HP ProLiant MicroServer

vibe666

garion wrote: »

Damn, just spent €150 on a 64GB SSD from Crucial! That'll teach me not to do my research!

you might get away with sending it back. cooling off period maybe or incompatibility issues?

i've got a crucial ssd myself and had no end of issues with it throwing up bad sectors within a few days to the point where it would fall over totally within 3 weeks and needed a zero write and re-install of the OS.

i ended up putting my user profile on a regular 1tb disk and using acronis true image to create a backup of my OS just after it was freshly rebuilt with everything installed, just so i could get up and running again quickly.

turns out, that particular drive didn't like the sata controller on my mobo and changing to the other controller (it's got a 4 port & a 2 port onboard) fixed the problem totally and its been fine ever since.

just waiting for my bill payment to go onto my other credit card now so i can get around the visa debit issue i'm having with overclockers and then i'm going to get a couple.

breathn

elara have increased the price yet again, now it's up to €285.56

A bit of a jump from the €269 they were advertising a fortnight ago.

Akula

Pity they did, made me do a last minute switch to ordering from dabs.ie who have it cheaper at 270 (though delivery is a little more expensive at 15, I'm still saving.)

garion

vibe666 wrote: »

you might get away with sending it back. cooling off period maybe or incompatibility issues?

i've got a crucial ssd myself and had no end of issues with it throwing up bad sectors within a few days to the point where it would fall over totally within 3 weeks and needed a zero write and re-install of the OS.

i ended up putting my user profile on a regular 1tb disk and using acronis true image to create a backup of my OS just after it was freshly rebuilt with everything installed, just so i could get up and running again quickly.

turns out, that particular drive didn't like the sata controller on my mobo and changing to the other controller (it's got a 4 port & a 2 port onboard) fixed the problem totally and its been fine ever since.

just waiting for my bill payment to go onto my other credit card now so i can get around the visa debit issue i'm having with overclockers and then i'm going to get a couple.

The hassle of sending it back is putting me off to be honest. I'll stick with it as is and maybe consider Overclockers for any future SSD I buy. Thanks for the heads up on the issues you've had. Will keep that in mind if I have any problems myself.

vibe666

garion wrote: »

The hassle of sending it back is putting me off to be honest. I'll stick with it as is and maybe consider Overclockers for any future SSD I buy. Thanks for the heads up on the issues you've had. Will keep that in mind if I have any problems myself.

i think the issue was only with some of the earlier sandforce controllers on 60m& 120gb ssd's, but now that i think about it, mine's actually a corsair ssd, not a crucial one and i think the issues were specific to corsair, i just got the two confused.

howamidifferent

From the Manual:

I/O subsystem • One PCI-e x16 slot, which support one PCI-e x16 card (25W Max)
• One PCI-e x1 slot, which support one PCI-e x1 card
• One PCI-e X4 slot, which support one IPMI card


Does anyone know if the PCI-e X4 slot can be used for a PCI-e X4 Sata card or is it exclusively hardware setup to be used only with the IPMI card?
My question is PCI-e X4 universal to any X4 card or just "that" card.

Kinetic^

Got my cheque last week. Still not sure what to do with the microsserver, might sell it on.

howamidifferent

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Got my cheque last week. Still not sure what to do with it or might sell it on.

I'll buy that cheque off ya for 10 euro

Kinetic^

howamidifferent wrote: »

I'll buy that cheque off ya for 10 euro

Sold. I don't suppose you're the wallet inspector too?

Explosive_Cornflake

I might buy it off you. PM me if you are interested. Would collect in Dublin.

pegasus425

Cashback offer of €120 extended until 30th June.

Think I'll pick up another from Elara.

http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?manufacturer=hp&mancode=633724-421

cyberspider

Anyone got a copy of the claim form I can use?

howamidifferent

To take advantage of the promotion, customers must print out and complete a claim form (available from ian dot johnston at hp dot com) and submit it, along with seller/reseller’s invoice to the address set out in the form.

cyberspider

Thanks howamidifferent, will email him now

cyberspider

Offer is extended until 31 July 2011

howamidifferent

cyberspider wrote: »

Offer is extended until 31 July 2011

Link?

God Father

howamidifferent wrote: »

Link?

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

vibe666

seems like (in the UK at least, can't seem to find it for Ireland) HP have the very nice quad core xeon x3430 powered ML110 G6 server for £299 with the £110 cashback offer now for June & July if anyone is looking for something with a little more grunt.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06b/15351-15351-241434-3328424-3328424-3984625-4063948.html?lang=en&cc=uk

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/avalanchecashback/

the Irish site has it for €440 (change the 1st uk in the url to ie), but i can't find the same offer for Ireland for it or i would have started a new thread and claimed loads of thanks for it like the whore i am.

cyberspider

Here is the link to the Irish promotions, including ML110 (€125 off):
www.hp.com/ie/ESSNPromotions

Vexorg

A question for those who have received their cash back cheques.

Popped my cheque into the self service machine in my local Permanent TSB. Got a call from them later that day saying that as the cheque was from a UK bank (HSBC), I have to sign the back of it and pay €3.40 commission.

Sounds bizarre for a euro cheque, anyone else have to pay commission? I am hoping that its an admin error.

parsi

Vexorg wrote: »

A question for those who have received their cash back cheques.

Popped my cheque into the self service machine in my local Permanent TSB. Got a call from them later that day saying that as the cheque was from a UK bank (HSBC), I have to sign the back of it and pay €3.40 commission.

