HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L Owner's Thread *Part 4*

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Hopefully somebody can answer this quickly for me. I have lost my USB pan drive I was going to use to load the OS from. I have a USB HDD (250gb), can I use this to boot from and load the OS?
 
What OS?
You want to use the USB HDD as an install medium (install from it) or as destination (install to it?).
 
Take a look at this thread Hp Microserver N40L Wake On Lan Issue - General Discussion - We Got Served Forums and download the latest firmware for the NIC.

To answer your question, WoL has to be supported in BIOS so if that part doesn't work then the NIC is irrelevant - but from the above thread it looks more like you just need a firmware update.

Thanks. I'd already tried updating the utility and the driver and couldn't get it to work. However, I've played around with my wol app on my phone and it works perfectly now, even over 3g now that my router has port forwarding for port 9. :clap: Result. It's everything I want it to be now!
 
Hi all, new here. :>

Really quick question, do I need a separate card to install one or two additional 3.5" HDDs in the 5.25" bay spot? If not what is required?

Can anyone recommend a tried and tested kit for securing 3.5" drive/s in this area?

Thanks in advance!
 
What OS?
You want to use the USB HDD as an install medium (install from it) or as destination (install to it?).

Windows server 2012 essentials. Use it as an install medium (from it).

I'm being impatient. I'll likely just buy a new USB pen drive tomorrow. I have some blank DVD's somewhere as well but having just moved house I cant find a thing! :mad:
 
Might work. I would start googling if anyone did it before.
Theoretically it would work exactly as with a USB key, but Microsoft tools might refuse it, because it is a HDD...

So you have an ISO file somewhere?
Can you lose the HDD contents?
Then you can just try the Microsoft "create a bootable USB key for installing windows" tool (don't remember its name, "WINDOWS 7 USB/DVD DOWNLOAD TOOL" I think...) to set up the HDD.

If that fails, there are other methods to create a bootable USB key for Windows install. (google...)
Some of them might work.
 
Thanks, think I'll admit defeat and pick up a USB key tomorrow. If i did get it installed tonight I'd end up messing on it for several hours!

Cheers,
Guy
 
Hey guys,

I'm looking to purchase a NAS for my home. It will be used as a media server, nothing else. I plan on installing sickbeard, sabnzbd, couchpotato, etc. to download and organize my library.

Currently I have a PC that has an external HD attached. I have this HD shared for laptops and I have PS3 Media server for streaming to my PS3. I also have TVversity installed to stream to android devices. This set up works perfectly for my needs but needing to have the computer on is horrible for the power bill.

My main question is, since the PS3 doesn't play many files natively, PS3 Media server has to transcode files on the fly most of the time. My library, as of now, is mostly just standard definition files but I am slowly moving to replacing them with 720p MKV files. My current setup allows me to stream these to my PS3 with PS3 Media server. Will a N40L be able to transcode these files for me out of the box? Would the newer N54L be a better choice? Will I need extra ram to do this?
I've read mixed reviews on streaming to PS3 and what extras I will need.

Lastly, since I'm on a budget, if I can only get a couple of drives right now, how easy is it to add ones later on?

And what O/S would be recommended for what I wish to do?


Thanks. This is my first move into NAS/servers so hopefully I can manage it.
 
Liuzhen

- I use Serviio to transcode on the fly to my Panasonic BluRay and it has no problem doing this.
- I upgraded RAM to 8GB but usage rarely tops 2GB. RAM is reasonably cheap so I'd at least get a 4GB kit
- You can download the RaidXpert utility from the HP site that lets you add drives to your array later on, though as with all raid if you want to change the raid type you'll have to break and remake the array so choose carefully when you install your drives.

Your OS choice will depend on what you're comfortable with and what OS will support what you want to do. I'm using 2008 server.
 
Hey guys,

My main question is, since the PS3 doesn't play many files natively, PS3 Media server has to transcode files on the fly most of the time. My library, as of now, is mostly just standard definition files but I am slowly moving to replacing them with 720p MKV files. My current setup allows me to stream these to my PS3 with PS3 Media server. Will a N40L be able to transcode these files for me out of the box? Would the newer N54L be a better choice? Will I need extra ram to do this?
I've read mixed reviews on streaming to PS3 and what extras I will need.


You can get a cheap graphics card for about £30 with HDMI and put XBMC on the N40L, that will play everything. I use Windows Home Server 2011 which is about £35
 
You can get a cheap graphics card for about £30 with HDMI and put XBMC on the N40L, that will play everything. I use Windows Home Server 2011 which is about £35

Is XBMC a DLNA server or a Media Player? It looks more like an HTPC front end than something to run on a NAS server.
 
My main question is, since the PS3 doesn't play many files natively, PS3 Media server has to transcode files on the fly most of the time. My library, as of now, is mostly just standard definition files but I am slowly moving to replacing them with 720p MKV files.

Seriously consider replacing the PS3 (as a media player) with a Raspberry Pi running XBMC - it's a better user experience (better UI for sure) than you get on the PS3, and plays pretty much everything (including 1080p/DTS) without transcoding. There is an official Android remote control for XBMC too.

