HP ProLiant MicroServer

mik_da_man · 29-03-2011 9:40pm

Got mine ordered and was out for delivery today I think... no sign yet...
Cheers OP
Must put in the rebate tomorrow.

vibe666 · 30-03-2011 3:00pm

this bargain alert got me wanting a new server, but the micro server wasn't beefy enough for my needs so in the end i caved in and bought thisHP ML110 G6 off Elara and i'll be sticking some extra ram in it to use as an ESXi host rather than having to run all my lab VM's in VMware workstation on my desktop PC.

Its only got 1gb of RAM with it for now (I've spares at home) and a dual core Pentium G6950 @ 2.8 GHz, which is decent for the price but it'll do for now and it turns out the CPU is one of the most overclockable that intel have done for years, so i've got room for improvement.

even if the motherboard isn't up for it, it'll still take one of the older core i5's so i should be grand and for less than €300 its still a bargain.

it's also got onboard iLO so it's hard to argue with the value for money. elara also do it's big brother with a quad core 2.4ghz Xeon and room for 16gb of ram, but it's a little too rich for my humble needs and my lab is never going to be highly utilised so there should be no problems oversubscribing the resources.

carbsy · 30-03-2011 7:50pm

vibe666 wrote: »

this bargain alert got me wanting a new server, but the micro server wasn't beefy enough for my needs so in the end i caved in and bought thisHP ML110 G6 off Elara and i'll be sticking some extra ram in it to use as an ESXi host rather than having to run all my lab VM's in VMware workstation on my desktop PC.

Its only got 1gb of RAM with it for now (I've spares at home) and a dual core Pentium G6950 @ 2.8 GHz, which is decent for the price but it'll do for now and it turns out the CPU is one of the most overclockable that intel have done for years, so i've got room for improvement.

even if the motherboard isn't up for it, it'll still take one of the older core i5's so i should be grand and for less than €300 its still a bargain.

it's also got onboard iLO so it's hard to argue with the value for money. elara also do it's big brother with a quad core 2.4ghz Xeon and room for 16gb of ram, but it's a little too rich for my humble needs and my lab is never going to be highly utilised so there should be no problems oversubscribing the resources.

I bought the same server for ESXi a few months ago and the HP DVDROM isn't compatible with VMware so I had to boot from a windows live cd and flash with an older Dell branded firmware which did the trick.I'm away from home at present so can't give you specific details but a quick google should give you all you need to know.

*edit* quick google gave me the firmware that you need -> http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R230035&formatcnt=0&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=330624

Also, the onboard RAID (Smart Array B110i) controller isn't supported in RAID mode by VMware so you'll have to change it in the BIOS to compatible i.e. JBOD.

vibe666 · 30-03-2011 9:35pm

thanks for the tips carbsy, i've got a few dvd drives laying around that i could try if i was stuck and i was planning on taking out the hdd altogether for use somewhere else and booting ESXi off USB and using iSCSI from my NAS for storage so no local storage required.

do you mind me asking how much ram have you got in it?

i've got some 4gb sticks, but i'm wondering if they're going to be any good as the spec says 8gb max (even on the hp site) and 4 ram slots so i'm not sure if it'll even let me put two 4g sticks in it or if i'll need to fork out for four 2gb sticks.

also, do you happen to know what internal fans it uses? i know the G5's were pretty noisy so i was thinking that i could get some silent fans to quieten it down a bit as its in an upstairs bedroom.

carbsy · 30-03-2011 10:11pm

vibe666 wrote: »

thanks for the tips carbsy, i've got a few dvd drives laying around that i could try if i was stuck and i was planning on taking out the hdd altogether for use somewhere else and booting ESXi off USB and using iSCSI from my NAS for storage so no local storage required.

do you mind me asking how much ram have you got in it?

i've got some 4gb sticks, but i'm wondering if they're going to be any good as the spec says 8gb max (even on the hp site) and 4 ram slots so i'm not sure if it'll even let me put two 4g sticks in it or if i'll need to fork out for four 2gb sticks.

also, do you happen to know what internal fans it uses? i know the G5's were pretty noisy so i was thinking that i could get some silent fans to quieten it down a bit as its in an upstairs bedroom.

You're more than welcome.The ML110 G6 actually supports 16GB max i.e. 4 x 4GB.I currently have the stock 1GB and 2 x 4GB from crucial.com (need to check exact ratings when I go home but it's PC-10600 ECC iirc.I went with the ECC from crucial as I got burnt when I bought 2 x 4GB Corsair PC-10600 non ECC and the machine would not post with it installed.

