Upgrading HP Proliant Microserver

[thecaptainjs]

Considering getting a HP Proliant Microserver to use as a media server/ ZFS NAS.
I plan to start off with maxing it out with 2TB Drives.

My concern is what happens when I want to expand past 4/5 drives?
Someone mentioned you could add on 4-8 drives through esata, but I want to make sure I can, and how to do it.

Does this make sense?
Keeping the above in mind, which microserver should I look into?

Also: If I put 4x 2TB drives and setup ZFS, what will be my usable space?

 

[Red Falcon]

You could use a SAS/SATA expander or DAS in order to expand your array with eSATA.

An expander, to my knowledge, just splits one SATA connection into multiple connections as well as divides the bandwidth.

 

[drescherjm]

My concern is what happens when I want to expand past 4/5 drives?

If you plan to expand before you buy the server, I would just get a case, the components and make a larger server.

 

[drescherjm]

Also: If I put 4x 2TB drives and setup ZFS, what will be my usable space?

Depends on what level of raid you use. Although I believe raid z2 and z3 are pretty silly for only 4 drives.

Remember in

raidz1 - you get (n - 1) drives worth of space
raidz2 - you get (n - 2) drives worth of space
raidz3 - you get (n - 3) drives worth of space

so for the case of 4 x 2TB
raidz1 = around 6TB of space (1 drive can fail without loosing data)
raidz2 = around 4TB of space (2 drives can fail without loosing data)
raidz3 = around 2TB of space (3 drives can fail without loosing data)

 

[Vengance_01]

IMO if you are planning for X space and you already know that X space will be to small, I suggest building your own server, or start with 3TB HDs.

 

[generious]

Considering getting a HP Proliant Microserver to use as a media server/ ZFS NAS.
I plan to start off with maxing it out with 2TB Drives.

My concern is what happens when I want to expand past 4/5 drives?
Someone mentioned you could add on 4-8 drives through esata, but I want to make sure I can, and how to do it.

Does this make sense?
Keeping the above in mind, which microserver should I look into?

Also: If I put 4x 2TB drives and setup ZFS, what will be my usable space?

You can't use the on-board external ESATA port as it isn't a multiplier.
On my own microserver I have just added a small Edge DAS401 and it works fine.
6x internal 2TB disk and another 4x 2TB in the DAS401 and a spare port left on the ESATA controller for another enclosure if I need more space.

But if you want to go beyond all of that then consider
1: Going with 3TB disks
2: waiting a couple of month for the 4TB hitachi disks
3: Build your own system

All comes down to how much you need to store really.
Me personally I like the microserver its cheap/silent/low on power usage.

Can't comment on ZFS don't use it

 

[_Gea]

Considering getting a HP Proliant Microserver to use as a media server/ ZFS NAS.
I plan to start off with maxing it out with 2TB Drives.

My concern is what happens when I want to expand past 4/5 drives?
Someone mentioned you could add on 4-8 drives through esata, but I want to make sure I can, and how to do it.
?

forget the idea with Sata expanders. It will not work with a Solaris type OS and
is not a good idea at all. What you can do is adding a SAS controller with disks
in an external enclosure.

But i would also buy a case with 8 or more disk bays and build it for my own,
best with a small Supermicro server board with x58, 3420 or 202/204 chipsets
(8..-F or X9..-F series, up from 150 euro with a dualcore or quad Xeon and up to 32 GB RAM,
best with an included additional SAS controller and enough ports

like a X8ST3-F, X8SIL-F , X9SCM-F (with IPMI remote control)