Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD

Avalon · 17 Nov 2020 at 18:09

HP do indeed paywall even basic BIOS updates, but unless it’s an obscure product (this isn’t), 30 seconds on Google usually solves that.

Mel_P · 18 Nov 2020 at 19:49

Well on the advice of others I booted from a Windows 10 UEFI usb stick produced from the Microsoft site.

(i.e. pressed F11 at the final stage of the Microserver loading rigmerole. This gave me the option of a one-off boot from this device.)

NO BIOS update needed. It loaded Win 10 and there were effectively only 2 issues after the process finished itself; this process loaded a generic graphics driver not the Matrox one and the iLo driver wasn't installed.

I loaded both of these from my originals from the Win7 build - and now I have a working HP Microserver Gen 8 on Win 10 Version 20H2. As noted above the Intelligent Provisioning only works on specific MS server editions. Now the only hassle is to get the idiosyncratic windows networking to get the Microserver and 2 other PC visible to each other. NEVER found this strightforward!!!! Mel

Vimes · 20 Nov 2020 at 09:34

My N54L is running fine with W 10 pro, has been for a few years now. The only time that it has buggered up is when MS do some type of updates. For some reasons it has been known to reset all permissions of shares to "No" after certain updates. Slowly I'm catching on to that one.

Anyone have any ideas of the maximum disk size that you can use in these..? I have a couple of 6TB reds and 2 5TB in at the moment. Thinking of a 12TB disk, anyone tried anything close to that...?

Thanks

Avalon · 20 Nov 2020 at 09:50

Vimes said:
My N54L is running fine with W 10 pro, has been for a few years now. The only time that it has buggered up is when MS do some type of updates. For some reasons it has been known to reset all permissions of shares to "No" after certain updates. Slowly I'm catching on to that one.

Anyone have any ideas of the maximum disk size that you can use in these..? I have a couple of 6TB reds and 2 5TB in at the moment. Thinking of a 12TB disk, anyone tried anything close to that...?

Thanks

It’s highly unlikely you will need to worry about drive size for decades - they will support anything that’s likely to be released for SATA. Ever.

Vimes · 20 Nov 2020 at 09:54

Avalon said:
It’s highly unlikely you will need to worry about drive size for decades - they will support anything that’s likely to be released for SATA. Ever.

Thanks, just needed to check that before considering buying another drive.

Mel_P · 20 Nov 2020 at 16:56

Mel_P said:
Win 10 loaded a generic graphics driver not the Matrox one and the iLo driver wasn't installed.

I loaded both of these from my originals from the Win7 build - and now I have a working HP Microserver Gen 8 on Win 10 Version 20H2.

Spoke too soon! the Matrox driver from my original build seems to work but after a reboot Win 10 uninstalls it as "problematic" and loads the generic driver - which only works at low screen resolution!

What driver can I use to give at least 1280 x 1024 - not possible on the Microsoft generic driver?

Any advice please? Thanks, Mel

dbailey10 · 2 Jan 2021 at 14:10

Avalon said:
You absolutely are not transcoding 4K video on a 3220. Plex publish CPU Mark metrics for transcoding, it’s roughly 2K of CPU mark for a 1080 H264, your 3220 comes in at 2189, or roughly enough for 1x1080 H264 transcode and you can’t use the iGPU to do HW transcodes as it’s not available to the OS in a micro server.

As to CPU upgrade advice, with that usage requirement, if you just want to transcode a low number of concurrent 1080p H264 streams, then a 1260L v2 has a CPU mark of 3862, depending on the bit-rate, you may get two concurrent streams, exactly what a low end single slot GPU can do and leave your CPU idle.

What I would personally consider is using something more suited to to the task to do the transcoding, a used Dell/Lenovo box based on a 5th/6th gen Intel iGPU combined with PlexPass is pretty much the default option and aren’t much more than your proposed CPU upgrade to a less capable chip. Let the micro server do what it’s good at, being a cheap low powered file server that can run ‘light’ VM’s/services.

