HP ProLiant MicroServer owners' thread

I'm considering one of the N40L's for "upgradeability" as i only need 250 now, but will eventually move the 3x1tb drives in my desktop over into this to run a 8TB drive set.

Thinking of running a WHS 2011 for OS with an additional 2GB of ram.

Are these still the best thing around for the price (base unit is £130 at the moment via cashback)
 
Well, in the space of 2 days i've expanded my digging, so no longer looking at WHS2011.
Thinking of running exsi on the bare metal (first time touching it ) with zfs (not raidz as can't afford the drives to start with) with an alternative guest OS, but not sure yet. Prime reason for the ZFS is the data security and the ability to grow without a lot of hassle.

What do people recommend? It's 99% samba/CIFS server for backups & video sharing + long term upload to a cloud, eg Dropbox and downloads. I like the idea of a "simple" working solution, but don't mind hassle in getting it set up as long as the missus can use it once it is!

( i've played with VM's through Virtual box for a year or so, and have used RHEL/Centos for 3+ years)

Any helping guidance and would be appreciated!
 
Fangs404 said:
This is great, thanks!
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it's about a year late to be started. Before every mod board and tech board generated 100+ posts each, someone should have started a wiki. I'm worried that it's too late to get some of the more hard-core tech info into an organized document.

So, anyone who can add, contribute, organize, or post (pics), please help us all
 
Wolfsbane2k said:
............
Thinking of running exsi on the bare metal (first time touching it ) with zfs (not raidz as can't afford the drives to start with) with an alternative guest OS, but not sure yet. Prime reason for the ZFS is the data security and the ability to grow without a lot of hassle.

...................
Click to expand...

As far as I understand,
N40L does NOT support pass-through (suhc as, ZFS<-> SATA/HBA hardware access),
you need vt.. or IOMMU support for pass-through
 
Tozmo said:
Unfortunately it's about a year late to be started. Before every mod board and tech board generated 100+ posts each, someone should have started a wiki. I'm worried that it's too late to get some of the more hard-core tech info into an organized document.

So, anyone who can add, contribute, organize, or post (pics), please help us all
Click to expand...

You're right! Loads of folk on many forums talked about a Wiki but they never appeared. At least you got it started. I think it's beginning to get there.

It's the more crazy out-there stuff I've personally been trying to put on.

Stuff that I don't want lost if a forums closes down etc.
 
This is the first time I've ever heard of Wikia and I'm mightily impressed by how quickly it's come together. I seem to have contributed a lot of the text though... thanks to a few people for correcting me :)

Agree, there's not much hardcore tech info on there, but I bet as soon as someone spends a week scouring the internet for info, they go and post it on the Wikia!
 
For those of you who have RAID Cards in your MicroServer - are you using one where the SFF-8087 connector is towards the back of the card or the front (back by the IO plate).

I was going to put a smaller RAID card in to replace what I have, but the connector is up front by the IO plate and the power supply above it makes it impossible to hook up the SFF-8087 cable from the drives. Especially if they are vertical (so they stand up, pointing right at the power supply).
 
Hi all,

I've got a N36L and a N40L and was just curious if anyone had ideas for a SCSI card to power a Ultrawide SCSI HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960 Tape backup unit (external).

Great little servers, I've got 4x2Tb drives in one and 4x80 Raid 0 in the other for domain profiles.
 
fibroptikl said:
For those of you who have RAID Cards in your MicroServer - are you using one where the SFF-8087 connector is towards the back of the card or the front (back by the IO plate).

I was going to put a smaller RAID card in to replace what I have, but the connector is up front by the IO plate and the power supply above it makes it impossible to hook up the SFF-8087 cable from the drives. Especially if they are vertical (so they stand up, pointing right at the power supply).
Click to expand...

Difficult but not impossible as long as the connector is recessed enough. I have a LSI 9240-4i installed in mine.
 
Can someone please help me to install OpenMediaVault onto my N36L.
BIOS dated 07/28/2010. Default everything

This is what I have tried so far;
Removed all hard drives.
Loaded the OpenMediaVault ISO onto the 2GB USB pluged into a USB port on the front with the 8GB in the motherboard USb slot. Both Fat32.
When I boot the MicroServer it recognises the USB's but the OpenMediaVault install process doesn't start. It just stays on the BIOS screen with "Missing Operating System" and a flashing cursor below it.

*Same procedure as above but extracted the ISO with unetbootin to the 2GB USB. Same thing happens.

Can someone please tell me what I have to do to get OpenMediaVault onto my MicroServer?

I have a Mac as well as a PC.

Cheers
 
fibroptikl said:
For those of you who have RAID Cards in your MicroServer - are you using one where the SFF-8087 connector is towards the back of the card or the front (back by the IO plate).

