HP ProLiant MicroServer Owners Club! (Attempting to sell here will result in bans)

oli · 10th May 2011, 1:14 PM

Well, now that many of us who ordered in the first round have their servers I guess it's time for an owners club!

Seems this device has brought a few lurkers out of the woodwork! A number of new users have posted useful tips for everyone!

How many you got and what are you doing with it? Let's chat/share experiences/tips?

Moved a huge batch of data across my network last night and got ~105MB/s across the LAN. This seems a lot snappier than any Atom systems I've played with as well!

This thread is getting pretty huge, for those of you looking for specific help/info try this:
SEARCH THIS THREAD
Replace the 'replaceme' with your search term! Good luck.

2013 Updates:
onggie got 16GB of RAM working in his N40L (Kingston 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 DIMM (Kit of 2), the model is KVR1333D3E9SK2/16)

User/Hardware details list! (spreadsheet)

General info/guides:
Discussion and photos about HP's MicroServer range (N36L, N40L) on Facebook
HP MicroServer N40L Wiki thanks Tozmo
The thread that started it all! (thanks Stanza!)
Assorted photos on Flickr
MetalPhreak and some other posts have alerted owners to the space above RAM slots. Heatspreaders apparently will not fit. See this post for a picture.
blue_panther9_9 has suggested using the SpeedFan utility to check HDD temperatures. Windows only tool...
Hyram has made a spectacular entry to the forum with this post detailing his WinXP related experiences and lots of other useful info. Thanks Hyram!
Installing Solaris Express to HP Microserver N36L via USB Live Image - nogi put together this document. Cheers nogi!
Zenskas Microserver Video on YouTube
Stanza posted a list of info on different SAS controllers here.
velo posted a howto video to help upgrading your RAM in the microserver.

eSATA & Additional SATA/SAS port related
The 5th SATA port does not run at full SATA speeds. There's a BIOS update here (thanks GooSE) to resolve this.
Soarer GT has some more info in his post here.
This post explains it in more detail.
Before doing anything with the BIOS read this note from Stanza
Seems 3TB drives are supported! (thanks RoSWeLL)
Stanza installed a Supermicro CSE-M14TB drive cage to fit another 4x 2.5" drive bays into his and posted some good pics here. Here's Part 1 of his experience with the HP SC44Ge SAS controller. Part 2 is here, covering the IBM BR10i controller.
jonamafun posted some info about the best way to enable the SATA RAID (on board) controller for Windows

HP Info:
HP Quick Specs Page
HP Specs in a PDF
BIOS Update: 2011.04.02 (A) 27 May 2011
General support page on the Business Support Center
MicroServer User Guide (PDF file)
Customer Self-Repair steps (videos/animations on HP site)

VMWare Related:
Running VMware vSphere on an HP MicroServer (techhead.co.uk)
New HP Proliant MicroServer – a decent vSphere lab server candidate? (techhead.co.uk)
How to build a decent low power VMware ESXi server based on the HP Proliant N36L Microserver and the HP P410 RAID controller

Reviews:
Review on silenctpcreview.com
Another review on blog.samat.org
Hands On Video
Hands On: HP ProLiant MicroServer review at wegotserved.com

Discussion on other forums:
Long thread on Hard|Forum
Discussion at Overclockers UK

Benchmarks/Other
Doc-of-FC posted some benchmarks with his FreeBSD setup here. He's also offered to run some more benchmarks.

stumo is looking at his long term power costs with this replacement picoPSU.

Here are some useful points regarding power specifications.
How to create OpenSolaris Live USB Stick using 'dd' utility (thanks Oblong Cheese) There's a utility under Fedora (you can probably find this for other distros as well) called livecd-iso-to-disk which can create bootable USB drives from iso's as well.
More benchmarks from rugger
Info to help swapping the fan.
doodz measured power consumption here.

Here are some known working 8Gb Memory Modules
ECC modules
Super Talent DDR3-1333 8GB/512Mx8 ECC Samsung Chip Server Memory - W1333EB8GS

NON ECC Modules
Corsair 8GB DDR3 1333MHz XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9
GSkill Ares F3-1333C9D-16GAO
Patriot Gamer2 PGD316G1333ELK

NON WORKING Modules:
Corsair CMV16GX3M2A1333C9 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR3 <Tho it shows 8Gb with One Stick Inserted>
Edit: They DO seem to be working as per this post:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...postcount=6388

HyRax1 · 10th May 2011, 1:17 PM

I got three (one for me, two for a mate). Will be mostly used as a test machine to determine suitable hardware to use for future small-business clients (using future products that replace this one of course). Will be testing MythTV Backend, NFS/SMB file server, Minecraft server, PMS, Linux software RAID, Lotus Domino, maybe some virtualisation, etc over the next few weeks.

