hp proliant microserver gen8 - xeon e3 1265l v2

Steveocee · 6 Oct 2025 at 09:10

RDB85 said:
Right okay thanks for the help. They do look okay the Mini PCs something like this:

*** no competitor links ***

I may also look at an Elite Desk 800.

Yep something like that would be a huge overspec for what you've said you want to do as well so lots of long term potential. That price includes 1TB of storage as well which I'd probably advise to use as your "OS" drive, please do factor in another 1 or 2TB NVME drive as your storage medium, the only place these little units cheap out are th eincluded storage drives, fine for an OS, I'd personally want anything remotely important data wise on a branded and known drive. Speed isn't going to be an issue for you so you can grab a Samsung or similar branded 2TB for less than £100 bringing you up to budget.

If it's super mega important data, don't forget a backup. I have a HP microserver sitting purely as my backup box that my main server rsyncs my data to. If I hadn't already invested money into the hardware I'd be looking at something like a hetzner backup box which are about £5 a month.

Steveocee · 6 Oct 2025 at 09:11

Begbie said:
I know everyone is saying the elitedesks are out of date. But im running a elite desk g3 that cost £90 and is doing 4k absolutely fine.

Try as I might, I can't find a cost viable way of upgrading mine. It works, it has the storage configuration I need and it gives me no headaches. I even stuck a 10Gb SFP NIC in for super fastness.

RDB85 · 6 Oct 2025 at 11:07

Steveocee said:
Try as I might, I can't find a cost viable way of upgrading mine. It works, it has the storage configuration I need and it gives me no headaches. I even stuck a 10Gb SFP NIC in for super fastness.

*** no competitor links *** Would there be any harm though in buying a Mini PCs then say the HP Server as a Storage unit? Could that work?

Steveocee · 6 Oct 2025 at 12:05

RDB85 said:
*** no competitor links ***Would there be any harm though in buying a Mini PCs then say the HP Server as a Storage unit? Could that work?

That's only 7th Gen Intel so you wouldn't get the "nice" hardware video encoding to minimise the work the CPU does.

There would be no point whatsoever in buying a microserver to use as a storage box and then pointing a stand alone hp at it. The performance levels wouldn't be worth the additional expense or liabilty of 2 second user units running and as detailed, the HP servers really aren't "that" great at storage as they are only 2xSATA3. If you were swaying that way I'd say just go for the Microserver and slot in a low profile nvidia p620 for hardware transcode.

RDB85 · 6 Oct 2025 at 12:18

Steveocee said:
That's only 7th Gen Intel so you wouldn't get the "nice" hardware video encoding to minimise the work the CPU does.

There would be no point whatsoever in buying a microserver to use as a storage box and then pointing a stand alone hp at it. The performance levels wouldn't be worth the additional expense or liabilty of 2 second user units running and as detailed, the HP servers really aren't "that" great at storage as they are only 2xSATA3. If you were swaying that way I'd say just go for the Microserver and slot in a low profile nvidia p620 for hardware transcode.

I’m just looking at options.

Bottom of budget:

*** no competitor links ***

Storage

*** no competitor links ***

The RAM for 16gb is around £17.

Graphics Card:

*** no competitor links ***

But the Mini PC does look good. I’m just looking at cost perspective.

Armageus · 6 Oct 2025 at 12:27

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Steveocee · 6 Oct 2025 at 12:34

Armageus said:
Just a reminder regarding the competitor rules:

Such a meanie! But apologies.

RDB85 · 9 Oct 2025 at 20:28

Hello,

I’ve bought a HP Proliant Gen 8 as a Media and File Storage Device.

Now I’ve some questions I’m going to install True NAS.

Can I use a Samsung SSD in the HP Proliant Gen 8 as a Boot Drive for the OS, would it need a cradle or any cables?

I’ve a Ironwolf Pro 8TB for now for the media.

I am also going to buy a nvidia p620

I also have a ASUS ZEN WiFi Mesh. Would I be better having this on a VPN as I’m also wanting to connect to Jellyfin remotely

Steveocee · 10 Oct 2025 at 05:17

RDB85 said:
Hello,

I’ve bought a HP Proliant Gen 8 as a Media and File Storage Device.

Now I’ve some questions I’m going to install True NAS.

Can I use a Samsung SSD in the HP Proliant Gen 8 as a Boot Drive for the OS, would it need a cradle or any cables?