Sounds bizarre for a euro cheque, anyone else have to pay commission? I am hoping that its an admin error.

I had that problem with a cheque from Nespresso. AIB took a slice off the cheque. (as well as taking money off us all to bail them out).

I wrote to Nespresso and got a free box of chocs but I doubt you have that option

Kinetic^

With BOI, never got any call about that. Maybe they'll just sting me for the charge without saying so :mad:

Vexorg

Chocolates - nyom.

mik_da_man

My cheque took a bit longer than usual to clear. But I got full value.
But as it's a Euro cheque drawn on a UK bank you might well be liable for a charge. They usually attract a premium......

Mac daddy

Vexorg wrote: »

A question for those who have received their cash back cheques.

Popped my cheque into the self service machine in my local Permanent TSB. Got a call from them later that day saying that as the cheque was from a UK bank (HSBC), I have to sign the back of it and pay €3.40 commission.

Sounds bizarre for a euro cheque, anyone else have to pay commission? I am hoping that its an admin error.

When I received my cheque about two weeks back I popped it into the self service machine in Permanent TSB in bray didn't get any phones calls nor did I sign the back, it was cleared within 4 days and I had to pay the 3.40 as well.

Edit** I paid 3.60 not 3.40... ffs permanent TSB!!!

Vexorg

Thanks guys, sounds like its not an admin error on Ptsb's part. €116 odd is still a good amount:)

Wcool

The lure of this little machine is too strong and now the cashback offer has been extended i think I am going to order it.
Some questions that are kinda important to me:

- Does the BIOS support a setting that if there is a power outage and the power comes back one, the box automatically starts? (i presume so)

This is more about RAID than anything else but i have a feeling people here are more than versed in this:
- I have 4 2T disks right now + 1 disk for OS (ubuntu server). I like to go to a RAID 5 setup but never set up one. Can I do this without buying an extra card?
Can I convert the 4 disks to 5 disk RAID 5 without needing 2 or more 'blank' disks? ie I slowly want to convert to RAID 5 one disk after the other without the need for buy 5 new 2T disks and then copying over the old data. Is that possible? if for some reason one the box breaks down and I need to install the disks in another computer, will the data come back? ie how universal is RAID across hardware? Note i like to stick with Linux

Thanks a lot in advance

mcgovern

To answer your question about the power, it powers back on by default.

machalla

Wcool wrote: »

This is more about RAID than anything else but i have a feeling people here are more than versed in this:
- I have 4 2T disks right now + 1 disk for OS (ubuntu server). I like to go to a RAID 5 setup but never set up one. Can I do this without buying an extra card?

Software Raid (mdraid) under linux using lvm. That should do the trick. If you set up a linux installation you can set the storage lvm as a separate lvm from the os disk. Dependin on you linux os it may be easier to do it from the setup or else install something like webmin and do it after installation. Centos has a pretty good lvm manager if I remember rightly, Ubuntu not so much.

Wcool wrote: »

Can I convert the 4 disks to 5 disk RAID 5 without needing 2 or more 'blank' disks? ie I slowly want to convert to RAID 5 one disk after the other without the need for buy 5 new 2T disks and then copying over the old data. Is that possible? if for some reason one the box breaks down and I need to install the disks in another computer, will the data come back? ie how universal is RAID across hardware? Note i like to stick with Linux

Thanks a lot in advance

You won't be able to use disks that already have data in a new raid array. The raid array will eliminate existing date. I'm not an expert on raid or linux raid but you "should" be able to transport a raid array to another machine but you need to look up details on doing this as you may need some info on the array from the os disk. I can't tell you that at the moment as I haven't had to do this in my memory (I have a vague feeling I did do this at one point).

If you do create a raid array based on an lvm you can using lvm extend the size of the array. If you don't use lvm then no. You could create a 3 disk raid array based on lvm then extend it with your additional disks.

This is all top of my head stuff though so don't take it as gospel.

Jonathan

Wcool wrote: »

Does the BIOS support a setting that if there is a power outage and the power comes back one, the box automatically starts? (i presume so)

Yup. You can set it to stay off, or return to the previous state.

Wcool wrote: »

- I have 4 2T disks right now + 1 disk for OS (ubuntu server). I like to go to a RAID 5 setup but never set up one. Can I do this without buying an extra card?

Yes. Use the built in Linux software RAID. mdadm is fairly easy to understand.

Be sure to first align your 4k drives, and then chose an appropriate mdadm block size so that it does not overlap hardware blocks.

It makes a BIG performance difference.

Wcool wrote: »

Can I convert the 4 disks to 5 disk RAID 5 without needing 2 or more 'blank' disks? ie I slowly want to convert to RAID 5 one disk after the other without the need for buy 5 new 2T disks and then copying over the old data. Is that possible?

You cannot convert disks in place, but you should be build it ok.

How full are the existing 2TB drives? Condense your data onto 3 disks, (you'll have to do this anyway, you'll only have 6TB of usable disk space.)

Set up a single drive RAID 5 array.

Copy data over from 1 drive and then add that new empty drive to the array, and repeat until all drives are part of the array.

Wcool wrote: »

if for some reason one the box breaks down and I need to install the disks in another computer, will the data come back? ie how universal is RAID across hardware? Note i like to stick with Linux

You are actually better off with a software Linux raid compared to a hardware RAID card. If for any reason the hardware RAID card breaks your data is lost forever if you cannot source another RAID card.

With Linux, just find any computer with enough SATA ports, and live Linux CD.