-MB- · 10th May 2011, 1:25 PM

I got one for me

8gb Ram, Probably WHS 2011 i'd say, 4x 2tb for data and 80gb SSD for boot
Bu this may change, its still sitting in the box waiting for the drives, adapters etc to arrive

bought a few at work too for some testing and stuff

Zyklone · 10th May 2011, 1:34 PM

4 for me, plus a couple of 4GB sticks to go in them!

oli · 10th May 2011, 1:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zyklone

4 for me, plus a couple of 4GB sticks to go in them!

Hah, sweet. Cluster for something fun?

Zyklone · 10th May 2011, 1:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oli

Hah, sweet. Cluster for something fun?

Something like that haha

I play to turn one into a filestore, running either FreeNAS 8 or OpenIndiana for some ZFS goodness - hoping for 5 x 2TB store, so 8TB usable

2 will be delegated to be VM machines, hopefully as a HA cluster for my Usenet downloads / Ventrilo server, as well as a dev area for some VM's I want to run so I can finally do my MCITP.

The last one, well that's undecided, I think that will be going either to a workmate or in the for sale forums, as my housemate doesn't want it anymore haha

dead_man · 10th May 2011, 1:50 PM

im ordering mine tonight. will be interesting to see if the 4x "management slot" can be used with other cards internally. if it can im thinking some case modding is in order to add wireless N and make an awsome router

edit no im not missed out

Dropbear · 10th May 2011, 2:01 PM

Count me in.

8GB Ram
Solaris 11 Express.
3x1.5TB Raidz pool

[KEi]SoVeReIgN · 10th May 2011, 2:02 PM

Couldn't help myself..

Windows Server 2k8 R2
60gb vertex 2 SSD
2 x 2tb WD Black
2 x 1tb Seagate 7.2k
1 x 250gb oem

No raid at the moment, really want to run hardware raid 5 across 6 2TB drives, or alternatively run ZFS on freenas - But I want speeeed..

Anyone got freenas up and running on this box? Can you max out the gb connection?? (~80mb/sec+?)

dav3 · 10th May 2011, 2:05 PM

Mine should arrive today

For now I'll probably just grab 4-8gig RAM and play with some of the open source OS's. (Hopefully) next pay day I'll grab a 2tb drive, SATA tray for the 5.25" bay, and a USB NIC, and throw Windows 2003 Server on it along with some of the hard drives from my existing server.

I'll grab something like a Radeon 5450 later on so it can double as a HTPC at some point and have a play with XBMC, and maybe a SATA controller with eSATA ports so I can expand with external drives if I need to.

oli · 10th May 2011, 2:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [KEi]SoVeReIgN

Can you max out the gb connection?? (~80mb/sec+?)

I don't know any reason why you couldn't under FreeNAS if I can with Linux. Where'd you put the SSD btw?

303-Acid · 10th May 2011, 2:16 PM

I've now got 2. The first one was DOA...the first HDD slot doesn't detect drives. I requested a DOA replacement but not sure how that's going to go now that they all appear to be sold out. I might have to do with a replacement mini sas cable. I think I'll keep it and use it as a LAB box.

My second just arrived. So I'll start playing with it. I'm thinking it'll run WHS2011 acting as my storage and backup. I have a 2TB drive to put in and have ordered 8GB non ECC.

^catalyst · 10th May 2011, 2:16 PM

I'm down.

Box + 5x 2TB Hitachi's.
Solaris 11 Express
Soon to be 8GB of RAM.

Mainly for NAS, might do some media serving depending how it all goes.

Igneous · 10th May 2011, 2:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^catalyst

Box + 5x 2TB Hitachi's.
Soon to be 8GB of RAM..

Same here, but I'm looking at setting up an unRAID NAS, much like this one.

Ekliptix · 10th May 2011, 2:49 PM

Still waiting to find out for sure if I'll be getting mine. I plan on running WHS 2011 with 4 x 2 TB drives with 4 - 8 GB RAM to use mainly as a media server.

Just a n00b question, how are you fitting in 5 drives? I'm assuming you're using the top slot instead of the optical drive, but do you need to purchase an extra drive caddy or something to do this?