I’ve a Ironwolf Pro 8TB for now for the media.

I am also going to buy a nvidia p620

I also have a ASUS ZEN WiFi Mesh. Would I be better having this on a VPN as I’m also wanting to connect to Jellyfin remotely

I use Orico 3.5>2.5 converters for my SSD's in the Gen8. They're a little overkill but they are firm and not falling out any time soon. No cables needed. You could grab a sata cable and run the SSD in the ODD bay at the top if you wanted, I can't remember if it's sata or odd power up there but it's only SATA2 so to leverage an SSD, stick it into bay 1 or 2.
Make sure your P620 is low profile.
Last comment makes no english, you have mesh but is a vpn better? One is an access method and the other is a tunneling protocol. It is answerable though, connect your new NAS via cable where possible and connect it to the main router. Cabling to a mesh node with a poor signal will only result in poor speeds. If you want "easy" remote access look at Tailscale as a VPN solution.

RDB85 · 10 Oct 2025 at 18:04

This is the ASUS WiFi Mesh System I’ve got:

*** Competitor link removed ***

RDB85 · 10 Oct 2025 at 20:37

Why can’t you link anything. Weird site.

RDB85 · 11 Oct 2025 at 20:55

HP turned up today. I just need the HDD to arrive and get it set up.

Snapshot · 12 Oct 2025 at 07:40

RDB85 said:
Why can’t you link anything. Weird site.

Try reading the rules as posted by Armageus in post 25. The forum is owned by the shop and competitor links aren't allowed. I had a post with an eBay link wiped earlier this week - my fault for not checking.

panthro · 14 Oct 2025 at 11:42

I'm running a Gen 10 I bought off the MM here that has been working faultlessly for Jellyfin, which is all I am really using it for.

Semple · 14 Oct 2025 at 18:44

RDB85 said:
I’ve bought a HP Proliant Gen 8 as a Media and File Storage Device.

So dozens of people have advised you to steer clear of the microservers due to it being very old tech, and you've gone and bought one.

Surely you must question why you even created this thread in the first place...

Regardless, I hope you didn't spend too much of your budget on it as you'll probably need to replace it again in the next few years.

RDB85 · 14 Oct 2025 at 22:22

Semple said:
So dozens of people have advised you to steer clear of the microservers due to it being very old tech, and you've gone and bought one.

Surely you must question why you even created this thread in the first place...

Regardless, I hope you didn't spend too much of your budget on it as you'll probably need to replace it again in the next few years.

Makes me wonder why you bothered to offer your opinion. Budget was around £500. A Microserver fitted into my budget. Or buy a Chinese branded Micro PC. Or buy Enterprise Hardware that’s built to last.

Hellsmk2 · Thursday at 21:58

I think you can probably spend half that and get a decent server.

I bought one about a year ago for around £300 with 16gb & an 8c amd CPU that is absolutely flying with proxmox on it. I've got jellyfin, alpine and two pihole containers on it, alongside a couple of vm's... And there's ample room for more.

You could pair one of those with a large nvme and off you go.

RDB85 · Thursday at 22:23

Hellsmk2 said:
I think you can probably spend half that and get a decent server.

I bought one about a year ago for around £300 with 16gb & an 8c amd CPU that is absolutely flying with proxmox on it. I've got jellyfin, alpine and two pihole containers on it, alongside a couple of vm's... And there's ample room for more.

You could pair one of those with a large nvme and off you go.

I’ve picked up a HP Proliant Gen 8 for around £110.

RDB85 · Sunday at 16:48

Semple said:
So dozens of people have advised you to steer clear of the microservers due to it being very old tech, and you've gone and bought one.

Surely you must question why you even created this thread in the first place...

Regardless, I hope you didn't spend too much of your budget on it as you'll probably need to replace it again in the next few years.

So what would you recommend?

Avalon · 2025-10-20T06:08:19+0100

I did love the Gen 8 Microservers back in the day, and for that sort of money, they are decent little storage servers. Unfortunately, the lack of iGPU hurts the proposition as an AIO media server. Obviously you should never need to transcode video locally, and you can add one of the little ARC’s, but that doubles your cost and opens up a whole load of other more modern options for that kind of spend.

The other option is to do all the encoding on your desktop or throw something like a N100 in-front of the G8 to deal with running the media services and just use the G8 as pure storage. Ironically, a full N100 set-up costs less than an Arc, and uses less power.