HP ProLiant MicroServer N36L Owner's Thread

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sergiup

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HP site link to this model, and HP site link to promotion details etc.

£100 cashback offer extended until end of [-]April[/-] [-]May[/-] JUNE![/B]

These are currently available for around £230-£235, minus £100 cashback until the end of the month. They don't come with any Operating System, and standard config has 1GB ECC RAM and 250GB HDD.

They take non-ECC RAM (even simultaneously with the supplied 1GB ECC), I've added one of these and it works fine.
They will take the advanced-format 2TB+ drives with a few tweaks, so far this is the best guide I've found.
They only have a D-Sub VGA output, but it's been found that a Sapphire 512MB or 1GB Radeon 5450 will fit and take care of 1080p decoding & output via HDMI (and they seem to come supplied with a low-profile bracket). PNY GT430 cards are also said to work fine, and come with a low-profile bracket.
Some GeForce GT 520 cards fit as well, however the low-profile bracket doesn't quite fit - see this post.

New note: Palit GT430 cards need to have the bottom heatsink fins bent to fit in.

OS-wise, they seem to work well with Windows Home Server, Windows Server 2008, FreeNAS, unRAID and in all likelihood a whole host of other OS's.

Install hints:
- WHS won't install unless you use IDE mode for the SATA ports, or if you supply the drivers during the installation. However, there doesn't seem to be any performance degradation due to using IDE instead of AHCI.

Other happy (?) owners:
7.24TB "Tiddler" Unraid NAS
JamesonUK's Microserver build

Useful links:
Most useful thread I've found so far on another forum. Have a look there, it's got a lot of info.
NZB client as a service in WHS
LightsOut - a useful addin for WHS2011 to save a bit on your 'leccy bill.
Getting advanced format drives (4K) to work properly in WHS PP3
AMD Embedded GPU and Chipset Drivers
You shouldn't need drivers for the Broadcom NIC, but here they are anyway
Currently this is the latest BIOS (you need a USB flash drive for this).

So, if there's interest in these I'm happy to "aggregate" more info in this thread. :smashin:
 
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Where from?

Edit: never mind found link
 
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They had 169 yesterday, now standing at 125.
ebuyer gone from something like 140 yesterday to 55 now...

ummm me thinks it is decision time :)

The server is cheap enough, it is the 5x 2TB HDD that is the issue :rolleyes:
 
Anyone who has got one running anything other than NAS on it? Just wondering how well this will cope running Apache (I assume it will be ok as my Synology box copes reasonably well now)
 
They also seem to have an internal USB port so you can run unRAID on there

They do, and others have successfully installed various *nix-based OS's on USB flash drives.
 
Anyone who has got one running anything other than NAS on it? Just wondering how well this will cope running Apache (I assume it will be ok as my Synology box copes reasonably well now)

Mine's running WHS (1, pp3) and Serviio / Mezzmo for DLNA, but nothing else. To be honest it's a dual-core 1.3GHz CPU, it's not really going to struggle with Apache and a few other relatively simple services. Some people even have ESXi on it and a few virtual machines (3+) and it copes fine albeit with 2x 4GB RAM installed, so I'd say it will be fine.

As for the 5x 2TB drives, no-one said you have to add them all at once! The supplied 250GB is enough to get you started, and then you can add drives as and when you want / need to. It only has four drive bays though, the fifth drive would need an adapter kit for the optical drive bay at the top (I'm sure you knew this already, just checking!)
 
Mine's running WHS (1, pp3) and Serviio / Mezzmo for DLNA, but nothing else. To be honest it's a dual-core 1.3GHz CPU, it's not really going to struggle with Apache and a few other relatively simple services. Some people even have ESXi on it and a few virtual machines (3+) and it copes fine albeit with 2x 4GB RAM installed, so I'd say it will be fine.

As for the 5x 2TB drives, no-one said you have to add them all at once! The supplied 250GB is enough to get you started, and then you can add drives as and when you want / need to. It only has four drive bays though, the fifth drive would need an adapter kit for the optical drive bay at the top (I'm sure you knew this already, just checking!)

Just ordered one today.

I want to set up a raid 5 but can it be expanded. If i say start with 3 disks can I then add more or do I have to rebuild the array from scratch.

I know unRaid you can jsut add disks but will this stream to my PS3 HD content?

Which is the best Linux distro for a newbie if I want DLNA compatibility and expandable raid 5.

Thanks. :confused:
 
Just ordered one today.

I want to set up a raid 5 but can it be expanded. If i say start with 3 disks can I then add more or do I have to rebuild the array from scratch.

