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

Quick one:

Are 5400rpm drives good enough for use with one of these? or should i opt for 7200rpm. Will be used for storing and editing RAW photos from my main PC

Cheers

Tom.
 
rG-tom said:
Quick one:

Are 5400rpm drives good enough for use with one of these? or should i opt for 7200rpm. Will be used for storing and editing RAW photos from my main PC

Cheers

Tom.
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5400rpm is fine. 7200rpm may get too hot, since they are stacked right next to each other.

And yeah, 5400 can pretty much max out gigabyte networking. It's inside the computer that you're working from that they speed things up, as internal SATA allows for much faster than over-the-network speeds.
 
I ordered a couple of F4's yesterday and from reading across various forums, I glad I did.

I have never been an hitachi hd fan. Well the only thing i have ever bought of hitachi that lasted is my 6 tonne digger.
 
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Scream said:
I ordered a couple of F4's yesterday and from reading across various forums, I glad I did.

I have never been an hitachi hd fan. Well the only thing i have ever bought of hitachi that lasted is my 6 tonne digger.
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everything ive read so far everyone says the hitachis are better than the f4?
 
Well I've ordered mine and all the bits - found someone selling their HP Microserver RAM so I'll have a cheap bump to 2GB, that XSWING caddy so I can fit two 3.5"s in the optical bay, low profile USB key, cables/adapters - just need a load of hard drives and my UnRAID license!

Got to rummage about and find a VGA cable now for when I have to hook it up to a monitor to flash the BIOS. Probably one in the loft.
 
At the end of the day, the Hitachi's come with a 5-year warranty so thats the main thing.

Can I ask why you are going to for UnRAID? No very little about it so just wondering.

Will investigate it as I like to try new things.
 
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I wanted something with easy expansion/mix'n'match drives and lowish power (usually only 1-2 drives spinning at any one time) with some redundancy. I was originally going to buy a Synology device, but with the cashback offer the HP is simply a much better deal and can store more drives. UnRAID fits nicely on a USB stick which I can place internally, and looks pretty easy to use.

I won't/want need to buy 6 drives all at once, so with UnRAID I can just buy 2x2TB drives, one of which be the parity drive, keep the 250GB drive that comes with the HP, then when I want/need to I can just turn it off, bung another couple of drives in and it rebuilds without any fuss. Idea is eventually 6x2TB drives, in future maybe 3-4TB depending on price, although as this current thing is a bedroom server, once I have a place to myself I may migrate to something larger that could be placed out the way.
 
TigerUK said:
the harddrive shouldn't make much noise unless there's some intense activity going on there.

Have you isolated the fan noises to pin down the exact cause?
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Yes, I have been doing some testing. I have even purchased Akasa AK-FN057 Apache Super Silent, which didn't make a huge difference. I also notice, it runs around 10c warmer.

Doing some testing and I have come to the conclusion that its the HDD causing the humming, as its stored in a cupboard it resonates and sounds a lot louder then it is which is a pain.
 
Not sure exactly what everyone else used, but I stuck in a cheapo version of This and it works very well, but I'm going to be trying to get a 2nd HDD installed up there so will be changing that soon.
 
I ordered the Noiseblocker XSWING bracket. Means I'll have to take the top of the case off if I need to add/remove drives but it fits 2x3.5"s so meh. Not sure if it'll take 2x2TBs, but if it doesn't I'll just mount the top drive and suspend the one below with cord. Should fit then!
 
Somnambulist said:
I ordered the Noiseblocker XSWING bracket. Means I'll have to take the top of the case off if I need to add/remove drives but it fits 2x3.5"s so meh. Not sure if it'll take 2x2TBs, but if it doesn't I'll just mount the top drive and suspend the one below with cord. Should fit then!
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Got mine today, they are a bit tight with the screws so you'll need some extra harddrive fixing screws if you want to fit 2 drives, fits very well in the mounting rails, takes a tiny bit of persuation though to get the top of the case on though as the top drive just catches, but all in all it works well and the drives are very snugg.

2 random drives i used to test fit.

2011-07-08-15.51.42.jpg


With 2x 2TB Samsung F4's

2011-07-08-16.11.25.jpg
 
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DIABLO said:
Got mine today, they are a bit tight with the screws so you'll need some extra harddrive fixing screws if you want to fit 2 drives...
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Did you read the instructions? ;)

The mounting screws are on the inside of the door. :)

EDIT: Nevermind: your picture just showed up (didn't load first time!), and I realized you were talking about putting drives in the top. :p

EDIT2: By the way, looks good. I might consider doing something similar myself...
 
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DIABLO said:
Got mine today, they are a bit tight with the screws so you'll need some extra harddrive fixing screws if you want to fit 2 drives, fits very well in the mounting rails, takes a tiny bit of persuation though to get the top of the case on though as the top drive just catches, but all in all it works well and the drives are very snugg.

2 random drives i used to test fit.

2011-07-08-15.51.42.jpg


With 2x 2TB Samsung F4's

2011-07-08-16.11.25.jpg
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You will cook the drives with the top on. I had 1 F4 Eco in there and it reached 45'c+
 
I doubt they'll suffer much- their rated operating temperature is 0-60c and studies have shown that warmer running drives actually tend to last longer (obviously within certain limits!)
 
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