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I bought my microserver last week and joined the forum to say thanks to all of you guys for all the advice above.
I was planning on going for the ESXi route with Windows2k8 server,2x debian clients and a windows 7 client. But after reading some reviews i've decided that may be a bit too slow on file transfers. i've now decided to use windows 2k8 r2 as the main os and then use hyperV for 2x debian clients (vpn and torrent client).
What RAID card are most people using? from what i can see most people seem to going for the HP SMART Array p410? (which is about £130?). I'm looking for something simple just to fileserve 4x 2tb drives. (I have the readynas for backups)
Thanks for that patriot..ill look into that..what OS are most people using on their microserver?
I'm torn between windows 2k8 as the host (also acting as the domain controller) with VMWare server installed or Linux/freebsd as the host with VMWare win 2k8 as domain controller
Well, its cheaper than buying an additional server with an additional HP raid card, more ram, another OS license (if using MS) , etc...
Plus who really wants 2 servers if you can accomplish the same with 1. I know I would prefer to have one server to manage all storage....
What benefits are there to having two servers rather than an esata enclosure?
Question why people are buying ESATA enclosure instead of a 2nd HP PL uServer?
Same 5 drives, but now there's potential machine pooling.
I am curious to what others here are using....
If you don't buy a SA or other controller ... the onboard only has windows drivers...
OK, the bare enclosure is $130+ and the bare HP P212 card is $210, and you buy a $10 cable for a total of $350.
A 1 GB RAM / 250 GB HDD HP PL uServer chassis is $320.
I'm not seeing any advantage in a RAID 1 scenario.
Where the two servers shine is if you want more redundancy or some sort of high availability cluster - but I want a large fast storage pool (one), a reduced cost, and improved reliability (less parts in the chain). Why would you get a second server?
Figure out a way to use it as a coffee or end table, and hey...
I've been running mine of about 2 months.
Been real happy with it.
8 GB of non-ECC corsair memory
4 - 2TB HD204UI (with the latest firmware)
2GB USB stick (FreeNAS)
Bought another Low Profile Broadcom NIC from e-bay.
According the the Passmark benchmarks the N36L is faster than the D525 :
AMD N36L Benchmark
Intel D525 Benchmark
With some tuning (Kernel/ZFS(RAID-Z)/Samba), I was getting with my Gig link around 650 - 700Mbps read/write. (Without Jumbo Frames). Testing via my Laptop with a Corsair F120 transferring CentOS 5.5 DVDs. According to the Web interface, the CPU will drop down to 800Mhz when I enable power saving.
Going to have to read up on EON and Nexenta. I'm leaning towards EON when it releases it Luminous port.
uServer arrived yesterday, so are the parts 2x4GB Kingston ECC(KTH-PL313E/4G) + IBM ServeRAID BR10i + Intel PRO/1000 Pt server NIC.
It took some effort to fit all of these stuff together. Some modifications were mandatory (uServer was not modified though). The only outstanding item is mini-SAS8087 to mini-SAS8088 adapter (will require a small cuts on the back of the uServer case), 2x8087 cables (BR10i) are in place already (behind original 250GB HDD mounted in optical bay). I have replaced front ODD cover with spare 5.25 panel (fine black mesh w/filter -> minimal effort) from Centurion case to allow some air circulation in ODD bay.
Before you started to read: I am only provided network based SMB speed measurement. It may be important to know the storage speed, but it is going to be accessed over network, so this is the only thing that matters.
So far I am testing Solaris 11 Express. I am glad I added Intel NIC. uServer does not beat my Windows 7 (i3) HP RAID50 storage (109MB/s), but it is on the respectful level (65-69MB/s). I also tested embedded Broadcom based NIC, unfortunately - it barely pulls (24-29MB/s). It seems anything above 50MB/s is a good news on any non-Windows OS. Windows is fast with cheap NICs, but it seriously lacks flexibility in affordable redundant storage area (ZFS) and many others. Really want to test flashed BR10i, but it may take some time to grow out of the internal 4 bays. Filled bays with spare Seagate 2TB 5900 RPM and 3 x warranty replaced WD Green 2TB EADS drives with TLER-ON and idle3 /d, for some reason all original 4 x WD drives slowed to crawl after 3-6 month of 24/7 very very light duty in WHS).
