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

TurGe · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:10

TurGe said:
Hmm go the ram and hard drives today, put it all together and now the system will not boot, could it be the ram thats causing the issue?

looks like a faulty stick as it boots fine with one of the OCZ sticks along with the 1gig stick that comes with the server

Saviola · 15 Jun 2011 at 16:25

Anyone who has recently flashed to the latest 'hacked' bios care to offer up a link please? My Google-Fu has been affected by this darn summer cold..

ubern00b · 15 Jun 2011 at 19:52

DJMK4 said:
I am at the moment using speedfan, but this is only to monitor temps. It doesnt show fan RPM and adjust fan speed, does anyone know any apps that will control the fan speed in this server? IE speed it up? or will I have to go for a fan controller of some sort and a new fan?

Have you tried HWmon? I'm not running windows so I cant try it but if it works please let me know!

The Asgard · 15 Jun 2011 at 22:19

ubern00b said:
Yes use the hacked BIOS as you will be using the ODD SATA port for your OS.

You will be able to add drives later but not to the same array without rebuilding. For instance, you wouldn't be able to add 2 drives and make it RAID10 (mirrored stripe). At best you could have another mirrored array but I am unsure how many arrays the onboard controller is capable of creating.

Do you have a link for the hacked BIOS? Mine should arrive tomorrow.

ubern00b · 15 Jun 2011 at 23:27

The Asgard said:
Do you have a link for the hacked BIOS? Mine should arrive tomorrow.

Hacked BIOS

PlanetGong · 15 Jun 2011 at 23:30

So got my gigabit switch up and running and can copy files at about 70mb/s, but when I tried to play a 720p video file on my laptop it started stuttering. Any idea what could be causing this? Running windows server 2008.

Rudeboy · 16 Jun 2011 at 05:12

PlanetGong said:
So got my gigabit switch up and running and can copy files at about 70mb/s, but when I tried to play a 720p video file on my laptop it started stuttering. Any idea what could be causing this? Running windows server 2008.

I posted something similar 5 pages or so back (maybe more).
I get occasional stuttering with Server 2008.
However, when using WHS2011 I get perfect uninterrupted playback.
Nobody responded, so I decided to stick with WHS2011.

For those of you running Windows and struggling to max out the NIC speed, try disabling IPv6 on all your machines. Until I did this I couldn't get more than 50MB/s, but now (with IPv6 disabled) I can easily sustain 105-120MB/s on large single file transfers.

The Asgard · 16 Jun 2011 at 06:30

ubern00b said:
Hacked BIOS

Cheers mate.

PlanetGong · 16 Jun 2011 at 06:58

Rudeboy said:
I posted something similar 5 pages or so back (maybe more).
I get occasional stuttering with Server 2008.
However, when using WHS2011 I get perfect uninterrupted playback.
Nobody responded, so I decided to stick with WHS2011.

For those of you running Windows and struggling to max out the NIC speed, try disabling IPv6 on all your machines. Until I did this I couldn't get more than 50MB/s, but now (with IPv6 disabled) I can easily sustain 105-120MB/s on large single file transfers.

Cheers mate. I thought I'd seen something and had tried to search but couldn't find anything. I reckon I've read most of this thread now but it's rather large!

I have four hard drives in there, the one that came with the server and three 2tb drive which i am going to raid5. Is it better to run the os on the seperate drive or partition the raid?

I'm enjoying all this tinkering but there's a lot to learn!

mraerosmith1981 · 16 Jun 2011 at 07:55

I would partition the raid, however the microserver doesn't support raid 5, which is a pain

PlanetGong · 16 Jun 2011 at 09:46

mraerosmith1981 said:
I would partition the raid, however the microserver doesn't support raid 5, which is a pain

That makes it kind of tricky then! So I haven't really got much choice but to run the os on a separate drive then raid5 the storage drives (if raid5 is the way to go with those which it seems to be)

DJMK4 · 16 Jun 2011 at 09:51

ubern00b said:
Have you tried HWmon? I'm not running windows so I cant try it but if it works please let me know!

Seems ok, however seems to be a lack of being able to customise and play around with settings, in fact there are no settings

The Asgard · 16 Jun 2011 at 22:14

Anyone using any of the DE for WHS 2011? If so any recommendations?

I'm putting 4X 2TB and a 1.5TB so trying to decide on mirror / backups / both. DE might be a good compromise.

conuk · 16 Jun 2011 at 22:15

ok ive got windows 7 on mine - Im wanting to wake on lan via Android phone....

so I googled. - WOL is enabled in BIOS - I got the mac address and downloaded WOL from Nyxbull software ... clicked and it turned on my HP - cool.

So I then tried an android app and it wouldnt work.... The program on my Win7 Desktop now wont turn on the HP again...

anybody got some idiot tips ?
Am using a Belkin Wirless G Mimo Router..... Ive read about forwarding port 9 ? but I didnt do this the first time... not sure why its not working now ?

Generious · 17 Jun 2011 at 15:24

The Asgard said:
Anyone using any of the DE for WHS 2011? If so any recommendations?

I'm putting 4X 2TB and a 1.5TB so trying to decide on mirror / backups / both. DE might be a good compromise.

Using drive bender on mine - 5x 2TB F4's in the pool and 320GB disk for the OS via the hacked BIOS and one drive connected to the internal sata port and the other connected to the esata port using a sata to esata cable.

Performance is pretty solid no issues so far running a couple of weeks.

Attached a 2TB Iscsi volume to the server this is used for the internal server and certain folder backups.

couple of other little bits that I have done, setup a batch file and a scheduled task to shutdown the box at 2am and the router ( flashed with DDWRT sheduled Cron task) wakes up the microserver at 08:00am.

The Asgard · 17 Jun 2011 at 15:50

Just go the Server and I have installed WHS 2011. Where do you download the drivers?

Tried 2008 R2 drivers and they don't seem to work.

Just downloading Smartstart 8.70 X64 hoping this might help.

The Asgard · 17 Jun 2011 at 16:04

Just found this place

http://www.cvscorp.com/whs.html

Guru · 17 Jun 2011 at 16:42

ubern00b said:
(gbit) Network transfer is only as fast as your hard drives, so enabling write cache will improve disk performance and thus, improve network transfer.

I always thought it was a bad idea to have write caching enabled on a raided setup? Is this not the case?

Thanks,

G

The Asgard · 17 Jun 2011 at 18:04

Anyone got the graphics drivers for WHS 2011 ?

m1979 · 17 Jun 2011 at 18:19

Hi guys,

I read the whole topic here and I have two questions to you.

I would like to put SBS 2008 and use it for 1-2 users for emails (exchange) and files.

1. Is this HP Server powerful enough to do it when I add some RAM (8GB)
2. Fujitsu MX130... it is much more powerful I guess... any opinions?

THX!