HP ProLiant MicroServer owners' thread

I have one of these and have 4 Samsung 2Tb HDD's on order. Been reading various threads about this and am looking into adding an HP P400 RAID card. How does this come into the equation in terms of connecting to the backplane for the 4 built in drive bays? Does the P400 have the same MINI-SAS connector as is on the HP Microserver board? i.e I unplug it from the Microserver motherboard and plug it into the HP P400 card?

Thanks in advance
Colin
 
I have the p400 also and i'd like to retain the existing backplane cabling. So looking at it, I guess I would need an SFF-8484 female ----> to SFF-8087 female.

If you disconnect the existing minsas from the system board and then join them together, possible? Or can anyone link to a cable online to purchase that can accomplish this?
 
I have one of these and have 4 Samsung 2Tb HDD's on order. Been reading various threads about this and am looking into adding an HP P400 RAID card. How does this come into the equation in terms of connecting to the backplane for the 4 built in drive bays? Does the P400 have the same MINI-SAS connector as is on the HP Microserver board? i.e I unplug it from the Microserver motherboard and plug it into the HP P400 card?

Thanks in advance
Colin

No, the P400 uses two SFF-8484 connectors (the HP N36L uses an SFF-8087).

I think you'd be better off with an LSI 9211-8i (up to 6GB SATA3) or IBM BR10i (up to 3GB SATA2) controller either of which can use the existing SFF-8087 internal cabling plus an additional 40-50cm SFF-8087 to 4 SATA/SAS forward breakout cable (cheap as chips) for the second port.

In addition, as you are space limited even with a low profile card below the PSU, attaching a thick or inflexible cable half way along the card could result in the cable being stressed below the PSU. Both the 9211-8i (which I have in my N36L) and BR10i have their connectors at the end of the card which should mean cable routing is less troublesome, although the horizontal connectors on the 9211-8i are probably a better option in the N36L than the vertically mounted connectors on the BR10i as the latter could still be covered by internal case work.

For the record, I originally had a 9240-8i that had vertical connectors positioned nearest the PCI slot cover and below the PSU, and connecting the two SFF-8087 cables (the "internal" stiff cable and a second more flexible breakout cable) was a bit of a struggle. Due to OS support/driver reasons I swapped it for a 9211-8i and it's been happy days ever since.
 
The HP P410 Smart Array Raid controller is a perfect fit and has the right connectors and in the right location regards angles and lengths.
 
No, the P400 uses two SFF-8484 connectors (the HP N36L uses an SFF-8087).

I think you'd be better off with an LSI 9211-8i (up to 6GB SATA3) or IBM BR10i (up to 3GB SATA2) controller either of which can use the existing SFF-8087 internal cabling plus an additional 40-50cm SFF-8087 to 4 SATA/SAS forward breakout cable (cheap as chips) for the second port.

In addition, as you are space limited even with a low profile card below the PSU, attaching a thick or inflexible cable half way along the card could result in the cable being stressed below the PSU. Both the 9211-8i (which I have in my N36L) and BR10i have their connectors at the end of the card which should mean cable routing is less troublesome, although the horizontal connectors on the 9211-8i are probably a better option in the N36L than the vertically mounted connectors on the BR10i as the latter could still be covered by internal case work.

For the record, I originally had a 9240-8i that had vertical connectors positioned nearest the PCI slot cover and below the PSU, and connecting the two SFF-8087 cables (the "internal" stiff cable and a second more flexible breakout cable) was a bit of a struggle. Due to OS support/driver reasons I swapped it for a 9211-8i and it's been happy days ever since.

Thanks for your input, I'd not heard of either of the cards you mention. My system is just for home use running ESXi 4.1 with a few VMs on it and has light use generally speaking. Having a look on eBay, it seems the BR10i can be had for around £80ish and the 9211-8i a fair bit more. The P400 I could have got for around the same price but sounds like it's a bit of a pain regarding cabling, etc.

The HP P410 Smart Array Raid controller is a perfect fit and has the right connectors and in the right location regards angles and lengths.

Having had a look at the prices of this card, it is considerably more than the P400. In all honesty, more than I really need for home use. Looks a nice card though!