Can someone recommend on external mini-SAS8088 enclosure? I looked at SANS DIGITAL TR8X-B. It looks good, but pricey. I also noticed HDDRACK5 as a potential project, but would take a lot of work. Maybe something exists in between?
I would appreciate any input...
I am running opensolaris b134 with 8hdd raidz2, samsung HD204 2T. the buildin cifs server can perform about 90M R/W with internal ethernet card. I also add an ibm br10i. 4 hdd connect to mb, and 4 connect to br10i.
and a hint. your pool must create with ashift=12, otherwise the 4k 2T hdd will perform bad. (I create the pool in freebsd with nop trick. then upgrade the pool later in opensolaris, google it and you will get the answer.).
and , I also test solaris express11, with solaris express11, the cifs smbautohome will disppear after one night. I have to restart smb/server to make it appear again. I think it is a bug in solaris express11, while it is ok in opensolairs b134.
Do you use any UPS to protect the data?I am running opensolaris b134 with 8hdd raidz2, samsung HD204 2T. the buildin cifs server can perform about 90M R/W with internal ethernet card. I also add an ibm br10i. 4 hdd connect to mb, and 4 connect to br10i
Do you use any UPS to protect the data?
I have a few APC and Cyber Power and tried to use NUT ups monitoring tool, but it would error out on all of them even the ones on the support list. It aways "device id does not match error"
Good point,and a hint. your pool must create with ashift=12, otherwise the 4k 2T hdd will perform bad. (I create the pool in freebsd with nop trick. then upgrade the pool later in opensolaris, google it and you will get the answer.).
In the end, I gave up on software raid completely and bought a p400 raid controller off ebay for 70$ and found a company that makes SFF8087(f) to SFF8484(f) converters.
If anyone wants one of the adapters, then Ill send on the details of the place in the US that makes them to order.
I am running opensolaris b134 with 8hdd raidz2, samsung HD204 2T. the buildin cifs server can perform about 90M R/W with internal ethernet card. I also add an ibm br10i. 4 hdd connect to mb, and 4 connect to br10i.
Would you be able to let me know what distribution of opensolaris b134 you are running?
I am looking for a opensolaris release with support for lunix BrandZ zone (to run TwonkyServer on solaris machine).
Nexenta for some reason does not include support for linux brandz zone type.
Never mind, Oracle dropped suppor for lx since solaris version 11...
What do you use to admin smb shares/users/permissions/ACLs?b134 is OpenSolaris 2010.03, but never release officially. [/URL]
Hi hope somebody here can help me im quite a noob in the Raid world.
Ijust bought a microserver with extra ram and 4*3TB harddisks
just found out that the onboard raid controller only runs raid 0-1
I want it to run raid 5 for my WHS 2011 system
so here is my noob question.
I need a raid controller that runs raid 5 wich fits in the micro server AND it must bee cheap becuse spent most of my money on the other hardware.
And if possible have an external port "think its called an extender port" so i can add an external raid chassis to expand the harddisk pool if needed since my data volume is allways expanding.
Hope somebody here can help me
Would an LSI Logit 8344ELP SATA SAS raid controller work for my setup?
Re: Cables
I've picked up some wierd custom cables form this place before
http://www.computercablesource.com/sas-cables-and-adapters.aspx
the service was pretty good, and the cables were as expected. Alternatively you might try emailing some of the big cable listers on ebay out of HK/China and seeing if they have something available.
Thanks Chris.
I've emailed quite a few cable makers, but not this one yet I think. I'll send a request to them now.
I've looked through 100's of ebay shops internationally incl. China for something even remotely similar. The problem seems to be that nobody stocks any kind of cable at all with a female SFF-8087 connector. Or even a female SFF-8087 connector by itself, from which I could make up my own cable.
If I can't identify someone who can make up the cable, my best bet is to grab one of these http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_adapters/AD8788-1C.asp which will connect target-side (HDD) to the Microserver's male 8087, and then buy something like this: http://www.computercablesource.com/...arget-to-internal-32-multilane-host-1869.html to connect it all to the P400.
It starts getting expensive though.
Any other ideas gratefully received.