I was going to put a smaller RAID card in to replace what I have, but the connector is up front by the IO plate and the power supply above it makes it impossible to hook up the SFF-8087 cable from the drives. Especially if they are vertical (so they stand up, pointing right at the power supply).
Click to expand...

any low-profile raid card with connector port pointing to the front of N40L will do.

Mine is HP P410, one port to the N40L, and the other port to hot-swap case 2.5X4 on the upper 3.5 bay.
 
So I just ordered the N40L, and looking forward to start playing around with it.

My plan is to load up Windows 2k8 R2, running active directory, dns, dhcp and so forth as well as running one or two linux VMs in vmware player.
I haven't yet decided what kind of disks I'll be dropping in to it, but I'll probably place the included 250GB drive in the ODD compartment and using it as the OS drive.

Will the 1.5GHz CPU be able to handle this load, and I know I shouldn't run anything extra on a domain server, but it will only serve two users with zero growth. Alternatively should I instead run debian as the base system and then virtualize the Win 2k8 server?
 
Working on a MicroServer build and was hoping to get some suggestions.

Config:
Modded BIOS installed
5x3TB Seagate 4k sector disks (Running off 5 internal SATA ports)
1x60GB SSD running off eSATA->Sata cable (Would like to mirror this later)
1x8GB USB drive for ESXi install

My plan was to run ESXi 5 off of USB and to use the SSD to store two VMs (One 10GB for an OS that supports ZFS, and a 50GB Windows Server 2k8 install)

I had planned on passing the 5x3TB disks through to the ZFS VM... Unfortunately, I did not realize that the MicroServer does not have the processor extensions needed to do hardware pass through.

At this point I am thinking about going bare metal with an OS that supports ZFS and giving up on having a 2k8 server on the same box... Wanted to see if anyone has suggestions that could help me keep both.
 
Just picked up a N40L on Newegg Business for $199.99 looking forward to getting my hands on it:)
 
fibroptikl said:
For those of you who have RAID Cards in your MicroServer - are you using one where the SFF-8087 connector is towards the back of the card or the front (back by the IO plate).

I was going to put a smaller RAID card in to replace what I have, but the connector is up front by the IO plate and the power supply above it makes it impossible to hook up the SFF-8087 cable from the drives. Especially if they are vertical (so they stand up, pointing right at the power supply).
Click to expand...

I would avoid any controller with vertical ports, or that has ports at the front by the IO plate for the very reasons you mention - card installation and cable management becomes a total nightmare with the lack of space due to the PSU being mounted above the card which will exert pressure on one or both ports.

I installed an LSI 9211-8i card which has horizontally mounted ports at the rear of the card (ie. just inside the door of the N36L) and it's been great, really easy to install using the existing SFF-8087 plus a second SFF-8087 forward breakout to SATA for a 4x2.5" HDD dock in the 5.25" ODD bay. I even spliced on new cables to the LAN and HDD LEDs on the N36L case, connecting them to the two LED outputs on the 9211-8i controller so that I could see the 9211-8i disk activity. :)

The only problem I've had with the 9211-8i is the inability to access the LSI BIOS as it conflicts with the HP BIOS, but that's not actually a problem as I only wanted JBOD control anyway (I flashed the controller with IT firmware, and now run ZFS for software redundancy).
 
MilhouseVH said:
I would avoid any controller with vertical ports, or that has ports at the front by the IO plate for the very reasons you mention - card installation and cable management becomes a total nightmare with the lack of space due to the PSU being mounted above the card which will exert pressure on one or both ports.

I installed an LSI 9211-8i card which has horizontally mounted ports at the rear of the card (ie. just inside the door of the N36L) and it's been great, really easy to install using the existing SFF-8087 plus a second SFF-8087 forward breakout to SATA for a 4x2.5" HDD dock in the 5.25" ODD bay. I even spliced on new cables to the LAN and HDD LEDs on the N36L case, connecting them to the two LED outputs on the 9211-8i controller so that I could see the 9211-8i disk activity. :)

The only problem I've had with the 9211-8i is the inability to access the LSI BIOS as it conflicts with the HP BIOS, but that's not actually a problem as I only wanted JBOD control anyway (I flashed the controller with IT firmware, and now run ZFS for software redundancy).
Click to expand...


I have no issue with purchasing a raid card for this little box, though do you think it is really needed if one is just using it as a server to serve up client boxes(Boxee,Appletv ETC).

Will hardware raid be overkill for a box that is mostly doing write once read occasional file serving?
 
RAID or better said SAS controllers(since most of them are usually flashed with IT aka non raid firmware) are usually put in so we can plug more hard drives to the server(like aditional 4 instead of CD rom and another external rack).

Matej
 
Bash said:
I have no issue with purchasing a raid card for this little box, though do you think it is really needed if one is just using it as a server to serve up client boxes(Boxee,Appletv ETC).