I'm sitting here thinking do I actually need a RAID card at all, most of the disk space will be used for storage of movies, music, tv, etc, with my VM's probably being stored on a 5th 2.5" drive.

Regards
Colin
 
Why not try unRaid or FlexRaid then?

Do either of these have a torrent application that is possible to be used along with the OS? I am wanting to use one of these OS's, but I need a torrent app to work 24/7 along with the OS? Can a torrent app be installed on either of these OS's? :confused:

Thanks
 
I'm sitting here thinking do I actually need a RAID card at all, most of the disk space will be used for storage of movies, music, tv, etc, with my VM's probably being stored on a 5th 2.5" drive.

Regards
Colin

Why do you want hardware RAID when something like ZFS is at least as good (particularly on the N36L)? I thought you might be looking at the P400 to drive more disks but if all you want is RAID across 4 disks then my advice would be to stick with the built-in N36L controller and run software RAID.

If you want to control more than 4 disks (ie. 8) then go with something like the BR10i or 9211-8i as these can be flashed with "IT" firmware which turns them into "dumb" disk controllers which is perfect for running software RAID - having the controller run in RAID mode when you're running software RAID just leads to more problems and adds additional layers of complexity (and also hurts performance).

If you want to control just 5 disks, you can do that with the modified N36L BIOS that is floating around and use the existing motherboard connections.
 
Why do you want hardware RAID when something like ZFS is at least as good (particularly on the N36L)? I thought you might be looking at the P400 to drive more disks but if all you want is RAID across 4 disks then my advice would be to stick with the built-in N36L controller and run software RAID.

If you want to control more than 4 disks (ie. 8) then go with something like the BR10i or 9211-8i as these can be flashed with "IT" firmware which turns them into "dumb" disk controllers which is perfect for running software RAID - having the controller run in RAID mode when you're running software RAID just leads to more problems and adds additional layers of complexity (and also hurts performance).

If you want to control just 5 disks, you can do that with the modified N36L BIOS that is floating around and use the existing motherboard connections.

Hi MilhouseVH

I wont be running more than 4/5 disks in this machine. The 4 2Tb are now installed, just not sure the best way to set them up. I've read that ZFS needs alot of RAM to run properly, and this is a problem as this machine needs its RAM to run the VM's I'll be putting on it.

You've helped me decide that I don't need a HW RAID card, so that's one problem sorted!

My options for setting up the disks are as follows:

1. SW RAID (ran RAID10 in the past with good results/speed) or ZFS for the 2Tb disks and run the VMs from a 2.5" disk (Guessing speed/performance would be comprised here)

2. Just run the 4 2Tb disks and have a seperate partition for the VMs.

I read so much and see different ways of doing the same thing that I confuse myself and don't know which way to go!!

Thanks
Colin
 
I've read that ZFS needs alot of RAM to run properly, and this is a problem as this machine needs its RAM to run the VM's I'll be putting on it.

This is true, although the N36L can be maxed out with 8GB RAM which should allow you to divvy the memory up to obtain the best balance between ZFS and your VMs. Two 4GB sticks of non-ECC memory won't break the bank either. :)
 
This is true, although the N36L can be maxed out with 8GB RAM which should allow you to divvy the memory up to obtain the best balance between ZFS and your VMs. Two 4GB sticks of non-ECC memory won't break the bank either. :)

I've got 8Gb in the MicroServer, having a dabble with ZFS now... will see how I go. Porbably end up using the MicroServer as a pure NAS/SAN and build a new dedicated ESXi server knowing me!
 
This little HP box may not have enough power to be a SAN and host a few VMs on it. I think you are better off making 2 dedicated boxes. The Micro Server on its own has enough power to max out a 1gigbit Ethernet connection.
 
Hello, I'm new to this forum ... y'all seem very knowledgeable, so I was hoping to get some info.

I'm looking to set up a NAS or home server. Main function is archive/backup, including large video files (I'm an editor), and then as media server & torrent client. Time Machine would be nice as well.

