Stick with HP N54L or DIY build

flame696 · 14 Mar 2015 at 21:08

Just a quick question, I have a HP microserver N54L which consists of an SSD for OS (win 7) 2 x 2tb in RAID 1 a 2tb as back up and a 3tb as back plus ive got 2 x 3tb external hard drive also used for back up.

Now im running out of space to add more hard drives as im running out of space for my photos. Now i can get bigger drives or was thinking about using my old htpc (amd 5300 fm2, msi matx board, fractal r2) as a server just upgrading the ram. The case gives me the flexiability of adding more drives.

I use it mainly as a plex server for my movies, pics, home videos and music.

So should i stick with the microserver and getting bigger hdds or using the parts i have and just add the extra hdds i havd laying about??

edGfaCTor · 14 Mar 2015 at 21:55

I think going with larger drives is the better option so looking into 4-6tb drives is the way to go.

Uhtred · 16 Mar 2015 at 08:54

You can fit 6 drives in those. I have 6x2tb in my N40L

flame696 · 16 Mar 2015 at 13:56

Really ive got 5 drives in mine, one is an ssd for the OS. How did you get 6??

pepp77 · 16 Mar 2015 at 14:00

You could even get 8 in if you tried. 4 in normal bays and then 4 x 2.5" drives in the ODD bay. Obviously you need the right addin PCI card to give you the extra connections though.

Me I have 5 drives in my N54L and then 2 x 5 bay DASs connected to it via e-sata.

flame696 · 16 Mar 2015 at 20:32

might look at adding another HDD might get a pci card

Conan257 · 17 Mar 2015 at 10:20

I have external drives attached to mine by USB. No issues streaming 1080p movies by plex to the network...

Uhtred · 17 Mar 2015 at 10:22

You can actually fit 6 3.5 drives as I have done here

It's done using a bracket and the esata port so no pci card required. I also did the bios mod to get the full speed out of the ODD sata port.

Ignore the mess

flame696 · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:25

I think that what im going to do thanks for that

coolamasta · 17 Mar 2015 at 16:00

Ah cool, nice one Uhtred, I need to get 6 x 3.5" drives in my Microserver but not looked at how I was going to do it yet but that looks spot on, where did you get the bracket?

I am going from a full ATX case NAS back into a Microserver but have 6 x WD Red's in there and a raid card to get into the N54L!

DIABLO · 17 Mar 2015 at 19:15

The bracket is not easy to come by now.

Uhtred · 17 Mar 2015 at 19:43

Mine was a NEXUS TECHNOLOGY DoubleTwin Hard Drive Mount which is quite difficult to get hold of. I found mine on the american bay.

coolamasta · 17 Mar 2015 at 21:04

Cheers, I've found one online, made by nexus but slightly different design metal side brackets but same thing otherwise

dhallam · 18 Mar 2015 at 13:26

I have been toying with a self build to replace my N54L but I never have due to the low power the n54l uses with 5 drives mine only pulls 60w :-)

Would love to hardware raid mine but the cards that fit the swap bays connection are around £150 - £300 :-)

Software raid is good if you stick to Microsoft versions or Linux

Buffalo2102 · 18 Mar 2015 at 19:41

dhallam said:
I have been toying with a self build to replace my N54L but I never have due to the low power the n54l uses with 5 drives mine only pulls 60w

Would love to hardware raid mine but the cards that fit the swap bays connection are around £150 - £300

Software raid is good if you stick to Microsoft versions or Linux

Replaced my N54l with a self-build based on a AMD5350 APU. Same TDP (25W) as the Turion in the N54L but 2 more cores, integrated GPU etc.. Doubt it draws any more power than the N54L and it cost me less than the N54L, even after cash back.

flame696 · 18 Mar 2015 at 22:35

Ive decided to stick with the n54l as its just a nice compact system and it does exactly what i want and nlw i know i can add up to 6 drives its a no brainer

dhallam · 19 Mar 2015 at 09:20

Buffalo2102 said:
Replaced my N54l with a self-build based on a AMD5350 APU. Same TDP (25W) as the Turion in the N54L but 2 more cores, integrated GPU etc.. Doubt it draws any more power than the N54L and it cost me less than the N54L, even after cash back.

Never thought of the Low power AMD options, may have to look into that option in the future.

fish · 19 Mar 2015 at 13:52

Before i swapped out to a bigger server i had 9 drive in mine 4x2tb 3.5s in the bays, 4x 2.5 first (320gb then 2tb) in the 5.25 bay and a sshd mounted under the 5.25 in behind where the badge is. I only changed as I wanted to increase size of drives to 4tb after a couple died but it was fine like that for 3 + years. Was a N36l BTW, also had a r7 240 in there with a marvel sata card for more ports.

flame696 · 19 Mar 2015 at 16:38

fish said:
Before i swapped out to a bigger server i had 9 drive in mine 4x2tb 3.5s in the bays, 4x 2.5 first (320gb then 2tb) in the 5.25 bay and a sshd mounted under the 5.25 in behind where the badge is. I only changed as I wanted to increase size of drives to 4tb after a couple died but it was fine like that for 3 + years. Was a N36l BTW, also had a r7 240 in there with a marvel sata card for more ports.

You crammed a lot in a small box

fish · 19 Mar 2015 at 17:33