I know unRaid you can jsut add disks but will this stream to my PS3 HD content?

Which is the best Linux distro for a newbie if I want DLNA compatibility and expandable raid 5.

Thanks. :confused:

RAID5 expansion - depends on what OS you use; I'm supposing you mean "soft" RAID5 though the OS? I've no idea if the onboard controller can do RAID5, so excuse my question if I'm being ignorant.

I think you can install Twonky on unRAID, which would provide the streaming to your PS3. Alternative distros could be FreeNAS or Amahi, though I have no experience with any of these to be honest.. Google seems to suggest that only unRAID can expand a storage volume, but it's not actually RAID5.
 
but it's been found that a Sapphire 512MB or 1GB Radeon 5450
Thais exactly what I was wondering .. with that I could play doom on the big screen while downloading and streaming to other rooms
 
Just ordered one today.

I want to set up a raid 5 but can it be expanded. If i say start with 3 disks can I then add more or do I have to rebuild the array from scratch.

I know unRaid you can jsut add disks but will this stream to my PS3 HD content?

Which is the best Linux distro for a newbie if I want DLNA compatibility and expandable raid 5.

Thanks. :confused:


Have a try of Ubuntu! (probably the most popular Linux distro these days)

You can run ps3mediaserver on it, and if you setup the RAID properly, you can expand it from 3 to 4 drives.

There are several other DLNA servers to pick from which will run on Ubuntu, should you find that ps3mediaserver isn't your bag!
 
I ordered mine from cbs computers tuesday arrived wednesday...

its up for £227 incl free delivery (cashback offer) and they have stock just a quick heads up...

now just waiting on 4 2tb drives and memory and a copy of windows home server

Gurdip
 
I ordered from Cresent Electronics on the 11th, was charged on the 12th and it just arrived today, I was less than happy.

Anyway, connected it up and trying to update the bios but no joy at all, it boots off the stick then just loads a screen saying Block with loads of lines, pressing a key just adds black lines. I've tried various memory sticks, I've tried redownloading and setting up from another PC, still the same each time.
Any ideas?

Sorted by changing monitor.
 
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I ordered from Cresent Electronics on the 11th, was charged on the 12th and it just arrived today, I was less than happy.

Anyway, connected it up and trying to update the bios but no joy at all, it boots off the stick then just loads a screen saying Block with loads of lines, pressing a key just adds black lines. I've tried various memory sticks, I've tried redownloading and setting up from another PC, still the same each time.
Any ideas?

Unless you're the guy with the same problem on HUKD... is your screen in need of adjustment? (yes I know, silly answer) The update auto-executes itself, so you're probably missing the left-hand side of the image where the C:\> prompt it.
 
Unless you're the guy with the same problem on HUKD... is your screen in need of adjustment? (yes I know, silly answer) The update auto-executes itself, so you're probably missing the left-hand side of the image where the C:\> prompt it.

Yeah that was me! Haha, yeah sorted it and have Windows Home Server 2011 set up and running, forgot to edit this thread to say it was sorted.
Thanks.
 
Soooo, If i was to add a couple of 2 terabyte drive how many films could it store?
 
Soooo, If i was to add a couple of 2 terabyte drive how many films could it store?

It depends on the films,

DVD - Ripped as is - Average of 7Gb = 570 films on 4TB
DVD - XVid Encoded - average of 2Gb = 2000 Films
BR - Ripped as is - Average 35Gb = 114 Films
BR - x264 Encoded - Average 12Gb = 333 Films

If you wanted to have a mirror'd backup of each film, just half the numbers..

The easy equation is to approximate 2Tb = 2000GB, so 4TB = 4000GB, then divide by the average GB of the films..
 
It depends on the films,

DVD - Ripped as is - Average of 7Gb = 570 films on 4TB
DVD - XVid Encoded - average of 2Gb = 2000 Films
BR - Ripped as is - Average 35Gb = 114 Films
BR - x264 Encoded - Average 12Gb = 333 Films

If you wanted to have a mirror'd backup of each film, just half the numbers..

The easy equation is to approximate 2Tb = 2000GB, so 4TB = 4000GB, then divide by the average GB of the films..

:smashin:
 
I've installed windows home server on my HP.

What 2tb drive would be the best to install into the server?
 
Has anyone who is using this in RAID 5 found out how long it takes to rebuild a RAID 5 disk if you replace a failed one?
 
Has anyone who is using this in RAID 5 found out how long it takes to rebuild a RAID 5 disk if you replace a failed one?

That is not dependant on the server really. This is dependant on the array size and SATA controller.
 
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