I'm split between a Synology NAS (DS411j) and a server built on this ProLiant. I had a home server in the past (built from old parts) and even with gigabit ethernet, it was too slow (i.e., 20MB/s max). But this was using Windows Server with that drive duplication thing they have, using Samba, and with really old IDE drives. I need more speed!

Any advice would be appreciated, plus some questions:

1. I could get a Dell PowerEdge 700 with more CPU (3.2GHz), more RAM (2GB), more drive bays (6), and better RAIDing (hardware RAID5) than this ProLiant -- for less money ($200). Wouldn't that give me the same features but better performance? The only downside I can see is that it's bigger and uses more power. Probably noisier too.

2. I was planning to use RAID5 since data safety is important, but have heard of ZFS and EON and etc ... I don't know much about ZFS RAID. If I start with 4x1TB drives, and then in say a year I decide to upgrade to 4x2TB, can I swap out one drive at a time, then let the parity rebuild, even if it's mixed-size drives? Obviously I don't want to have to backup all 4TB to another RAID in order to expand. Does regular RAID5 allow that?

3. A number of sources recommend RAID10 -- but that cuts the storage in half, correct? As opposed to RAID5 where you only lose 1 drive to parity?

Thank you for any advice!
 
your probably better getting something like the HP Mediasmart EX490 or bigger brother.

HP's version of windows home server V1 has all that you are requesting...
Plonk in 4 x 2tb drives....say Hitachi's and that would give you nearly 8gig space to do the above.

Failing that one of these Micoservers and use Solarisexpress etc. and have 6 drives in it
6 x 2tb and say a 250gig boot/os drive.
 
Couple of thread on setting up this machine as an Ubuntu server with RAID on 8TB of disks. Sounds like he's getting really good performance with his set up. I'll try it out when my disks get delivered.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-...cent-electronics/888083/?page=21#post11445789

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-...cent-electronics/888083/?page=21#post11445877

I'm getting 95+MB/s transfer rates when moving files from Windows to the md0 array across a gigabit wired lan. Whilst this is happening the Proliant CPU is still 20% idle. So seems to be network/disk limited rather than CPU bound. Very happy with this performance as I don't think it could be any quicker. Memory usage is not even exceeding 150MB. So I'm not going to install more than the 1GB for now.
 
I've had mine with WHS 2011 for about a month now.

Great so far, nothing to complain about and don't miss DE at all with the 4x 2TB Samsung F4s.
 
I have had my NL-36 with a ZFS setup for now now about 50 days. Not a single issue and I am hitting about 95-110MB/s depending on the file. The only thing I have added was a Intel 1GB CT desktop nic to the server. Will add a E-SATA card later to do direct backup's and snapshots.
 
Are you running Raid or a 3rd party DE?

I am not running any form of RAID.

I will probably look at StableBit's Drive Pool when it is more mature.

For my uses, I don't really need RAID. My critical files are backed up weekly over the LAN. Have less than 500GB of really 'critical' files I don't want to lose.

Actually, I was thinking of ditching this plan altogether and just getting a subscription to Amazon/Jungle Disk.

The mkv files I have on the HP box, are ripped from my Blu-Ray collection, not really a concern if they vanish.

I think the only thing I could have wished for was USB 3, but I may just get an add-in card for that.


WHS 2011
4Gb RAM
Intel NIC
1x 320GB F4 OS Drive suspended on the OD bay (Flash BIOS to enable AHCI)
4x 2TB Samsung F4s
 
I have had my NL-36 with a ZFS setup for now now about 50 days. Not a single issue and I am hitting about 95-110MB/s depending on the file. The only thing I have added was a Intel 1GB CT desktop nic to the server. Will add a E-SATA card later to do direct backup's and snapshots.

I'm new to the NAS thing ... those are good speeds .. can you elaborate?
1. Do you mean that if the NAS has an eSATA port you can connect directly to the storage from a client machine? How does that work?
2. How much RAM do you have? I read that ZFS wants at least 6GB!
3. Are you using FreeNAS?
4. Why the extra NIC? Is the built-in one inadequate?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
I'm new to the NAS thing ... those are good speeds .. can you elaborate?
1. Do you mean that if the NAS has an eSATA port you can connect directly to the storage from a client machine? How does that work?
2. How much RAM do you have? I read that ZFS wants at least 6GB!
3. Are you using FreeNAS?
4. Why the extra NIC? Is the built-in one inadequate?

