HP ProLiant MicroServer

dahamsta · 09-11-2011 11:45am

gnolan wrote: »

Having not ever set up or even used a server before, how exactly to i access it? Is there much setting up to do?

You'll need to install an operating system on it: Windows with a licence, Linux, or something like FreeNAS. How you access it depends on the OS you choose but generally speaking you'll use a VNC program, the command line or a web interface.

gnolan · 09-11-2011 12:40pm

dahamsta wrote: »

You'll need to install an operating system on it: Windows with a licence, Linux, or something like FreeNAS. How you access it depends on the OS you choose but generally speaking you'll use a VNC program, the command line or a web interface.

Thanks for that. Would you recommend Freenas as a good solution? Once it's all set up will the MicroServer simply show up as a Network Drive in Windows operating systems?

vibe666 · 09-11-2011 1:15pm

gnolan wrote: »

Thanks for that. Would you recommend Freenas as a good solution? Once it's all set up will the MicroServer simply show up as a Network Drive in Windows operating systems?

you'd typically install freenas onto a usb stick (afaik, the microserver has an internal usb socket for this purpose, which is handy) so you can use all the HDD space for storage.

once it's installed and you've given it an IP address, you can disconnect the keyboard & monitor and you will only need power and a network cable connected from then on, as everything is managed via a browser based management interface.

you can then set up and format the disks (there are plenty of options depending on how you want to do it, (soft)raid or single disks etc.) and then there are also sections for you to decide how you want to make it visible on the network, such as apple, unix or windows shares, ftp or pretty much anything else out there as FreeNAS is freeBSD based, there are lots of additional packages you can use to add functionality.

if you have any linux experience it will make life a little easier, but but it's generally very user friendly and there is a huge user community so there are guides online for pretty much anything you might want to do with it and plenty of forums to call on for help if you get really stuck.

if you really want something that "just works" out of the box, then you'd probably be better off with a pre-built synology based NAS, but FreeNAS is a great learning experience and a much better option (imho) if you like to tinker.

gnolan · 09-11-2011 1:23pm

vibe666 wrote: »

you'd typically install freenas onto a usb stick (afaik, the microserver has an internal usb socket for this purpose, which is handy) so you can use all the HDD space for storage.

once it's installed and you've given it an IP address, you can disconnect the keyboard & monitor and you will only need power and a network cable connected from then on, as everything is managed via a browser based management interface.

you can then set up and format the disks (there are plenty of options depending on how you want to do it, (soft)raid or single disks etc.) and then there are also sections for you to decide how you want to make it visible on the network, such as apple, unix or windows shares, ftp or pretty much anything else out there as FreeNAS is freeBSD based, there are lots of additional packages you can use to add functionality.

if you have any linux experience it will make life a little easier, but but it's generally very user friendly and there is a huge user community so there are guides online for pretty much anything you might want to do with it and plenty of forums to call on for help if you get really stuck.

if you really want something that "just works" out of the box, then you'd probably be better off with a pre-built synology based NAS, but FreeNAS is a great learning experience and a much better option (imho) if you like to tinker.

Thanks. I've had a quick look and installing to USB seems to be the way to go.

I don't have any linux experience unfortunately.

To set up the MicroServer, am i going to need a keyboard and monitor? Is there any way of remotely installing from my own laptop?

I've had a look before at 4-bay Synologies and it just works out to be way too expensive. I don't mind setting up the NAS myself, i'd just be cautious about it so i don't mess anything up.

vibe666 · 09-11-2011 3:06pm

you'll need to connect a keyboard & mouse initially, but after that you can do everything remotely via the web gui in your browser.

there is a small chance you might be able to use pxeboot to install it over the LAN, but its a long shot and not really worth the added hassle, even if it was possible.

if you don't have a monitor and mouse, could you maybe take it into work or to a mates house to do the install and then bring it home to finish everything off?

gnolan · 09-11-2011 3:43pm

vibe666 wrote: »

if you don't have a monitor and mouse, could you maybe take it into work or to a mates house to do the install and then bring it home to finish everything off?