Apologies for the delay, just wanted to say thanks for the advice!

Cyber-Mav · 4 Jan 2021 at 22:22

anyone know of a way to mount 2.5 inch laptop drives and ssd's into the gen7 microserver drive caddys and have them line up right and go straight in? any adapters or such made for them? the 2.5 to 3/5 adapters iv come across arent correct fit.

Armageus · 4 Jan 2021 at 22:27

Cyber-Mav said:
anyone know of a way to mount 2.5 inch laptop drives and ssd's into the gen7 microserver drive caddys and have them line up right and go straight in? any adapters or such made for them? the 2.5 to 3/5 adapters iv come across arent correct fit.

The ones that the old WD velociraptor hard drives used (icepak?) should work (I've used one in my Synology)

Cyber-Mav · 4 Jan 2021 at 22:30

yes those do work but getting hold of them is costly. any cheaper alternatives you know of?

Armageus · 4 Jan 2021 at 22:37

Cyber-Mav said:
yes those do work but getting hold of them is costly. any cheaper alternatives you know of?

Sabrent do one that can be had for £10

https://www.sabrent.com/product/BK-...-desktop-3-5-sata-bay-converter-mounting-kit/

Cyber-Mav · 4 Jan 2021 at 22:45

well after snooping around it turns out hp make an official product that does the job: 654540-001
and its cheaper than the sabrent so im sorted on that now.

Cyber-Mav · 4 Jan 2021 at 23:23

Armageus said:
The ones that the old WD velociraptor hard drives used (icepak?) should work (I've used one in my Synology)

Hmm what sort of noise and temps you get with a 15k sas in a velociraptor heatsink?

Avalon · 4 Jan 2021 at 23:23

Cyber-Mav said:
well after snooping around it turns out hp make an official product that does the job: 654540-001
and its cheaper than the sabrent so im sorted on that now.

They do, but they aren’t cheap, the cloned versions sold on numerous online marketplaces that infer they are genuine are cheaper, but genuine ones are usually more expensive.

Noise wise anything 2.5” SAS at 15K is unpleasant, SSD’s are a hell of a lot cheaper to run long term (power), faster and less likely to drive you nuts.

Armageus · 4 Jan 2021 at 23:26

Cyber-Mav said:
Hmm what sort of noise and temps you get with a 15k sas in a velociraptor heatsink?

I don't - I just used it to mount a 128gb SSD

Cyber-Mav · 4 Jan 2021 at 23:59

Avalon said:
They do, but they aren’t cheap, the cloned versions sold on numerous online marketplaces that infer they are genuine are cheaper, but genuine ones are usually more expensive.

Noise wise anything 2.5” SAS at 15K is unpleasant, SSD’s are a hell of a lot cheaper to run long term (power), faster and less likely to drive you nuts.

Why is 3.5 inch sas 15k so loud compared to 2.5 inch ones?

BongoHunter · 5 Jan 2021 at 00:05

Cyber-Mav said:
Why is 3.5 inch sas 15k so loud compared to 2.5 inch ones?

Bigger things spinning round / more platters / bigger motor?

Cyber-Mav · 5 Jan 2021 at 10:08

Dunno about that. 3.5 drive single platter louder than 2.5 triple platter.

Avalon · 7 Jan 2021 at 22:16

Allow me to clarify, anything spinning at 15k is generally unpleasant to be around, in today’s world it’s also rarely the best option, especially in home environments. I mean if power is included in your colo rental and you’re not pushing the boundary, then have at it, but in a world of cheap, fast, power efficient flash based storage, it’s rare mechanical drives are the obvious go-to.

Cyber-Mav · 10 Jan 2021 at 22:59

Also why 15k drive is like double the power consumption of a 10k drive? Its like 50 percent rpm increase but doubled power consumption?