It's a great box though and runs very quiet.I have ESXi v4.1 running on USB (it has internal USB port which is very handy) but I still needed the DVDROM to be compatible with VMware in order to install to the USB stick.I had 7 or 8 VMs running concurrently on the bog standard SATA 250GB and they're haven't been any issues to date although it's not ideal for disk access!

I bought a Synology DS-411Slim (great piece of kit, virtually silent and uses only 16 Watts in full use iirc) which I've configured for iSCSI use with the ML110 and it works like a charm.Very much a work in progress though at the moment as I'm away a lot but I'll keep adding lil' bits and bobs as I get time.

KeRbDoG · 31-03-2011 1:07am

On the subject of HP ML110 - my one (G5) which was my old server before the Microserver, has just had a new lease of life

cut the PCI-E x8 port to allow me install my existing desktops PCI-E video card in and bam! Dual DVI so its now my new desktop

While the gfx card takes a hit, its grand as I'm now a PC gamer anymore, now that core2quad cpu I bought for it gets some real use!

...now to solve that 'sleep with fans on' issue

valen · 05-04-2011 12:57pm

Anyone know if their rebate extension period holds for Ireland too ?

http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/proliantmicroserver/index.html?jumpid=ex_r135_uk/en/smb/tsg/go_proliantmicroserver

howamidifferent · 05-04-2011 1:04pm

valen wrote: »

Anyone know if their rebate extension period holds for Ireland too ?

http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/proliantmicroserver/index.html?jumpid=ex_r135_uk/en/smb/tsg/go_proliantmicroserver

This guys name is on the Irish promotional rebate form so you could mail him and ask.

ian dot johnston at hp dot com

Elara: Kin · 05-04-2011 3:45pm

The extended promo is valid for Ireland.

howamidifferent · 05-04-2011 4:11pm

Elara: Kin wrote: »

The extended promo is valid for Ireland.

Is this in addition to the "Buy One Get One Free" offer you guys are going to do tomorrow?

Elara: Kin · 05-04-2011 4:20pm

howamidifferent wrote: »

Is this in addition to the "Buy One Get One Free" offer you guys are going to do tomorrow?

hmmm · 07-04-2011 9:28pm

To answer my own question, this does a great job running Unraid. Internal USB port too.

super_freddie · 24-04-2011 1:28pm

Hi,

Has anybody got their rebate cheque yet? No sign of mine, looks like they'll be using up their full 28 days between sending the email and writing the cheque!!

super_freddie.

Jonathan · 24-04-2011 1:46pm

I've got the acknowledgement email, but no cheque yet.

machalla · 29-04-2011 12:08pm

Has anyone recieved their rebate cheque yet?

I know they extended the offer till the end of April (its now €120 rebate) and the closing date for claiming the rebate is end of May now.

Jurisprudence · 29-04-2011 12:11pm

As with others I got my confirmation email but no cheque yet. In fairness when I bought it last month the form stated €117 back but the confirmation said €120 per the extended deal so at least thats something. Bought 2 of 'em so its a pint extra

joe250 · 29-04-2011 12:21pm

Might get a second one of these.

Where is the best price at the moment?

Jonathan · 29-04-2011 6:35pm

Out of interest, did others get a personalised email from a person, or was it an automated email?

There was a mix up with mine in the post so I emailed it in.

Mac daddy · 29-04-2011 9:11pm

joe250 wrote: »

Might get a second one of these.

Where is the best price at the moment?

Elara if you are buying in Ireland at the mo price : 268.62 Incl Vat
222 ex Vat otherwise.
Seriously thinking about buying one before the offer ends tomorrow!
Doing up a price list of
the microserver /64GB SSD/4x2TB disks/8GB of ram thinking about installing NexentaStor Community Edition on it.

Main use will be for presenting storage to my vSphere lab and storing a crap load of films and various backups.

Alternatives that I'm thinking about another Qnap or Synology nas box.

breathn · 01-05-2011 6:05pm

Wow, missed out on this one. Kicking myself for not paying off my CC bill sooner :mad:

joe250 · 04-05-2011 3:36pm

Anyone know if the deal is extended?

oreillykm · 05-05-2011 1:47pm

The cheque came in the post this morning, happy days!

howamidifferent · 05-05-2011 10:05pm

oreillykm wrote: »

The cheque came in the post this morning, happy days!

I got my first cheque this morning also...Should have another one on the way in another week or so....

KeRbDoG · 05-05-2011 11:19pm

Just got my cheque in the post this morning too

nice

KeRbDoG · 05-05-2011 11:28pm

joe250 wrote: »

Anyone know if the deal is extended?

