HP ProLiant MicroServer owners' thread

tinue said:
It appears to me that such a limit would result in either "it works" or "it does not work". In my case the 16GB worked sometimes, but not always.
After I got the BIOS to actually recognize the 16GB by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del for a few times, I could run memtest86 for hours without any errors being shown.

Windows server actually shows 16GB "installed" memory in any case, but only 8GB as "usable" if the BIOS did not recognize the 2nd RAM bank.

The incompatibility therefore seems to be during POST, when the BIOS checks and initializes the RAM. This part is unreliable in my system. Judging by some other posts in this forum, this could be a "feature" of the newest BIOS; The older (non-RAID 10 capable) BIOS seemed to recognize the RAM with greater reliability.

Anyway: I originally wanted more RAM because I wanted to virtualize more than one OS, but my tests in the meantime showed terrible disk I/O with ESXi 5 (at least 10 times slower than native I/O throughput), so I gave up this idea. Windows Server 2008R2 Hyper-V did not even work (it did not like the sector size exposed by the RAID driver).

So now I am using WHS 2011, which only supports 8GB RAM in the first place. As a result, my desktop now has 24GB RAM, which is nice as well.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, just because a chipset may support 16GB is no guarantee that any particular implementation does. It is also possible that a "limit" of 8GB implemented in the firmware is improperly implemented, which can account for the 8/16 kind-of-working RAM recognitions.
 
mwroobel said:
Unfortunately, just because a chipset may support 16GB is no guarantee that any particular implementation does. It is also possible that a "limit" of 8GB implemented in the firmware is improperly implemented, which can account for the 8/16 kind-of-working RAM recognitions.
Click to expand...
Absolutely... Whatever the reason may be: If anyone really wants 16GB in their server, I would not recommend buying the MicroServer.

Harddisks with >2TB seems ok, though. I haven't ready from anyone that they have problems, even if HP does not support them in the MicroServer. My setup is a RAID 10 with 4x3TB disks. I created two RAID sets, one "Boot" set of 200GB, and the rest in a "Data" set. The "Boot" set can boot easily, because it looks to the BIOS and to the OS like a <2TB disk.
 
My latest bump to this thread is about my latest attempt:

I have re-wired the backplane molex cables to go down the left (above the cable tunnel) and the through the right tunnel cable tunnel. I plan on putting a 2.5" HD in an ext USB enclosure, place that under the ODD and run it to the internal USB. This will run Windows Server R2 2008.

Has anyone tried running windows off of USB?

Eventually I will either do the two 3.5" thing or buy a 4 x 2.5" for the actual ODD spot. The 4x2.5" would obviously require an expansion card.

In an ideal world we would have everyone's configs on the wikia and not on a google doc.
 
Windows will not install to a USB hard drive. I 'believe' several registry hacks need to be done to allow it and even then when MS release security updates it corrects the hacks and stops your system working until they are re-entered.
 
I've done this years back, had XP running from a USB HD, it was a pain but it worked and can be done..!
Enough tutorials can be found on the internet, you should be fine..
 
Want to purchase HP ProLiant N40L Micro Tower Server
Main USE Media Server/NAS for HTPCs
Is the N40L still a viable option for Home NAS?
Can I add a 180GB SSD for the OS and still have 4x2TB Drives?
Do I need to purchase SATA data and power cables for each drive?

(1) LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90
Item #:N82E16827136247
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$16.99

(1) Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 64-bit OEM System Builder
Item #:N82E16832416443
Return Policy: Software Standard Return Policy
$59.99
$49.99

(1) HP V165w 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive
Item #:N82E16820326107
Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy
$8.99

(4) HGST Deskstar 2TB 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Retail
Item #:N82E16822145369
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$639.96
$519.96

(2) Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G
Item #:N82E16820139262
Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy
$119.98


(1) HGST Touro Mobile 1TB 2.5" Black External Hard Drive
Item #: N82E16822145597
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
FREE

(HP) ProLiant N40L Ultra Micro Tower Server System AMD Turion II Neo N40L 1.5GHz 2C 2GB (1 x 2GB) 658553-001
Item #: N82E16859107052
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

-$10.00 Instant
-$89.99 Combo
$459.98
$359.99


Grand Total: $1,075.90

Sale ends soon any opinions greatly appreciated!
 