I've got both a PS3 and Raspberry Pi running the OpenELEC distribution, and the Pi wins hands down. Obviously the PS3 is still better at gaming! :)

Would the newer N54L be a better choice? Will I need extra ram to do this?

The N54L will always be a better choice than the N40L, provided you have the cash to pay the difference! :)

Though if you go the Pi route, you don't need transcoding, in which case the N40L will be just fine. I actually use another Raspberry Pi to run Sickbeard and other network services, running only a MySQL instance on my N36L (for a centralised XBMC media library). The Pi as a server is much easier to maintain than the custom plugins you normally get on NAS boxes, and it works just fine - it's even powered from the USB ports on my N36L!

Extra RAM is always a good idea, particularly on a NAS as the extra RAM will be used to buffer data which will increase your network performance. 8GB (2x4GB sticks non-ECC) is about £30, and well worth it.

And what O/S would be recommended for what I wish to do?

FreeNAS and NAS4Free both offer ZFS which is an excellent enterprise software RAID solution. unRAID offers an alternative software RAID solution. All are very capable, flexible, free and will boot from a USB memory stick (so you don't have to mess around with a dedicated OS HDD).

Lastly, since I'm on a budget, if I can only get a couple of drives right now, how easy is it to add ones later on?

With ZFS you could create a two-drive mirror, and then later add a second two drive mirror as an addition to your first two drive mirror. Though backing up your data then creating a 4-drive RAID-Z1 volume (single disk redundancy) from scratch would be my choice if you can.
 
Is XBMC a DLNA server or a Media Player? It looks more like an HTPC front end than something to run on a NAS server.

It's a media player, I think it has DLNA too, I know Plex has both.
 
Hi all, new here. :>

Really quick question, do I need a separate card to install one or two additional 3.5" HDDs in the 5.25" bay spot? If not what is required?

Can anyone recommend a tried and tested kit for securing 3.5" drive/s in this area?

Thanks in advance!
:<

Hope these questions haven't been answered before, if so I couldn't find them searching. Can anyone provide a post link if this is the case?

Thanks.
 
:<

Hope these questions haven't been answered before, if so I couldn't find them searching. Can anyone provide a post link if this is the case?

Thanks.

Certainly, no additional card required for one drive. You may also be able to install two drives without an additional card, by using the external eSATA connector (and somehow routing the cable back into the Microserver, most probably through one of the expansion slots). The hacked BIOS may provide performance benefits when using the ODD and eSATA ports.
 
:<

Hope these questions haven't been answered before, if so I couldn't find them searching. Can anyone provide a post link if this is the case?

Thanks.

In addition to the onboard RAID that controls the 4xHDD cage, there is one internal and one external SATA port.
You can obviously use the internal port for a HDD but if you want two more internals you'll need a SATA card or to route the external port back inside. The two extra drives will not be part of the onboard RAID array though.
 
Oh, I see, so you can't actually expand an existing raid array (via mdadm) using the additional internal sata port? Pardon my noobness. Is there any way to actually do this?
 
Oh, I see, so you can't actually expand an existing raid array (via mdadm) using the additional internal sata port? Pardon my noobness. Is there any way to actually do this?

The built-in hardware RAID (which is what Gordab is referring to) only applies to the four main HDD, and there is no hardware RAID available on the ODD and eSATA ports.

However you can use all 6 ports in a software RAID configuration, but expanding an existing software RAID volume is not always possible and the usual approach is to destroy the array, recreate with the extra disks, and then restore your data from a backup.

That said, you mention mdadm, but don't say what level of RAID you are using. If your array is just using JBOD (which isn't technically RAID) then you should be able to add extra disks quite easily. You should also be able to add extra disks to a RAID5 array - search Google for details.
 
Thanks MilhouseVH, yup, getting really confused here.

Sorry about the lack of details, I currently have a software raid array in place (4 x 3tb seagate drives) built via mdadm in fedora 18. In light of this I should technically be able to add another 2x3tb drives to the array via internal & external connections, yes?

If so I'd appreciate some thoughts on cheap brackets for the 5.25 bay area.

Thanks! :>
 
Sorry about the lack of details, I currently have a software raid array in place (4 x 3tb seagate drives) built via mdadm in fedora 18. In light of this I should technically be able to add another 2x3tb drives to the array via internal & external connections, yes?

This page details how to expand an mdadm RAID5 array by adding additional disks.

If so I'd appreciate some thoughts on cheap brackets for the 5.25 bay area.

A previous poster mentioned the Nexus Doubletwin (<--my link to a review, not one of those annoying auto-links) in their build, which might be what you need.
 
I've loaded whs 2011 on my 40l, was poking around on the HP website and noticed a few drivers, do I need to install these or will windows have taken care of everything?

Thanks Rowdy

Hi any advice would be great, also looking at the drivers, if I do need to install them which version would I use as WHS2011 isn't mentioned specifically?

Thanks,

Rowdy
 
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I've managed to get my NL40 up and running. I've seen mentions of different applications people use but which are the best ones for unattended download of torrents etc? Also which are the other cool apps I can use?

Yes, I'm a novice at all this.

Thanks

Guy
 
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