Looks like the offer has been extended in the UK anyway - http://image.ebuyer.com/customer/promos/UK/PA0023-%C2%A350-off-Microserver-Offer-May-2011.pdf

...and from HP UK - http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/proliantmicroserver/index.html

Anyone know if HP will be extending this offer in Ireland?

Jonathan · 05-05-2011 11:49pm

howamidifferent wrote: »

I got my first cheque this morning also...Should have another one on the way in another week or so....

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Just got my cheque in the post this morning too nice

When did you get the confirmation email?

That credit card bill needs to be paid... :P

KeRbDoG · 06-05-2011 12:02am

Jonathan wrote: »

When did you get the confirmation email?

That credit card bill needs to be paid... :P

Got my confirmation mail on the 29th March

machalla · 06-05-2011 11:28am

I got the cheque in the post yesterday morning, lodged today. As its drawn on a UK bank it can take up to 4 weeks to clear I was told.

They seem to have only posted the cheques at the end of last week as I had queried them if mine had been sent before I got the post yesterday.

KeRbDoG · 06-05-2011 12:10pm

The offer has also been extended for Ireland until the end of May

Find the cashback form attached folks

pegasus425 · 06-05-2011 3:58pm

Great News on the offer extension. Where is currently the best place to buy? Many Thanks.

KeRbDoG · 06-05-2011 7:47pm

pegasus425 wrote: »

Great News on the offer extension. Where is currently the best place to buy? Many Thanks.

Elara.ie - €268.62 Incl Vat
Bechtle.ie - €267.41 Incl Vat
HPShop.ie - €273.19 Incl Vat
Dabs.ie - €270.74 Incl Vat but not in stock
eBuyer.com - £239.98/€274.15 Incl Vat

Above prices don't include shipping!

I think www.pc-planet.de are doing them cheaper but "The promotion is valid only on new units purchased and invoiced directly from HP or a ROI HP authorised reseller"

... dammit, just bought another one!

tonto2010 · 06-05-2011 8:07pm

Great machine for the price, anyone know the cheapest place to get 2*4 GB Dimms and a couple of 2TB drives?

KeRbDoG · 07-05-2011 2:35pm

Found Crucial.com cheapish for memory
Also bought a few drives from Amazon.co.uk, yes they are only 5400RPM but ideal for a quiet network storage in a RAID config

mik_da_man · 07-05-2011 6:07pm

Yep I got those same drives.
Going for a low energy build and mine is now running WHS and used for media storage so 5400 is grand.

tonto2010 · 07-05-2011 6:29pm

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Found Crucial.com cheapish for memory
Also bought a few drives from Amazon.co.uk, yes they are only 5400RPM but ideal for a quiet network storage in a RAID config

Thanks KerbDog, they look grand. Can anyone comment on how Server 2008 runs on this machine? might just run linux on it if the processor cant handle 2008.

KeRbDoG · 07-05-2011 6:30pm

WHS? Jump into the world of Linux servers!:-)

tonto2010 · 07-05-2011 6:35pm

Might just do that, any recomendations? Maybe a dual boot at first just to get my feet wet!

oreillykm · 07-05-2011 7:40pm

Just one thing to note with WHS (I have it running on this box too) is that it can only take 4G RAM max. I found this out when I bought 8! Crucial are taking the excess 4 back without a problem.

mik_da_man wrote: »

Yep I got those same drives.
Going for a low energy build and mine is now running WHS and used for media storage so 5400 is grand.

multiscan · 07-05-2011 8:46pm

oreillykm wrote: »

Just one thing to note with WHS (I have it running on this box too) is that it can only take 4G RAM max. I found this out when I bought 8! Crucial are taking the excess 4 back without a problem.

hmn was thinking about it and spec refers to max 8gb ?

oreillykm · 08-05-2011 8:29am

This is what Crucial sent me;
"I have done some further research and it seems that Windows Home Server will only detect 4GB maximum as shown here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_home_server"

Mixie · 08-05-2011 8:37am

oreillykm wrote: »

This is what Crucial sent me;
"I have done some further research and it seems that Windows Home Server will only detect 4GB maximum as shown here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_home_server"

WHS (1) is 32-bit only, so I suspect it uses slightly less than 4. WHS 2011 supports/requires 64-bit and I would *guess* that it would use the full 8GB. If this is a purchase-deciding factor, bear in mind that 2011 does not support drive pooling (another reason people generally gravitate towards WHS).