I just picked up one myself, a N40L and promptly flashed the modded BIOS into it.

I'm running Debian Squeeze with a HP PCI-E dual-nic network card but running into some strange errors in the kern.log

For those of you running the HP/Intel dual-nic + Linux, can you please:

grep e1000e /var/log/kern.log and see if you get any "Detected Hardware Unit Hang" errors?

I've already been in contact with the E1000e software developers at Intel, haven't heard a useful reply yet.
 
I am tempted to buy one of these but I am unsure of best Hard Drives to use &
If I can stack a SSD on top of the Optical Drive for WHS 2011.
Or I might try to set it up as a FreeNas Server.
 
dwjackson said:
Want to purchase HP ProLiant N40L Micro Tower Server
Main USE Media Server/NAS for HTPCs
Is the N40L still a viable option for Home NAS?
Can I add a 180GB SSD for the OS and still have 4x2TB Drives?
Do I need to purchase SATA data and power cables for each drive?

.................

Sale ends soon any opinions greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

The backplane has power and data wired in already, you don't need to wire anything if you use the 4 provided hard drive spaces. There is also the option to add a something in the 5.25in drive space; you could put that DVD burner there or the SSD for example.. though, you won't get the full SATA speed from that spot unless you flash the N40L with the modded BIOS
 
Just got mine up and running finally, slowly been collecting drives for it.

Currently its just a RAID 0 of 4x 2TB drives and is running server 2008 R2. Eventually I will add 2 more 1TB drives I have hanging around. It is currently being kept as a daily backup from my main storage using DeltaCopy (rsync) Works wonderfully, its small and quiet, perfect addition to the back room lol.
 
Raid 0 and you use it as a backup? Better read up on Raid Level as you leave yourself without any redundancy. You will lose all your data If a single disk fails !
 
Gomjaba said:
Raid 0 and you use it as a backup? Better read up on Raid Level as you leave yourself without any redundancy. You will lose all your data If a single disk fails !
Click to expand...

I am well aware of what RAID 0 is, and I use it as a BACKUP, not a primary, as in a second place to store data. There is nothing wrong with a RAID 0 for something like that. If anything fails I replace the drive, re-image the machine and resync the data, would take less than a day at the speed it runs.

Primary is a RAID 5 with a hot spare and an extra drive on a shelf. It rsync's with the backup server 3x a day and my machines image themselves up to it nightly.
 
Hello, got my N40L yesterday evening.
Can I install a HP P410 SAS RAID card in the 16x slot and a Zotac Geforce GT 610 (PCIe 1x model) in the PCIe 1x slot ? (got also 2x4GB Kingston ECC DDR3 1333 RAM)
 
Abusimbal said:
Hello, got my N40L yesterday evening.
Can I install a HP P410 SAS RAID card in the 16x slot and a Zotac Geforce GT 610 (PCIe 1x model) in the PCIe 1x slot ? (got also 2x4GB Kingston ECC DDR3 1333 RAM)
Click to expand...
you can try.....but why? Trying to make a htpc? not sure the neo is powerful enough for that...
 
[OC]Pik4chu;1038952608 said:
I am well aware of what RAID 0 is, and I use it as a BACKUP, not a primary, as in a second place to store data. There is nothing wrong with a RAID 0 for something like that. If anything fails I replace the drive, re-image the machine and resync the data, would take less than a day at the speed it runs.

Primary is a RAID 5 with a hot spare and an extra drive on a shelf. It rsync's with the backup server 3x a day and my machines image themselves up to it nightly.
Click to expand...

So why not using Raid0 as a primary to gain the spindle speed and use Raid 5 + Hotspare for the server you are using to store the backups ? There are free imaging softwares out there so you wouldn't lose anything (especially time for reinstall + restore).
 