Yeah i'm sure i could do that. Thanks for your help. I might be back in a while with another list of questions!

Brian · 09-11-2011 4:29pm

Baza210 wrote: »

Installed an HD6450 in my MicroServer (running Ubuntu 11.04 Server, no screen attached). According to lm-sensors, it's idling at 60 C. CPU temp is 25 C. Help?

Anybody?

dahamsta · 09-11-2011 9:54pm

Claim form direct from HP. The Ts&Cs mention HP Ireland but they also refer to the UK in several locations; strictly speaking they could reject claims because of this. I assume they can be trusted?

vibe666 · 09-11-2011 11:25pm

gnolan wrote: »

Yeah i'm sure i could do that. Thanks for your help. I might be back in a while with another list of questions!

it looks like you can actually install freenas to a usb stick BEFORE you plug it into the machine it will be used from, so you might get away with no keyboard or monitor after all.

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?251-How-to-write-the-embedded-FreeNAS-8-image-under-Windows

dahamsta · 10-11-2011 12:50am

Tip if you have a Dabs4work account: Use Dabs.ie instead, shipping will be free.

settings · 11-11-2011 12:09pm

gnolan wrote: »

Would someone mind answering a few questions about this for me?

I've been looking for a 4-bay NAS device to stream 1080p content by ethernet to my XBMC setup. Will this do the job?

The specs say that this has a 150w power supply. Given that i would most likely have it on all the time, is there any way i can limit it to run at close to idle?

Having not ever set up or even used a server before, how exactly to i access it? Is there much setting up to do?

I have tons more questions but these would probably be my main worries. Thanks.

you should have a look at unRAID.
The basic setup is free to use which supports up to 3 harddrives. I am using that at the moment with a cache drive attached for downloading. Once you put the OS on a usb stick you can connect the server to the network and hide it away somewhere cos everything is done remotely from your web browser. Its based on linux but you dont need to know a thing about it and if there is you just follow a step-by-step guide.
you can have a look here, there are lots of good threads on this server online too. Enjoy:)

Power Comsumption based on above thread:
Boot (peak): 115W
Idle (avg): 27W (all drives spun down)
Active (avg): 35W (downloading to cache drive at 20mbps with SABnzbd)
Light use (avg): 36W (unpacking rar with SABnzbd)

I got an electricity monitor and have to say it is very low power comsumption although I never calculated the exact watts

edit: by the way how long were people waiting on their cheque from HP. I got my server over a month ago, got email confirmation a couple of days after sending off the details but no cheque as of yet

God Father · 11-11-2011 12:53pm

I read that you can put OSX on this. Interesting

.

gnolan · 11-11-2011 3:09pm

settings wrote: »

you should have a look at unRAID.
The basic setup is free to use which supports up to 3 harddrives. I am using that at the moment with a cache drive attached for downloading. Once you put the OS on a usb stick you can connect the server to the network and hide it away somewhere cos everything is done remotely from your web browser. Its based on linux but you dont need to know a thing about it and if there is you just follow a step-by-step guide.
you can have a look here, there are lots of good threads on this server online too. Enjoy:)

Power Comsumption based on above thread:
Boot (peak): 115W
Idle (avg): 27W (all drives spun down)
Active (avg): 35W (downloading to cache drive at 20mbps with SABnzbd)
Light use (avg): 36W (unpacking rar with SABnzbd)

I got an electricity monitor and have to say it is very low power comsumption although I never calculated the exact watts

edit: by the way how long were people waiting on their cheque from HP. I got my server over a month ago, got email confirmation a couple of days after sending off the details but no cheque as of yet

The thing is, i will eventually make use of all four drives and maybe even the 5.25 inch one too. If unRAID only allows three hard drives i'll probably give freenas a go.

machalla · 11-11-2011 3:27pm

gnolan wrote: »

The thing is, i will eventually make use of all four drives and maybe even the 5.25 inch one too. If unRAID only allows three hard drives i'll probably give freenas a go.

I think you can pay for a license for unraid to allow more drives. Its just the free version thats limited.