KeRbDoG · 08-05-2011 9:41am

tonto2010 wrote: »

Might just do that, any recomendations? Maybe a dual boot at first just to get my feet wet!

If there is nothing on your server already the don't dual boot, jump in the deep end with Ubuntu server. Many `how-tos`online you can follow, giving you remote access over SSH, setup of software RAID and the setup of samba network file sharing.
Then you can go more advanced with torrent downloading web frontends etc.

Don't install the Ubuntu desktop version :-) no challenge using a GUI

pegasus425 · 08-05-2011 10:41pm

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Elara.ie - €268.62 Incl Vat
Bechtle.ie - €267.41 Incl Vat
HPShop.ie - €273.19 Incl Vat
Dabs.ie - €270.74 Incl Vat but not in stock
eBuyer.com - £239.98/€274.15 Incl Vat

Above prices don't include shipping!

I think www.pc-planet.de are doing them cheaper but "The promotion is valid only on new units purchased and invoiced directly from HP or a ROI HP authorised reseller"

... dammit, just bought another one!

Thanks KeRbDog for the info. Much Appreciated.

Just ordered one from Elara!

68 lost souls · 08-05-2011 11:22pm

A few stupid questions gere.

FIrstly is all of this deal still running?

Secondly, was looking at getting a Synology DS1511+ in the next two months. The reason I want it is to share all my files across 2 pcs and 2 laptops on the network as well as mobile devices like iphone and ipad and AppleTV. I also want to be able to access the data remotely as I will be spending a lot of time in America and would also like to be able backup projects from America to it. Currently attached to one PC I have a 1TB drive and a 320GB unternal trive which are both about full and another removable 320GB drive that is full.

I was hoping to setup with a RAID to protect from drive failure as well as getting about 5TB of storage and host a printer to act as a network printe rbetween Windows XP and Windows 7.

Would I be able to do that with this server and what would th emax storage I could get be? Would this be a better buy than the Synology?

Jonathan · 09-05-2011 12:03am

68 lost souls wrote: »

Would I be able to do that with this server and what would th emax storage I could get be? Would this be a better buy than the Synology?

Run a GNU/Linux system and you can do what ever you want with it if you are prepared to learn how to do it.

4 * 3TB drives in the caddies, and another in the ODD drive = 15TB unformatted storage.

Jurisprudence · 10-05-2011 12:20am

Anyone any advice on which RAM to get for this thing. Looking at Amazon.co.uk is doing my head in and I trust the reviews as much as I trust Seanie. Need additional 4gb in 1 module. Anyone know anywhere doing good deals on ECC. Cheers

Jonathan · 10-05-2011 12:28am

Cheque for €117 arrived today.

machalla · 10-05-2011 12:34pm

Jurisprudence wrote: »

Anyone any advice on which RAM to get for this thing. Looking at Amazon.co.uk is doing my head in and I trust the reviews as much as I trust Seanie. Need additional 4gb in 1 module. Anyone know anywhere doing good deals on ECC. Cheers

From Crucial.com. This is what I've got in mine

http://www.crucial.com/eu/store/listparts.aspx?model=Proliant%20MicroServer&Cat=RAM

vibe666 · 10-05-2011 4:03pm

68 lost souls wrote: »

Would I be able to do that with this server and what would th emax storage I could get be? Would this be a better buy than the Synology?

you can do pretty much anything you want with the microserver, but some things will require pretty steep learning curves in the world of linux.

windows home server would mitigate that quite a bit if you're already familiar with windows, but i don't know if it would perform that well on the atom cpu, altho i have windows 7 running on a similar specced machine as a htpc and it runs fine, so you might be okay, depending on what your exact plans are for it.

i bought a nas a couple of years ago (a thecus n7700) and regretted it, but ony because of the poor support and restricted features thecus provide. if i had my time again i think i'd buy the Synology DS1511+, although at the time, the available disks and the no. of drive bays didn't leave me much of an upgrade path and the extra drive bays in the thecus were what won it for me.

as it goes, i still might get a DS1511+, altho i'm half tempted to go for a home built box instead, but either way it's on hold for now as i have other more important stuff to concentrate on.

Jurisprudence · 10-05-2011 7:06pm

machalla wrote: »

From Crucial.com. This is what I've got in mine

http://www.crucial.com/eu/store/listparts.aspx?model=Proliant%20MicroServer&Cat=RAM

Thanks for that. I was looking at ECC Ram but may just go with Non-ECC Ram and ditch the current 1gb chip. Its hard for me to justify a ram upgrade almost the price of the server (after discount of course) Do you, or anyone else here, rate Geil Ram?

HP ProLiant MicroServer

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