Thanks!

1. Yes it has one ESATA port. I plan to use this for backups, and snapshots. A single 2-3TB HD in a simple enclosure. Its seen as a storage pool separate from my main ZFS raid Z pool.
2.I have 4GB ram. I am not after top performance as this is a media streamer and storage device.
3. No I am using Nexenta CE 3.0.5
4. Intel nics generally recommend for NAS devices. Plus their is a bug in Nexenta that will not allow me to change the MTU with the on-board nic. One of these days, I am going to use the on-board for the web interface only and my intel card strictly for storage traffic.
 
Hi, I have been thinking of getting a NAS/Homeserver since my current setup is a bit shaky (Dlink DNS-323).

What I am looking for is basic NAS-functionality acting as a fileserver for windows 7 clients and an XBMC-client. Possiblity to stream to an Xbox 360 with transcoding would be a plus. A standard NAS like a Readynas or so would problably do it, but I would however prefer to put my money into something which is more flexible as my needs might change. Who knows maybe I want to setup a proxy with webfiltering for the kids or having some sort of VPN running in the future.

So to the questions:
1) There are two versions as I understand it, e.g. 200W/250GB HDD or the 150W/160GB HDD. Is the difference important ? (They come with a difference in price of about 55-60 Euro.
2) I am considering using the HDD (160 GB or 250GB) as boot disk and put it in the 5,25 bay. I would then use this as OS/boot disk.
2a) Does most 3,5 inch HDD come with rails or something which would make it fit in the bay ?
2b) Would it work to use the RAID-cable (SATA) that is meant for ODD (SATA -disk 5) ? E.g. can I boot from that drive ?
2c) Is there a real difference in speed ? I Understand that there is an issue with the SATA-PATA bridge making the speed (especially write somewhat less).
3) I will be adding 4 GB of RAM and is thinking about using either whs 2011 or Amahi (Feodora 14) as the OS. Are both known to work with the hardware ?

/selepo
 
As an XBMC client the stock HP N36L might be a little underpowered, mainly due to a fairly weak GPU, although you could add a better (preferably nVidia) PCIe based graphics adapter, but beware of heat and power consumption.

1) Depends on what you intend to do with it. 150W should be sufficient for a stock unit with 5 disks. If you were going to install additional hardware (eg. a SAS/SATA 8-port controller and 4x2.5" backplane in 5.25" slot, or graphics adapter) then I would suggest getting the 200W version (note - I think it's 200W/160GB and 150W/250GB).

2a) No, you'll need to buy a separate 3.5" -> 5.25" converter

2b) I think so. You might want to consider the "hacked" BIOS image that allows the optical SATA port to run in AHCI mode (by default it's fixed as an IDE port which would result in reduced performance).

2c) Others can probably comment on the benefits of using the hacked firmware

3) Certainly WHS 2011 is known to work. No idea about Amahi, but I've no reason to believe it wouldn't work.
 
Thanks for the quick reply MilhouseVH. I realize I was unclear, I have no intention of using it as an XBMC client, but as a XBMC server. (MySQL for the data, and fileserver for the files). I use an ATV2 as a client.

I am somewhat hesitant using an hacked bios that I do not know the source of, but if it works with using IDE I will give it a try to start with. If I understand you correctly it would work as boot disk anyway even if will get somewhat reduced diskspeed.
 
Yes that's correct. I used the 160gb drive that comes with it as my boot drive. Everything seems normal.
 
Thanks for your answer, one last question before I order myself one of these beauties :)

I am going to throw in 4 GB of extra memory and the specs says I should use UDIMM but I can only find what I guess is RDIMM (RAM-properties: Registered, Temparature monitoring, Double Rank, Low voltage, Registered). The size is 240 pin but I guess they all are ?
Does this matter, I would preferably like to use the 1 GB that comes with the box too...
 
The 1GB that comes with the box is an ECC module, so if you want to continue using that you'll need a second ECC module as you can't mix ECC and non-ECC modules.

