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

PiKe · 26 May 2011 at 14:47

Where are the screws?

nvm found them

vail3r · 26 May 2011 at 15:51

PiKe said:
Is Windows XP or Windows 7 best to put on?

I have windows 7 installed, it was cheaper than XP

WILD9 · 26 May 2011 at 16:09

PiKe said:
Where are the screws?

nvm found them

Tidy Isn't it. I was quite impressed by little things like that.

PiKe · 26 May 2011 at 16:13

Can you set up raid from within windows? I don't have a usb keyboard.

Ryan111 · 26 May 2011 at 16:44

Can someone recomend me an OS? I need to be able to run 3x1.5TB Disks in Raid5 for data, I have a couple 1/2GB USB disks for OS's.

I need;
FTP
Webserver
File Sharing With Windows (map network drives)
Printer Sharing (Lexmark S305)
iTunes Server
Scheduled Back-ups
SABnzbd
Manage through remote desktop
Get good throughput

I have a lisence key for Server 2008 R2 and I'm currently using it, but people have been getting ~40MB/s on it apposed to ~100MB/s through some form of ubuntu server.

Thanks

DIABLO · 26 May 2011 at 18:15

PiKe said:
Can you set up raid from within windows? I don't have a usb keyboard.

Yes you can

PiKe · 26 May 2011 at 22:57

Care to expand on that?

fish · 26 May 2011 at 23:35

Open computer management. On the left hand side you will see storage and, disk management as a sub menu. From here you can select any hdds you want to add to your raid then build it and select which type you would like.

I hope this is ok to follow.

DIABLO · 26 May 2011 at 23:41

or if you want to use the onboard RAID you can setup up arrays in AMD's RAIDXpert software which installs as part of the motherboard drivers.

PiKe · 26 May 2011 at 23:44

It was the onboard I was meaning. I've installed the catalyst pack from AMD's site but I'll check tomorrow to see if RAIDxpert is installed.

Rudeboy · 27 May 2011 at 01:46

PiKe said:
I've installed the catalyst pack from AMD's site.

Is this necessary for server duties?

I'm now starting to wonder if my poor network performance in Windows could be linked to drivers. I noticed that Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and WHS2011 all install drivers that are ancient for both the NIC and the CPU (NIC driver dated 2009 and CPU driver dated 2006)

Does the catalyst pack contain updated drivers for the chipset or CPU or is it purely focused at the GPU?

I have installed the NC107i 1GB Driver from HP, but this hasn't made a difference either.

Thanks.

PiKe · 27 May 2011 at 09:15

Rudeboy said:
Is this necessary for server duties?

I'm now starting to wonder if my poor network performance in Windows could be linked to drivers. I noticed that Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and WHS2011 all install drivers that are ancient for both the NIC and the CPU (NIC driver dated 2009 and CPU driver dated 2006)

Does the catalyst pack contain updated drivers for the chipset or CPU or is it purely focused at the GPU?

I have installed the NC107i 1GB Driver from HP, but this hasn't made a difference either.

Thanks.

Drivers for everything, north bridge filter, sm bus etc.

tbz_ck · 27 May 2011 at 09:27

Any chance of a link to the correct drivers for Windows 2003? Not sure what motherboard model is in here or the integrated graphics to be honest

EDIT: Ignore that last request. I just remembered I run my WHS server virtualised!!

PiKe · 27 May 2011 at 10:22

Where is the Raidxpert setup for windows 7?

DIABLO · 27 May 2011 at 17:51

I see it in my startmenu under AMD in my windows server 2008 install.

if you don't, put the following into your webbrowser (change localhost to the ip of the server or leave as is if you're doing it on the server itself) "http://localhost:25902/amd" the raid controller uses a webinterface so you could manage it directly from another machine if you wished.

b0rn2sk8 · 28 May 2011 at 16:34

I just got my server up and running, I got all 6 disks connected using the default bios.

I have a slim DVD drive connected to esata > sata
250GB connected to internal SATA
4 disks in the bays

All i needed was a molex Y splitter, slimline adapter, 2x molex to sata and a esata to sata and it all worked fine out of the box.

visibleman · 28 May 2011 at 18:13

Had a quick skim read of the thread and couldn't spot anything similar, but has anyone had experience of a microserver running SBS 2008/SBS 2003 in a small office environment? Does it cope well? Any issues?
I'm currently looking at replacing the offices aging SBS 2003 box (only used for Exchange, DNS, DHCP and light file storage), as usual budget is tight and this would fit the bill budget-wise (as a bonus they have limited space for a server when they move offices in a few months, so it'd tick that box as well) but I’m wondering whether or not the microserver would be fit for the job.

AbsenceJam · 28 May 2011 at 18:55

Brackets for cards need to be half height to fit right?

fish · 28 May 2011 at 19:16

b0rn2sk8 said:
I just got my server up and running, I got all 6 disks connected using the default bios.

I have a slim DVD drive connected to esata > sata
250GB connected to internal SATA
4 disks in the bays

All i needed was a molex Y splitter, slimline adapter, 2x molex to sata and a esata to sata and it all worked fine out of the box.

Any chance you can try a hdd with that esata to sata cable please?

Al Vallario · 28 May 2011 at 20:10

AbsenceJam said:
Brackets for cards need to be half height to fit right?

Yes, there is no way to fit cards with full-height brackets.

fish said:
Any chance you can try a hdd with that esata to sata cable please?

I'll be trying out six hard drives (including one via an eSATA to SATA cable) tomorrow once I've flashed the latest of my Samsung F4EGs and performed the Russian BIOS flash. As I understand it the Russian flash is required to enable AHCI on the internal SATA and external eSATA connectors, otherwise they run in IDE mode (fine for an optical drive, not so much for a hard drive).

I'll let you know how it goes for me