Will hardware raid be overkill for a box that is mostly doing write once read occasional file serving?
Click to expand...

Hardware RAID is definitely overkill for this box, and it's not even something I'd recommend for more powerful and more expensive solutions since hardware RAID forces you to replace failed controllers with identical replacements (good luck doing so in 5-10 years time, maybe find one on eBay...) else you can no longer access the data from your array as it's stored in a proprietary format.

Software RAID, particularly ZFS, is more than good enough for this little box and ZFS is used as an enterprise RAID solution (it was developed by Sun). I'd always recommend software RAID even when serving files just to media centers - it doesn't cost anything, other than an extra parity disk (or two, if you're feeling particularly paranoid!)

So whether you require RAID (hardware or software) is entirely up to your circumstances and whether you can tolerate a disk failure that means loss of data or prevents access to the remaining data.

Of course you will have full backups to restore any lost data, as RAID is not a backup! :)
 
Not necessarily true on exact replacements. LSI controllers for example, can import arrays from previous LSI controllers in most cases. I had a raid-5 created by a dell perc5, plugged the drives in on my 9260-8i and it imported the array just fine. That was a 2 generation gap.
 
dave99 said:
Not necessarily true on exact replacements. LSI controllers for example, can import arrays from previous LSI controllers in most cases. I had a raid-5 created by a dell perc5, plugged the drives in on my 9260-8i and it imported the array just fine. That was a 2 generation gap.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, and you've been fortunate, but it's still a potential lottery that can be entirely avoided by using software RAID which really imposes so little overhead these days. Hardware RAID made more sense 10 or so years ago when CPU and IO performance was both low and expensive.
 
Any recommendations on a decent quality but relatively inexpensive gigabit NIC card that would fit in one of these machines? I'm looking at using one as a Zentyal gateway + infrastructure services for a home LAN...

TIA,

Monte
 
MilhouseVH said:
Hardware RAID is definitely overkill for this box, and it's not even something I'd recommend for more powerful and more expensive solutions since hardware RAID forces you to replace failed controllers with identical replacements (good luck doing so in 5-10 years time, maybe find one on eBay...) else you can no longer access the data from your array as it's stored in a proprietary format......
Click to expand...

not debating software or hardware raidX
as now, I never see a failed hardware RAID :)... and still using old adaptec 2410 SATA1 RAID, which is old enough and running 24/7.
I see some failed motherboards :D...
just move the raid card, and move the drives, done :), when motherboard is dying or died.
 
memilanuk said:
Any recommendations on a decent quality but relatively inexpensive gigabit NIC card that would fit in one of these machines? I'm looking at using one as a Zentyal gateway + infrastructure services for a home LAN...

TIA,

Monte
Click to expand...
I use this Intel nic without issues: Link:
 
memilanuk said:
Any recommendations on a decent quality but relatively inexpensive gigabit NIC card that would fit in one of these machines? I'm looking at using one as a Zentyal gateway + infrastructure services for a home LAN...

TIA,

Monte
Click to expand...

Yup as mentioned, the Intel CT cards work great in the x1 slot
Or if you need more you can add more ports in the x16 slot as well

HP NC360T = Dual Port = Intel PT Chipset
HP NC364T = Quad Port = Intel PT chipset
HP NC365T = Quad Port = ??
HP NC375T = Quad Port = Intel VT Chipset <<< good for ESXi virtualization etc low CPU usage

all available in low profile versions;)

.
 
Sorry to sound silly, but is it a requirement to add a 2nd NIC card into the HP n40L? I am planning to run esxi 5 on it:
VM1 = Windows server 2008 R2 acting as file server and exchange 2010 (3 users)
VM2 = Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
 
Onsale at Newegg Business for $199 with free 3 days shipping!
I ordered a second to put at my parents house as a remote backup.
 
Trepidati0n said:
neweggbusiness.com --> search for microserver

,,,ohh, and bought. $200 is frigging insane.
Click to expand...

Just received mine from the newegg business deal :)

One question, those of you running solaris/zfs are you running deduplication and encryption.
I do not really see a point in a file server role and was just wondering before i start installing software.
 
akode said:
i must be a fool, im showing 269.99 on neweggbusiness.com, thats why i asked for a link
Click to expand...

You have to use the promo code, it gives it to you in the listing.

FOLEw.png
 
I'm hoping I don't have to go there, so to speak, but has anybody been able to obtain a replacement panel door key for one of these things? Or do you actually have to replace the entire door?
 
Redshirt #24 said:
I'm hoping I don't have to go there, so to speak, but has anybody been able to obtain a replacement panel door key for one of these things? Or do you actually have to replace the entire door?
Click to expand...

they are all the same.... so maybe someone with a spare can send you one ??

.
 
If the keys are genuinely identical (and that's a good question), I'd probably settle for someone meeting me at a Home Depot long enough to get a copy of one made.
 
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