What To upgrade to from N54L?

[Randall8686]

Hi Guys

Well i have just about maxed out my N54L, I have 3 VM's running on it and a teamspeak server whilst being a media server in my house often streaming 2 or 3 connections of HD content and also a game Server. So i have Maxed the ram out now (4gb) and the cpu is never really below 80% but to be fair it does very well.

Im looking to have something about the same size ideally but not mega important i can just hide it in the loft. I would like a big of CPU power ideally something i can upgrade too. Add more Ram/ change CPU.

Must haves are:

1) Quiet! i do not want a 1U rack in my loft lol.
2) Energy Efficient (under 200 watts ideally)
3) Under £500 (scope to spend more later on ram etc)


So what would you recommend ? i like the New HP small Gen 8 stuff but two ram slots is a little annoying. or do i build my own ? I have no issue building my own if it offers better value.

Cheers in advance.

 

[pepp77]

Might not be perfect for you but I am also in the process of upgrading from an N54L on a budget. Wanted to spend about £200 for a cheap but worthwhile upgrade so have gone for

CoolerMaster Elite 120 Advanced case off the MM for £32.50
I3-4150 - Only dual core but with hyper threading and an impressive 5000 pass mark for only £82.
Asus H81I-Plus motherboard for £40. Gives me 4 sata ports, one PCI slot for a 2 port e-sata card for my DAS's and whilst only 2 RAM slots they can take 16GB and I am just re-using the 8GB I have in the N54L - Cost was £25 for a single 4GB stick of RAM to stick in the N54L to keep it live while I build the replacement.
430W EVGA PSU - £33

So total of just over £200 before anything I resell. For your budget you could go i5 and 16GB RAM easily.

 

[Randall8686]

I have been looking at building and i can do a Mini ITX with a i5 4670 within Budget i think but where does Overclockers hide its ECC ram ? Ideally 16gb

 

[Timber]

The Cashback deals have reappeared on the HP Gen8 Microservers. You might already be aware but it will allow you to run 16GB RAM in the 2 slots and you can upgrade the CPU (great threads on Home Server Show forums) too.

As someone coming from a self-built server to this I have found it noisier that I would like and the lack of standby features are the main irritations. It has been a rock-solid box and has been a good upgrade from the NAS/self-built server it replaced. Even though it makes a certain 'hum' I would imagine this wouldn't be audible in the loft.

I'm only running Ubuntu Server with Samba, Plex and Madsonic so it is rarely pushed to any limits.

 

[Steveocee]

N54L's run 16GB happily (both of mine have). Having said that I now run a home brewed home server and shortly a home brewed colo as well as the 2 N54's

If you DIY bear in mind that some VM OS (esxi for example) can have some bad compatibility problems.