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

Hi all! I've been thinking about installing Freenas (now TrueNAS) on my hp proliant microserver gen 8 (on SSD plugged into odd SATA) but it's only got 4gb ram and latest TrueNAS wants a whopping 16gb minimum!

I won't be doing anything too much, mainly just local storage with two 3 tb drives. I want a system like synology's DSM but that doesn't demand nearly as much ram?!

I could buy an 8gb ram stick but to go to 16 seems like overkill on expense for me.

What other NAS OS could I look at or would my 4 / 8 ram be enough? Anyone running TrueNAS on this machine?
 
Pickers said:
Hi all! I've been thinking about installing Freenas (now TrueNAS) on my hp proliant microserver gen 8 (on SSD plugged into odd SATA) but it's only got 4gb ram and latest TrueNAS wants a whopping 16gb minimum!


I could buy an 8gb ram stick but to go to 16 seems like overkill on expense for me.
Click to expand...
Max is 8GB isn't it?.
 
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I will only be using 2 bays (for now) and I've read of so many problems with getting unraid to run on a gen 8 with ssd, harder than TrueNAS.

But that's where OCuK come in!!
 
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Both my Gen 7 & 8 run Unraid, albeit I mostly have SATA drives in mine with the exception of the cache drive. As long as you're not trying to transcode it's fine. The Gen 7 is just a backup server I bring online once a week to back up important things from the Gen 8, and the Gen 8 runs a bunch of docker containers and a couple of Ubuntu VMs as well as being the media server for my Kodi RPis.

[Edit]If you happen to decide on Unraid, I've just seen a promo code on Reddit you might want to try :)
 
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Well now I'm torn.
Is unraid happy if I were to install it to the SSD connected to the ODD SATA connector and then turn on legacy boot and set up the SSd as raid 0 so it can be booted from (annoying issue with the HP it seems!)? Or is creating a grub usb still the better option to point to the SSD and avoid this and avoid legacy mode?

With 2 x 3TB WD reds (and maybe an extra 1 TB WD red) and a 240gb SSD, what may people suggest? I was going to use SSD as the OS disk for freenas and the WD reds as data disk trying to use the equivalent of Synology's SHR system for the two spinners.
I have an external USB drive to backup to periodically.
Total disk space currently needed is ~700GB.

Another question, if OS is installed and run from the 240gb SSD, Could a partition be created used as a cache drive for TrueNAS/unraid? And if so.. how ?

I'm sorry for being so utterly clueless with this! I've never done anything other than a plug and play Nas drive so "setting up a raid" has never been what I have considered but happy to dabble lightly.
A good thorough guide to follow would be helpful!
 
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Pickers said:
Well now I'm torn.
Is unraid happy if I were to install it to the SSD connected to the ODD SATA connector and then turn on legacy boot and set up the SSd as raid 0 so it can be booted from (annoying issue with the HP it seems!)? Or is creating a grub usb still the better option to point to the SSD and avoid this and avoid legacy mode?
Click to expand...

This is literally what I've already told you worked for my system (albeit I'm running Ubuntu and 10GB of JBOD storage shared through samba rather than Unraid/TrueNAS/etc)!

:cry:
 
Unraid is supposed to be booted from a USB stick, then everything gets dumped to RAM ('cos it's faster :)), and if you've got a HP MicroServer there's a USB port inside the case on the mobo. The SSD cache drive is for performance for things that don't need to be on SATA drives; my dockers and VMS all run from the cache drive for instance. I also store my TV recordings on the cache drive as they're things I will watch and delete within a day or two.
 
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dymetrie said:
This is literally what I've already told you worked for my system (albeit I'm running Ubuntu and 10GB of JBOD storage shared through samba rather than Unraid/TrueNAS/etc)!

:cry:
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I know Dym, but as as I told you (cheeky scamp) the ZFS seems to not like a bios raid for the SSD so freenas (and maybe unraid) wouldn't like the workaround you used
 
Armageus said:
Surely you just run unraid from a usb drive?

As for an SSD cache drive, as I understand it, it's not essential for normal use but is used to boost write speeds.
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I know, and the same for freenas, but doesn't it impose a weakness as there more chance of usb failure with flash memory long term? I've read this in both unraid and freenas forums.

I've read of people using mirrored usbs to avoid losing data when inevitable usb corruption occurs but I wanted to avoid this problem altogether and get a faster os drive, hence putting either/or os on an SSD on SATA.
 
Right so I have got unraid set up and have created the array - one drive as parity, one as data - average speed for this was 114MB/sec. I'm not sure if this speed is slow. It took 7 hours to create the array and parity build.

But.. I haven't done anything with bios regarding the hp software raid. I don't know if it's on or off, or whether it SHOULD be on or off.

On that same train of thought, the bios version is from 2014 so I do wonder if I should flash the bios regardless.

Anyone else running unraid on the gen8 got any bios setting / smart controller tips???
 
Hi All,

Hoping someone can help with some advice about the Proliant Gen 8. I know this is an old device but I have been using for years and it works perfectly for my needs still. However with energy costs so high at the moment I am looking at every way possible to save money and the Proliant looks like an obvious target as it currently runs 24/7 which I don't really need.

I had the g1610t model originally but upgraded the processor to a Xeon E3-1265L with 8GB Ram running W10. It has an 1TB SSD with DVD drive and then 4 HDD in total (3 x 6TB and 1 x 18TB).

I mainly use it for plex so it only needs to be on from about 9am until 12pm. I want to find a way of automatically powering it up at 9am somehow (shutdown is easy enough). Is someone able to help with my options please?

From what I can see the BIOS has the option to automatically start when power is restored so could I use a smart plug with a timer built in? However will this override the shutdown command i.e. I do a forced shutdown and the device will then automatically turn itself on? Obviously this would not then be viable as the timing would have to be very precise and I could risk damaging the drives.

Then I have seen elsewhere that I might be able to use ILO4 to power it on. I have not really used ILO before so is this a feasible option? If I had to send a command from the another device I could either use a Android phone (if this is even possible) or I can set a micro Dell device to power on, run a script and shut down automatically.

Finally is Wake on Lan an option?

I know this is old but hopefully someone has the answers still. Thanks in advance.
 
@97browng welcome :)

I use this....

www.majorgeeks.com

Download SmartPower - MajorGeeks

SmartPower is a Windows service that saves energy (and money) by hibernating and resuming your Windows PC according to configurable rules. SmartPower is particularly suited to Windows Home Servers.
www.majorgeeks.com

for my N54L. It works a treat for my needs. I have it use a timer for the server in the loft coming on from 4:00pm until midnight, that typically suits our needs.
Take a look at the options when installed, it might work for you.
 
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