servers will always be running and the Desktop VM's just powered up when needed, it's unlikely I will need all of these at the same time plus I can always run some VM's locally on my laptop to take the load off the server.

What do we think? Are asking a bit much from the small Microserver? Would I be better off investing in other hardware?

Also I remember my previous one came with a a hard drive and you could then add 4 additional disks. Do the current GEN8s have 4 drive bays plus an additional drive connection? if so I have a spare SSD which could be the OS hard drive and that would give me 4 x disks for storage.

TIA

 

[nutcase]

It'll be fine, I used a gen8 as a remote desktop server for about 20-30 people (there's a screenshot in this thread somewhere).

 

[Phate]

It'll be fine, I used a gen8 as a remote desktop server for about 20-30 people (there's a screenshot in this thread somewhere).

Oh excellent, that's good to know.

Which CPU did yours have?

Is the cashback still happening?

 

[Mel_P]

Anyone got any ideas on how to speed up iLO Remote console? really laggy lately, I remember it out the box being pretty fast, that's before doing plenty of updates. More ram or a GPU would help?

Not updated mine since Oct 2015 when I installed the Gen 8 from new. iLo speed seems unchanged. I am very wary of updates to this system. I have decided to not update anything (apart from Win 7 OS) unless it breaks! Leave well alone

Mel

 

[Trig]

Hi all,

I looonng time ago I had one of these Microservers but initially didn't get on with it as it was something that needed managing and I just wanted a dumb NAS. So I sold it on and got something else.

Now I am looking into one of these for my startup business until the business grows where I will invest in better hardware.

I am looking at running a number of virtual servers on it, whats the limit of a GEN8 with 16gb of RAM. Can the CPU be upgraded in these as well?

I'd like to run it as:

- Domain Controller
- File Server
- Print Server
- 4 x Virtual servers & Up to 4 x Desktop VMs

The virtual servers will always be running and the Desktop VM's just powered up when needed, it's unlikely I will need all of these at the same time plus I can always run some VM's locally on my laptop to take the load off the server.

What do we think? Are asking a bit much from the small Microserver? Would I be better off investing in other hardware?

Also I remember my previous one came with a a hard drive and you could then add 4 additional disks. Do the current GEN8s have 4 drive bays plus an additional drive connection? if so I have a spare SSD which could be the OS hard drive and that would give me 4 x disks for storage.

TIA

Depending on cooling you can stick Xeon's in there, certain ones will fit within the stock heatsink, some of the warmer ones will be better off under one of the newer SKU heatpipe heatsinks.
16Gb is the max, nothing you can do about that, its a chipset thing.
I had mine running with Server 2012 r2 on a Xeon E3-1260L, 16Gb RAM, 2x SSD's and then 4 3/5" drives in the bays on the front, it did require a P222/512 card though as I was running the SSD's off of the built in B120 then the main storage drives from the P222.
Was running Hyper-V with a VM for Sophos UTM, Plex VM, test VM (General messing about with stuff under VM, a TorrentVM.
The main OS was running the Server Essentials feature to give me backup etc to a hand ful of PC's and laptops and coped fine..

 

[Phate]

Depending on cooling you can stick Xeon's in there, certain ones will fit within the stock heatsink, some of the warmer ones will be better off under one of the newer SKU heatpipe heatsinks.
16Gb is the max, nothing you can do about that, its a chipset thing.
I had mine running with Server 2012 r2 on a Xeon E3-1260L, 16Gb RAM, 2x SSD's and then 4 3/5" drives in the bays on the front, it did require a P222/512 card though as I was running the SSD's off of the built in B120 then the main storage drives from the P222.
Was running Hyper-V with a VM for Sophos UTM, Plex VM, test VM (General messing about with stuff under VM, a TorrentVM.
The main OS was running the Server Essentials feature to give me backup etc to a hand ful of PC's and laptops and coped fine..

Thats really good to know. I can see there is a Gen8 on Amazon with a Xeon E3-1220LV2 CPU. Is it better to buy it with the CPU pre-installed or buy a cheaper one then buy a better cpu for it?

So it has an additional SATA port as well as the standard 4 bay drives. So I can boot off a seperate SSD. Excellent

 

[Trig]

Depends what you want to do with it I guess, check out the Intel ARK before you decide what CPU you want.

I bought mine with the G1610T and optical drive, then swapped out the CPU for an i3-3220T and then for the E3-1260L, depends what cashback deals and CPU's you can find, there are a few CPU's that are like rocking horse poop..

It has a single SATA port for the optical drive, then the 4 bays run from the B120, theres a bit of faffing to do to get it to boot from the optical SATA but it is doable.

I'd say buy my setup but you're a bit far away to post it lol...

 

[nutcase]

Oh excellent, that's good to know.

Which CPU did yours have?

Is the cashback still happening?

Think it was the standard one at the time.

 

[crinkleshoes]

Thats really good to know. I can see there is a Gen8 on Amazon with a Xeon E3-1220LV2 CPU. Is it better to buy it with the CPU pre-installed or buy a cheaper one then buy a better cpu for it?

So it has an additional SATA port as well as the standard 4 bay drives. So I can boot off a seperate SSD. Excellent

These virtual servers and desktops, will they be in frequent simultaneous use?

If so then the cpu and ram (even fully upgraded) are nowhere near powerful enough to do that.

If they're very low activity, then you could perhaps get away with it - but is 2GB per VM (while ignoring the host OS) really enough for your needs?

 

[DJDaz]

Hi guys,

Those of you that have more than the 4 HDDs in your microservers.

I got an N54L with 4 HDDs and an SSD and i'm using a Molex to Sata power adapter for the SSD but seen it mentioned more and more lately that they can cause fires.

How are you powering the extra HDD(s)?

 

[pepp77]

Mine has a Molex to Sata adapter and has been running basically 24/7 for about 3 years now with no issues (touches lots of wood )

 

[chenko]

Where is this that they're setting on fire? Why would it be special?

I have always run mine in this configuration, obviously its still anecdotal, but im sure this is pretty much the norm.