Freenas comes in two variants. The older 7.2 edition which was more consumer and home friendly (torrent clients and various other nice to haves) as opposed to the latest 8.2 version which is more commercailly focussed and manly just a nas for file storage. It might be worth experimenting to see which suits you better although ongoing support is for the version 8 series.

settings · 11-11-2011 3:50pm

gnolan wrote: »

The thing is, i will eventually make use of all four drives and maybe even the 5.25 inch one too. If unRAID only allows three hard drives i'll probably give freenas a go.

As Machalla said the basic version allows 3 drives and then there is plus package which allows up to 6 drives and pro which allows up to 21.

I use unraid as a mediaserver which it is very good as. I put Movies on one disk and Tv on the other (you must have one parity/backup drive). If I am watching tv then the other 2 drives will be spun down, saving power which you mentioned was a concern in your post. The disadvantage to this is the copying speed is not as fast as other raids which spin multiple drives together and spread them across all the drives. The speeds are more than enough to play 1080p content on 2/3 clients at one time. You can also add any drive size to an unraid array, some other raids need same size.
There are pros and cons to every setup, I am not experienced with freeNas
so cant speak for that.

Wcool · 13-11-2011 10:10am

Baza210 wrote: »

Anybody?

Should be way lower, my disks:
sudo hddtemp /dev/sd?1
/dev/sda1: SAMSUNG HD103SI: 17°C
/dev/sdb1: SAMSUNG HD204UI: 14°C
/dev/sdc1: SAMSUNG HD204UI: 15°C
/dev/sdd1: SAMSUNG HD204UI: 15°C
/dev/sde1: SAMSUNG HD204UI: 15°C

however I spin my disks down:

In /etc/rc.local put something like this:

/sbin/hdparm -S 200 /dev/sda
/sbin/hdparm -S 200 /dev/sdb
/sbin/hdparm -S 200 /dev/sdc
/sbin/hdparm -S 200 /dev/sdd
/sbin/hdparm -S 200 /dev/sde

This will idle your drives after 15 min of non-activity.
If the temperature does not go down I think one of your linux processes is using the disk or the OS is using the disk. It is really hard to stop the OS from using the disk, you will have to change cron jobs and maybe even install a kernel that does not 'tick' (google it). Easier option in that case is to use the internal USB connector for a cheap 2.5" drive or a flash disk and use that for the OS

Brian · 13-11-2011 1:25pm

It's not the HDD that is at high temp, it's the GPU I installed. Which shouldn't even be running since I'm running Ubuntu Server with no GUI, and am accessing it remotely through ssh.

Jonathan · 13-11-2011 2:47pm

Baza210 wrote: »

It's not the HDD that is at high temp, it's the GPU I installed. Which shouldn't even be running since I'm running Ubuntu Server with no GUI, and am accessing it remotely through ssh.

So why does it have a GPU installed?

Brian · 13-11-2011 3:08pm

I put it in in case I ever wanted to use it as an HTPC. I didn't realize it was going to act up like this and it's a lot of hassle to get out..

dahamsta · 13-11-2011 10:48pm

You should be able to disable it at the command line. It'll slow down your boot either way though, although I've no way of enumerating how much.

druidhill · 17-11-2011 1:43am

dahamsta wrote: »

Tip if you have a Dabs4work account: Use Dabs.ie instead, shipping will be free.

Does this work? (tried but it just transfers me to dabs4work site with the shipping added). Very frustrating, as I have ended up paying more on a few occasions now.

Brian · 17-11-2011 2:03am

Perhaps I can disable it in BIOS.

dahamsta · 17-11-2011 4:17am

druidhill wrote: »

dahamsta wrote: »

Tip if you have a Dabs4work account: Use Dabs.ie instead, shipping will be free.

Does this work? (tried but it just transfers me to dabs4work site with the shipping added). Very frustrating, as I have ended up paying more on a few occasions now.

Worked for me, just had to register again. Even used the same credit card.

garvm · 17-11-2011 10:20am

dahamsta wrote: »

Worked for me, just had to register again. Even used the same credit card.