UDIMM means unbuffered.

From the specs, the N36L supports the following memory:
Code:
1GB (1x1GB) Standard/8GB Maximum, using PC3-10600E DDR3 Unbuffered (UDIMM) ECC memory, operating at max. 800MHz

So you want a 240 pin PC3-10600 Unbuffered DDR3 module, with or without ECC (if the latter, buy two and find another project for the 1GB module!)
 
Maybe you're right, though it was my understanding (from people that mixed modules on the N36L) that errors were experienced. Personally, I wouldn't mix them but maybe that's just me. :)

I am right, because I have one in my N36L and it works. :D I ran Memtest86+ overnight to make sure, but I had been advised that mixing modules worked before I bought the RAM.
Some motherboards don't support mixing, but this one does.
The RAM has been running for 2 months with no errors. Some of the apps I run on it every day (like par2cmdline) WILL fail on memory errors.
 
I have a N36 up and running ESXi.

Specs:
Intel 1000GT Desktop adapter (for jumbo frame support).
8GB RAM
HP P410i (BBWC)
5 x Samsung 1TB 7200rpm (RAID 5)

I'm not sure about the performance though:

Virtual Win7 machine, HDTune, read:
read_raid5_5x1tb_esxi-11-07-03.png


Write:
write_raid5_5x1tb_esxi-11-07-03.png


Random read:
ra_read_raid5_5x1tb_esxi-11-07-03.png



Random write:
ra_write_raid5_5x1tb_esxi-11-07-03.png


Does the numbers seem fair?
 
I got a microserver with a HP P410 raid controller.
How do i configure the raid array before installing OS?

I do not get any post screens where i am able to pres any keys.
i have 2 disks that i want to run as raid 1 before installing the OS

and i tried to use the smart start disks from hp but they stop at loading drivers.


please help
 
I got a microserver with a HP P410 raid controller.
How do i configure the raid array before installing OS?

I do not get any post screens where i am able to pres any keys.
i have 2 disks that i want to run as raid 1 before installing the OS

and i tried to use the smart start disks from hp but they stop at loading drivers.


please help

Download the HP ACU Offline CD and boot from it. Then you should be able to configure everything before you install the OS.
 
tried that it will not find the p410???

but in the post i see the p410 starting up and initilize *********

it is at standard p410 with 512MB BBWC.

does somebody know what is wrong??
 
You boot the CD "bare metal" not from inside ESXi etc?
Which version of the ACU CD do you use?

I would also recommend that you upgrade the firmware on the controller to the latest if you haven't done that. I had some initial problems before I did that.
 
tried that it will not find the p410???

but in the post i see the p410 starting up and initilize *********

it is at standard p410 with 512MB BBWC.

does somebody know what is wrong??

did you disconnect the minisas from the motherboard and attach to the controller?
 
was that wrong i thought that i could move the sas cable from the motherboard to the raid controller
 
Hi, I realize that is a complete n00b-question, but this is the first time I will even open up a computer, so please be gentle :)

I will try to fit the HDD that ships (160 GB) into the ODD-bay and use it for OS. Will I get cables in the delivery, and if not what do I need ? The user guide says:

8. ODD cable routing.
○ 8a. ODD cable connects ODD to the system board ODD connector (J24).
○ 8b. SATA connector connects SATA ODD cable to the power cable P6.

What kind of cables is this, I guess one is for datatransfer and one for power.

/Selepo
 
Hi, I realize that is a complete n00b-question, but this is the first time I will even open up a computer, so please be gentle :)

I will try to fit the HDD that ships (160 GB) into the ODD-bay and use it for OS. Will I get cables in the delivery, and if not what do I need ? The user guide says:

8. ODD cable routing.
○ 8a. ODD cable connects ODD to the system board ODD connector (J24).
○ 8b. SATA connector connects SATA ODD cable to the power cable P6.

What kind of cables is this, I guess one is for datatransfer and one for power.

/Selepo

You will need a standard SATA cable... either with both ends straight.. or one end @ 90degrees

also a Molex to SATA power cable

Then either a 5.25inch (cdbay size) to 3.5inch (hdd size) adapter
 
Back
Top