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

Does anyone use any monitoring software and is there anything that tells you the health of drives and could possibly warn you if they are going to fail?

I keep finding the server powered off every now and again, no idea why. I can't see it overheating tbh :/
 
vail3r said:
Does anyone use any monitoring software and is there anything that tells you the health of drives and could possibly warn you if they are going to fail?

I keep finding the server powered off every now and again, no idea why. I can't see it overheating tbh :/
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I monitor the box with Spiceworks. You can install it on any windows PC or server and have it scan and monitor your entire network providing alerts etc for a variety of conditions. Free too.
 
tbz_ck said:
Yea I knew about the block size. I have 1 TB drives so used 4MB as the block size. I know of one disk tweak if you are using Windows Home Server virtualised and have other VM's that are disk intensive. It stops drive extender crippling performance of other Virtual disks.

I didn't use the HP version. Standard ESXi 4.1 install straight onto USB stick.
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On the HP version I had a purple(looks pink to me!) screen of death within about 30 seconds of booting. To fix it do this:
Found in the comments here - www.techhead.co.uk/running-vmware-vsphere-on-an-hp-microserver

I came up with these instructions to avoid a PSOD (Purple Screen of Death) using the HP image (which is customised for USB/SD booting):
1 Immediately ESXi has loaded, hit F2, login, and then enable console access (under Troubleshooting). Quickly hit Alt-F1 to get to the console, login and type *services.sh stop* (this will prevent the PSOD, so this needs to be done immediately the server comes up)
2 Then execute these commands
1 cp /bootbank/oem.tgz /tmp
2 cd /tmp
3 gzip -d oem.tgz
4 mkdir oem
5 cd oem
6 tar xvf ../oem.tar
7 cd /tmp/oem/var/lib/sfcb/registration
3 Now you need to us vi to edit oem-hp-smx-provider-providerRegister to comment out two entries so that they look like this:

#[SMX_AutoStartGenesisInterop]
# provider: SMXExecutive
# location: SMXExecutiveProvider
# type: instance
# group: smx-interop
# namespace: interop

#[SMX_ExecutiveStatus]
# provider: SMXExecutive
# location: SMXExecutiveProvider
# type: instance
# group: smx-interop
# namespace: root/hpq

4 Then you need to execute the following commands to package things back up
1 cd /tmp/oem
2 rm ../oem.tar
3 tar cvf ../oem.tar *
4 cd ..
5 gzip -9 oem.tar
6 mv oem.tar.gz oem.tgz
7 cp oem.tgz /bootbank
8 reboot

Everything is working well now.

Josh
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Brought up a Server 2008 VM this morning, SMB transfer speeds aren't a great deal better.
 
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Just got my icybox 2.5 and 2.5 inch dock for the drive bay, should let me add a 2.5inch cache drive and another 2tb data storage to my unraid setup! Couldnt be happier with how it is all working with my xbmc setup. Hundreds of films and tv shows at my finger tips and now I will be able to run sabnzbd for newsgroups on the cache drive!
 
blairw said:
Just got my icybox 2.5 and 2.5 inch dock for the drive bay, should let me add a 2.5inch cache drive and another 2tb data storage to my unraid setup! Couldnt be happier with how it is all working with my xbmc setup. Hundreds of films and tv shows at my finger tips and now I will be able to run sabnzbd for newsgroups on the cache drive!
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How's the performance under unraid?
I know unraid isn't the fastest with writes but its pretty decent under the reads alright.
 
I wonder if anybody could advise please.

I have had my Microserver going for a few months now, with WHS, XBMC, two 2Tb drives, and a NVIDIA Geforce 210 inside.

I have just started to play more 720p and 1080p files and the setup is really struggling, in fact it is failing, as sometimes it drops more frames than it plays.

I have tried using an external player with XBMC, ie MPC-HC, which improves things but still is not perfect, and it does take away some of the beauty of XBMC.

Is there anything I can do to get this working without the frame drops? If I install more than the standard 1Gb of RAM will that sort it out?

Thanks for any help at all people ;O)
 
What is the performance of this like with 3 x 1.5TB disks in Software raid 5? Will be running Server 2008 R2 and have 4GB Ram.
 
Ryan111 said:
What is the performance of this like with 3 x 1.5TB disks in Software raid 5? Will be running Server 2008 R2 and have 4GB Ram.
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Software RAID requires the CPU to do the parity calculations rather than a dedicated hardware controller. As this system only has a dual core 1.3GHz CPU which you are also intending to share with the Operating System, I wouldn't expect miracles.

It'll work, but I doubt it will be groundbreaking performance by any means.

Get yourself a hardware RAID card if you want decent performance.
 
Can someone recommend a fairly decent raid card? Can it be connected to the 4 drive bays easy? Mini SAS connector? Not wanting to spend much more than £50 on it though...
 
Ryan111 said:
Would that be compatible with the microserver? Would it connect to the 4 disk bays okay?
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It's a perfect fit, I have one in mine. Connectors are also so close, that the original cables can be used.
Even better if it has the cache module and battery for increased performance.
 
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