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

I did look at ProxMox on mine, but wanting to keep things simple as part of the DR side of things, I stuck with Windows 10 (now 11) and added the Hyper-V role for VM's and Drivepool and Scanner from Stablebit to manage the drives, having all of your data on NTFS drives makes things easier IMHO, for what I need at least.
16Gb of RAM makes a difference though...

I spent stupid money on my Gen8 over the years, a proper 65w HP heatsink, E3-1260L, 16Gb RAM, HP Controller card, Schoondoggy drive plates etc truth be told, if it could have taken 32gb of RAM I'd still have it, as for the size/performance of the box you cant go wrong, just a shame that HP forgot the home enthusiast crowd...
 
My current N40L is playing up again, I'm thinking of doing a custom build for a server that is used for NAS, plex, and a playground.

Any recommendations, thinking low power draw is important. i3 based system?
 
n100 is interesting, I'd like to be able to load up multiple HD's though. Most ready made enclosures are tiny and the mobos don't seem to support more than 1 or 2 sata ports.
 
Any perls of wisdom to offer on this one...

I powered down my N40L before going on holiday for a couple of weeks. When I've turned it back on all lights and other leds seems to indicate all is ok, however I can't RDP into the box. I've had this happen before I connect an old monitor via VGA and resolve whatever issue has cropped up. However this time there is no VGA signal being output.

Thoughts on this...

I've tried a couple of VGA cables but still need to try a different monitor.
It's had it time :-/
Buy a cheap gpu to see if I can get video out ?


EDIT: The HP light is blue, I'm googling this is a failure to POST. Can anyone confirm this?
 
Last edited:
Ok, I have video...

Tried connecting a different monitor - no joy.
I disconnected all mechanical HD's and a TV card in the PCI Express lane - no joy.
Removed top tray and disconnected SSD HD, pressed MOBO cables firmly down, one did look loose. - no joy.
Reconnected SSD - joy!!!

I've not gone further with putting things back in. I'm wondering if the SSD hosting the OS is on the way out, running SSDLife Free is telling me;

Work time: 11 years 6 months
Powered on: 728 times
Health: 92%
Estimated lifetime: 0 years 9 months

The estimated lifetime seems strange if the health of the drive is 92%.
It's an M4-CT128M4SSD2 (Fw: 0309)
 
Gave everything a good clean and put it back together - no joy.
Unplugged everything, still no joy. I also noticed that the HP light is now no longer turning on. The though I can hear the fans spinning up.
 
So new RAM for the gen8 has turned up, need to find a time when I can get it installed!

And I also grabbed a new SSD to clone the system drive as 35GB of the 60GB drive is Plex metadata/junk which is growing. Saw a 240GB Crucial BX for £20 so thought it'd be a good plan

So now I need to actually clone it. Looking around, dd looks like. Nice simple option using a love 'CD' but the question is, do I:

1. Clone the drive in situ with the new drive plugged in on USB
2. Do it with the new drive in place and the old one on USB
3. Use a completely different computer

?
 
dymetrie said:
So new RAM for the gen8 has turned up, need to find a time when I can get it installed!

And I also grabbed a new SSD to clone the system drive as 35GB of the 60GB drive is Plex metadata/junk which is growing. Saw a 240GB Crucial BX for £20 so thought it'd be a good plan

So now I need to actually clone it. Looking around, dd looks like. Nice simple option using a love 'CD' but the question is, do I:

1. Clone the drive in situ with the new drive plugged in on USB
2. Do it with the new drive in place and the old one on USB
3. Use a completely different computer

?
Click to expand...
Both SATA, unplug all other drives IMO
 
RAM is in, it recognised that there had been a change and did a quick memtest of both sticks before booting.

As it came second hand, gonna let it idle for a day to make sure they're solid before I clone the tiny SSD to the big SSD :)

4RruyRv.png
 
New drive is in, things are definitely much snappier, but it's a proper mess in there (this is me realising that I've not had a fresh install since 2017 and it's upgrades on an original 16.04 LTS install) so when I have some more time I'll do a fresh install, copy across my Plex info and redo my system setup.

Should all be fun :D
 
Thinking of building something like this with a Pi5 (
). I assume it would work from with mechanical SATA drives? And power usage and raw power should be better.
 
niggyg said:
Thinking of building something like this with a Pi5 (
). I assume it would work from with mechanical SATA drives? And power usage and raw power should be better.
Click to expand...
The question is why?
The pi is for hobbiests who needs GPIO pins. For anything else buy a mini pc or similar and use that as a base.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom