HP ProLiant MicroServer

I'd advise any new purchasers to take the time to read this thread from start to finish. There is tons of useful information beyond the questions that are being asked here.

stimpson wrote: »

Damn you bargian alerts - I don't need another one, but I want to buy one cause it's such a bargain.

LOL, same here. I'd given up on getting a second tower when I had one on back order with Misco for over a month in July/August. I was sort of relieved that the decision had been taken out of my hands and that I wouldn't have to explain to the missus why we're getting another PC in the house. Now I've just had to order one through ServersPlus (free delivery via PM and the MSFREENDUK voucher code). At that price (£203.94, not even counting the cashback voucher), it would be rude not to.

I placed an order just past midnight and order status was "SHIPPED" when I checked around 11 am. They are fairly quick alright.

PS: Darn darn darn, forgot to use that voucher code last night.

I have mine set up using Ubuntu Server LTS (12.04 I believe) if I was setting it up again I would just use Ubuntu Desktop LTS as I installed XFCE as a desktop environment anyways and it was a decent amount of effort and I dont think its as good as the one that comes with ubuntu. Go for the LTS as a regular version constantly looks for updates.

Some things I have set up on it (feel free to ask me for more information on anything)

• Network Share (SMB)
• VNC Server
• Web Server
• Plex Server
• PS3 Media Server
• Subsonic Server
• Qbittorrent client - (I am using a torrent RSS feed so it automatically downloads things when they become available, Qbittorrent allows you to set up rules to make it download certain files to different folders, I also have it set up to email me when a file is finished. It has a web interface aswell, so you can go to it on your laptop or whatever and add a file then you can shutdown your laptop or whatever. Also if you have an android phone have a look at "Transdroid", its really good.

"This promotion is only available to end user customers based in the UK"

So no £100 rebate to us here in Ireland at all?

danoriordan1402 wrote: »

where would be the best/cheapest place to pick up a set of disks for this server - great thread by the way, very informative

What size drives are you looking for? I like Amazon for free delivery and no hassle returns. I'm sure you can find the same drive cheaper elsewhere. hardwareversand.de are popular.

You can get WD green drives cheap enough, but I paid a few bob more and got WD reds - designed for NAS boxes and a 3 year warranty.

I bought 3 3TB Western Digital Red drives from www.dabs.ie - very quiet and very reliable so far.

Yep. I got mine throughout parcel motel and it fits in one of the bigger lockers.

danoriordan1402 wrote: »

where would be the best/cheapest place to pick up a set of disks for this server - great thread by the way, very informative

depending on what you're looking for, scan.co.uk, overclockers.co.uk, amazon.co.uk, dabs.ie, elara.ie, komplett.ie just pcik the drive you want and see who has it cheapest (don't forget delivery costs) on any given day, as it can fluctuate.

if you're not in an urgent rush, give flubit a go. tell them what you want and how many and they'll usually find it cheaper within 48 hours.

personally, depending on what you'd be using them for and your budget, WD's are always a good bet, red, blue, green or black, look into them and pick your colour based on what your plans are for it.

i just bought seven 4tb hitachi deskstars which are pretty popular with the enthusiast NAS crowd at the moment (bought in 3 batches from different sellers over several months) and quite reasonable price wise, but two of them have a habit of crapping themselves (a lot of I/O errors) on long, heavy write operations for some reason which is causing them to drop out of the RAID6 volume they are members of, so i might have to RMA them which is a bit of a bitch.

oddly though though, scans show up clean on both disks and they rebuild fine if i pull them and then put them back in again, but i'm not feeling the love with them. the problem is, i'm not sure if an RMA will get them replaced or not if they look to be functioning normally.

witnessmenow wrote: »

I have mine set up using Ubuntu Server LTS (12.04 I believe) if I was setting it up again I would just use Ubuntu Desktop LTS as I installed XFCE as a desktop environment anyways and it was a decent amount of effort and I dont think its as good as the one that comes with ubuntu. Go for the LTS as a regular version constantly looks for updates.

Some things I have set up on it (feel free to ask me for more information on anything)

• Network Share (SMB)
• VNC Server
• Web Server
• Plex Server
• PS3 Media Server
• Subsonic Server
• Qbittorrent client - (I am using a torrent RSS feed so it automatically downloads things when they become available, Qbittorrent allows you to set up rules to make it download certain files to different folders, I also have it set up to email me when a file is finished. It has a web interface aswell, so you can go to it on your laptop or whatever and add a file then you can shutdown your laptop or whatever. Also if you have an android phone have a look at "Transdroid", its really good.

Just wondering what way you have your drives setup with regards to backups? RAID or something similar. Also, did you have to install extra RAM for the Plex server or does the lightweight OS compensate for any extra RAM demands?

stimpson wrote: »

RAID is not a backup solution! It offers redundancy, but if 2 of your drive go tits up you're screwed. If you have 2 identical drives in a RAID setup, they have similar characteristics, and a similar working life - they can fail at the same time (this is advice from a sysadmin in my old company). I'm using unRAID, which isn't RAID, but has a parity drive so you can rebuild after a single drive failure. If you lose 2 drives, you can't rebuild, but you still keep the data on your other drives.

For backup, I have a CrashPlan unlimited sub, so all my photos, music, docs etc. get backed up to the cloud. I'm not too pushed about the rest of my media. You can use the Crashplan client to backup to a friends PC (it all gets encrypted) over the web too, so you can have an offsite backup for free.

I have 8 gigs of RAM, because RAM is cheap and you can never have enough RAM. I would suggest 4GB minimum regardless of the OS.

Thanks Stimpson,

I meant to say UnRAID
Dont intend using RAID myself. I have been looking at unRAID since one of your earlier posts and its definitely a good option. witnessmenow just piqued my interest with his talk of Ubuntu.

johnybean wrote: »

Just wondering what way you have your drives setup with regards to backups? RAID or something similar. Also, did you have to install extra RAM for the Plex server or does the lightweight OS compensate for any extra RAM demands?

Currently I do no backups (I know, but hear me out!)

There is only one thing I want to backup, and that is photos. Everything else (Music, Movies etc) is replaceable. Currently they are backed up on a couple of externals. What I plan to do in the future is set up RSync to clone my photos folder onto a separate disk. Alternatively I might use a cloud based solution

I have not played around with plex too much, I only installed it a week or two ago. It streams SD to my phone perfectly, but I havent tested HD yet. I do plan to upgrade from stock RAM shortly


Hope that helps!

witnessmenow wrote: »

Currently I do no backups (I know, but hear me out!)

There is only one thing I want to backup, and that is photos. Everything else (Music, Movies etc) is replaceable. Currently they are backed up on a couple of externals. What I plan to do in the future is set up RSync to clone my photos folder onto a separate disk. Alternatively I might use a cloud based solution

What if your house burns down? Offsite backups FTW!