Loads of folk use both the N36l and n40L as fully functioning htpcs

As I understand it the onboard graphics card will handle 720p but you'll obviously need to add a USB or pci audio device

If you add a pci graphics card. Ati and nvidia both do budget £30 low power cards that handle 1080p and will give you audio via hdmi. Nvidia for Linux, 210, 520 and 620 I believe are popular. Or ati for windows. 5400 and 6400 I think it is.
 
Still waiting for my 2.5" HD to show up in the mail to install Win 2k8 onto it and run from USB.

In the meantime, I started a table on the Wikia that is an attempt to continue the OC Google doc of everyone's configurations. Wikia has a crappy built-in table ability, and the page doesn't really "work" because all the right side crap can't be removed from a free page.

Please add your own configs to the table, and update the new Expansion Card page so that we know what does and doesn't work for port multiplying and the like.

http://n40l.wikia.com/wiki/Owner_Spreadsheet

Thanks!
 
Gomjaba said:
So why not using Raid0 as a primary to gain the spindle speed and use Raid 5 + Hotspare for the server you are using to store the backups ? There are free imaging softwares out there so you wouldn't lose anything (especially time for reinstall + restore).
Click to expand...

The RAID 5 array has faster drives than what is in the HP Micro (info on that can be found in the 10TB show-off thread). Even in Raid 0 the HP doesnt run as fast as the primary server so its primary purpose was as a backup to that server and a destination for Acronis images from our PC's at home while keeping the faster one for the main storage and streaming. In the near future I will be upgrading the main server to 2008 R2 though.

Additionally for quite a while the main Raid 5 was the only server I had and was using external drives for backups so I put the money into the first one to add a little redundancy just in case since the backups at the time were not really to my liking.

Adding pic for reference to this post since I finally had a chance to run a number RQ. After seeing these numbers though I am not as happy with the speeds as I was before. Going to look at redoing them in the near future and organize the space a bit better.

First pic is the microserver using software RAID 0 atm containing mostly 'green' drives

Bakup_Bench_9-12.jpg


This is the primary server, runs hardware RAID 5 off an older Adaptec card and all hitachi/samsung drives, no green.

crystalmark97tbRAID5.jpg

oops, wrong one initially, now they should match.
 
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Fair enough - thanks for the explanation :)

I do something a bit different - mind you, I am working in a big hosting company and overtime is sometimes paid in hardware (on request lol).

Anyway. I run in the optical drive a Supermicro enclosure which allows 4x2.5" dives in that 3.5 'slot'. Drives I am using are 300GB SAS - 15rpm in Raid 10, givig enough speed for what I do (including providing iSCSI targets for a vSphere lab).

The four 3.5" drives are 2TB SATA in Raid 6 and all is driven by an Adaptec 3805 (5805 I had in there too - but gets too hot).

At the same time the Raid6 has an Acronis Secure zone which stores images of the OS (which runs from the Raid10). OS is then easily restore via the IPMI card remotely if needed.

Essential data from the Raid 6 is uploaded nightly to a VM in the DC :p

</GEEK>
 
Anyone have issues booting ESXi 5 from a usb thumbdrive on this HP N40L ? I get a pinkscreen of death on it but the same server boots fine on a sata hard disk. Any help be appreciated.


thanks
 
Using the hp version or plain esxi?

4.1 hp version pink screened.... But plain version didn't.

.
 
scuzy98 said:
Actually using the plain version of ESXi5
Click to expand...

I was able to boot to ESXi5 from a thumdrive on mine without issue (plain version) Try a different thumbdrive perhaps? Or try it in a different machine to see?

I dont use ESXi on this box though I just had the drive from another project and tested it.
 
i figure out the issue. Although the documentation say you only need a thumbdrive with 1GB of storage you actually need something larger. I installed it on a 2GB thumb drive no dice but change to a 16GB thumb drive and voila works like a champ. thanks everyone. I have not try a smaller one but i think ESXi5 should work on a 4GB or 8GB thumb drive with no issues. It's weird i am using the same 2GB thumb drive that came with ESXi 3.5 from a HP proliant DL580. I guess the newer version requires larger capacity drive.
 