I ordered last week using the normal dabs.ie site and delivery was free - still coming up as free delivery for me now.

vibe666 · 17-11-2011 10:32am

settings wrote: »

As Machalla said the basic version allows 3 drives and then there is plus package which allows up to 6 drives and pro which allows up to 21.

probably worth mentioning that freenas allows you to use as many drives as you like at no charge whatsoever.

i currently have eight 2tb drives in mine and if i had the room, it *could be* a lot more.

nrb · 17-11-2011 11:11am

I have a question about RAID. I picked up one of these hoping to turn it into a NAS server. I'm not sure which raid configuration i want. I have 4 2TB seagate drives which i was hoping to put some kind of software raid with one drive redundant. From my understanding the computer recognizes the four disks as one. Can you simply remove one of these drives and say I have a spare enclose i can put the drive in and give it to my friends to put movies and music on?

just one other thing I saw another poster had the idea of adding extra drives into the ODD slot for another mini raid confi. If was to try this would I need a raid controller or would this Dual 2.5" -3.5" Raid SATA HDD/SSD Converter do the job?

vibe666 · 17-11-2011 11:24am

in the microserver, with 4 disks you'll probably want to use RAID5 for the best combination of speed, capacity and redundancy, but i don't think it supports RAID5 on the onboard controller, so it will need to be done in software via the NAS OS.

you can install freeNAS onto a USB stick connected to the internal USB connector on the motherboard and leave all the other drive bays free for data.

unfortunately, you can't just pull a disk out of a RAID5 array (even if it was a hot spare) and put more data onto it and plug it back in, although you could set up RAID5 on 3 disks and leave the other disk completely separate for data, you'd be much better off just getting an external USB drive and using that for moving stuff around.

at the moment, with prices for 3.5" disks being so high you'll get a 2.5" USB drive for more or less the same money as a 3.5" drive anyway.

nrb · 17-11-2011 11:59am

vibe666 wrote: »

in the microserver, with 4 disks you'll probably want to use RAID5 for the best combination of speed, capacity and redundancy, but i don't think it supports RAID5 on the onboard controller, so it will need to be done in software via the NAS OS.

you can install freeNAS onto a USB stick connected to the internal USB connector on the motherboard and leave all the other drive bays free for data.

unfortunately, you can't just pull a disk out of a RAID5 array (even if it was a hot spare) and put more data onto it and plug it back in, although you could set up RAID5 on 3 disks and leave the other disk completely separate for data, you'd be much better off just getting an external USB drive and using that for moving stuff around.

at the moment, with prices for 3.5" disks being so high you'll get a 2.5" USB drive for more or less the same money as a 3.5" drive anyway.

Thanks for the reply. I will definately look into freeNAS but was also considering trying to get windows home server 2011 do you reckon they would be much of a difference?.

Just in terms of transfering data i was thinking about mounting the 160 gb drive in the ODD space and keeping that separate from the RAID array and simply disconnecting it from the Sever and popping it into the external drive enclosure when ever i need to transfer stuff and give it to my friends and that...

vibe666 · 17-11-2011 1:13pm

you could pick up one of the icybox 5.25" enclosures for the ODD space, either a single 3.5" removable drive with a USB connection for external use, or even a 4x 2.5" disk enclosure if you wanted to boost the internal storage further with 4x 1tb laptop disks.

http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/backplanes.php?we_objectID=6804

om nom nom!

carbsy · 23-11-2011 10:19pm

Anyone use any hardware raid cards in the microserver and if so, which? I bought one of these ages ago but have done nowt with it yet cept for testing various OSs / VMs etc.

I think the best way to go is hardware raid for the drives, then install vSphere 5 and get it to see the raid array.Then create a FreeNAS VM and a few others, which maximises the use of the server.

Anyone use it like this? It think just installing FreeNAS on it is a waste on it's own, as it could do much more with vSphere.

*EDIT* Forgot to add, if anyone is using FreeNAS on a VM on this, complete with other VMs on vSphere on a hardware raid array, is there much reduction in network speeds (copying files to and from) with FreeNAS as opposed to running FreeNAS natively? Interested to know! Cheers.

HP ProLiant MicroServer

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