Hey gents, just a quick one - I'm curious if anyone has any idea if HP is working on a slightly beefier version of the NL40? I own 3 of them and love the things but I'd like to see something 20 to 50% faster.
 
AbRASiON said:
Hey gents, just a quick one - I'm curious if anyone has any idea if HP is working on a slightly beefier version of the NL40? I own 3 of them and love the things but I'd like to see something 20 to 50% faster.
Click to expand...

Like everything else in this industry there is always a newer, faster & shinier model in development. Unfortunately, I don't know that any new models have been officially announced and haven't even heard any rumors to date. They are great little units, but if you are looking for something a bit more powerful you should check out some of the builds that have been done with Lian Li Mini-ITX cases. Look at this thread and there are different ones sprinkled throughout. You can do a lot in one of those little cases, and there are mini-itx boards that run the gamut from power sipping little cpus through full-power monsters.
 
I wonder if new ones are on their way. You can now get an N40L with 2GB Ram and 250GB HDD for £144 + VAT and £100 cashback - So once you got your cashback, you pay about £72.80 ($115) including tax. You can't even get a phone for that.
 
Gomjaba said:
I wonder if new ones are on their way. You can now get an N40L with 2GB Ram and 250GB HDD for £144 + VAT and £100 cashback - So once you got your cashback, you pay about £72.80 ($115) including tax. You can't even get a phone for that.
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Can you post a link to that deal? At that price I will be in for 2. They start at about $285 here in the states, and that is from some n-name reseller. Even used on ebay they are double that price.
 
mwroobel said:
Can you post a link to that deal? At that price I will be in for 2.
Click to expand...

google HP Microserver and then > shopping > sort by price :D

http://www.transparent-uk.com/hp-n40l-658553-421.html

Doesn't mention cashback - but the SKU matches the one mentioned in the cashback form as requirement.

Bear in mind, you need to order today with next day delivery to qualify - although I am sure they extend the cashback offer - you never know (I ordered four and next day delivery is 7.99 + VAT)
 
Gomjaba said:
I wonder if new ones are on their way. You can now get an N40L with 2GB Ram and 250GB HDD for £144 + VAT and £100 cashback - So once you got your cashback, you pay about £72.80 ($115) including tax. You can't even get a phone for that.
Click to expand...
Ignore me - you already posted who was selling it at that price.
 
Even if the company themselves are eligible if it's non-UK stock such as EU or USA sourced them Outbound will be told to refuse a la the scan and more recent LambaTek fiasco's.

One of the offers they refused as it was too cheap. I.e. cheaper than they actually supply them to resellers so they assumed it was non-UK stock.

Be best to contact Transparent and confirm where they sourced the units.

Think I might just do that
 
LFletcher said:
Has it been confirmed that transparent are an elligible HP reseller for the £100 cashback?
Click to expand...

I have been back and forth on that one and tried to find the "catch" - the guy over the phone did mention the cashback and also said he makes sure the invoice is dated prior the 31st and makes sure it is being delivered before.

Now I have been myself through the T&Cs of the cashback

http://image.ebuyer.com/customer/promos/pdf/pa0074-hpmicroserver100pound-cashback.pdf

It requires the SKU of 658553-421 .. which the Transparent one is.

Says that all it needs apparently is the SKU on the invoice

Attach proof of purchase (reseller invoice(s)) to the claim form,
with qualifying products and HP part codes circled, keeping
copies for your records.
Click to expand...

IF the cheaper price is a problem - then maybe I ask for a different invoice - who knows ...

Bottom line - for that price I almost don't care ... I'll keep you lot updated ...

It also mentions that you have a limit of 5, which isn't a problem.
 
I've emailed outbound to get them to confirm that they would give the cashback from an order from Transparent. Also checking with Misco and Insight as they are also pretty cheap.
 
That might have been a bad idea ..Plus you'd have to see if they are doing anoher promo next month (which they probably do anyway)
 
Just got a mail back from Outbound, Misco and Insight are fine, but not Transparent apparently.
 
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