10th May 2011, 1:14 PM	#1
oli Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: The Internet Posts: 7,189	HP ProLiant MicroServer Owners Club! (Attempting to sell here will result in bans) Well, now that many of us who ordered in the first round have their servers I guess it's time for an owners club! Seems this device has brought a few lurkers out of the woodwork! A number of new users have posted useful tips for everyone! How many you got and what are you doing with it? Let's chat/share experiences/tips? Moved a huge batch of data across my network last night and got ~105MB/s across the LAN. This seems a lot snappier than any Atom systems I've played with as well! This thread is getting pretty huge, for those of you looking for specific help/info try this: SEARCH THIS THREAD Replace the 'replaceme' with your search term! Good luck. 2013 Updates: onggie got 16GB of RAM working in his N40L (Kingston 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 DIMM (Kit of 2), the model is KVR1333D3E9SK2/16) User/Hardware details list! (spreadsheet) General info/guides: Discussion and photos about HP's MicroServer range (N36L, N40L) on Facebook HP MicroServer N40L Wiki thanks Tozmo The thread that started it all! (thanks Stanza!) Assorted photos on Flickr MetalPhreak and some other posts have alerted owners to the space above RAM slots. Heatspreaders apparently will not fit. See this post for a picture. blue_panther9_9 has suggested using the SpeedFan utility to check HDD temperatures. Windows only tool... Hyram has made a spectacular entry to the forum with this post detailing his WinXP related experiences and lots of other useful info. Thanks Hyram! Installing Solaris Express to HP Microserver N36L via USB Live Image - nogi put together this document. Cheers nogi! Zenskas Microserver Video on YouTube Stanza posted a list of info on different SAS controllers here. velo posted a howto video to help upgrading your RAM in the microserver. eSATA & Additional SATA/SAS port related The 5th SATA port does not run at full SATA speeds. There's a BIOS update here (thanks GooSE) to resolve this. Soarer GT has some more info in his post here. This post explains it in more detail. Before doing anything with the BIOS read this note from Stanza Seems 3TB drives are supported! (thanks RoSWeLL) Stanza installed a Supermicro CSE-M14TB drive cage to fit another 4x 2.5" drive bays into his and posted some good pics here. Here's Part 1 of his experience with the HP SC44Ge SAS controller. Part 2 is here, covering the IBM BR10i controller. jonamafun posted some info about the best way to enable the SATA RAID (on board) controller for Windows HP Info: HP Quick Specs Page HP Specs in a PDF BIOS Update: 2011.04.02 (A) 27 May 2011 General support page on the Business Support Center MicroServer User Guide (PDF file) Customer Self-Repair steps (videos/animations on HP site) VMWare Related: Running VMware vSphere on an HP MicroServer (techhead.co.uk) New HP Proliant MicroServer – a decent vSphere lab server candidate? (techhead.co.uk) How to build a decent low power VMware ESXi server based on the HP Proliant N36L Microserver and the HP P410 RAID controller Reviews: Review on silenctpcreview.com Another review on blog.samat.org Hands On Video Hands On: HP ProLiant MicroServer review at wegotserved.com Discussion on other forums: Long thread on Hard\|Forum Discussion at Overclockers UK Benchmarks/Other Doc-of-FC posted some benchmarks with his FreeBSD setup here. He's also offered to run some more benchmarks. stumo is looking at his long term power costs with this replacement picoPSU. Here are some useful points regarding power specifications. How to create OpenSolaris Live USB Stick using 'dd' utility (thanks Oblong Cheese) There's a utility under Fedora (you can probably find this for other distros as well) called livecd-iso-to-disk which can create bootable USB drives from iso's as well. More benchmarks from rugger Info to help swapping the fan. doodz measured power consumption here. Here are some known working 8Gb Memory Modules ECC modules Super Talent DDR3-1333 8GB/512Mx8 ECC Samsung Chip Server Memory - W1333EB8GS NON ECC Modules Corsair 8GB DDR3 1333MHz XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 GSkill Ares F3-1333C9D-16GAO Patriot Gamer2 PGD316G1333ELK NON WORKING Modules: Corsair CMV16GX3M2A1333C9 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR3 <Tho it shows 8Gb with One Stick Inserted> Edit: They DO seem to be working as per this post: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...postcount=6388 Last edited by oli; 12th January 2013 at 3:15 PM. Reason: Edit added by request of Blinky

10th May 2011, 1:17 PM	#2
HyRax1 48656C6C6F20576F726C6421 Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: At a desk. Distro:Ubuntu Posts: 7,078	I got three (one for me, two for a mate). Will be mostly used as a test machine to determine suitable hardware to use for future small-business clients (using future products that replace this one of course). Will be testing MythTV Backend, NFS/SMB file server, Minecraft server, PMS, Linux software RAID, Lotus Domino, maybe some virtualisation, etc over the next few weeks. __________________ If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice?

10th May 2011, 2:01 PM	#8
Dropbear Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brisbane Posts: 8,944	Count me in. 8GB Ram Solaris 11 Express. 3x1.5TB Raidz pool __________________ 500Px \| Model Mayhem \| Flickr \| DeviantArt Last edited by Dropbear; 10th May 2011 at 4:59 PM.

10th May 2011, 2:16 PM	#12
303-Acid Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Beaumaris, Vic Posts: 1,731	I've now got 2. The first one was DOA...the first HDD slot doesn't detect drives. I requested a DOA replacement but not sure how that's going to go now that they all appear to be sold out. I might have to do with a replacement mini sas cable. I think I'll keep it and use it as a LAB box. My second just arrived. So I'll start playing with it. I'm thinking it'll run WHS2011 acting as my storage and backup. I have a 2TB drive to put in and have ordered 8GB non ECC. __________________ Laptop: Dell Studio XPS 13 [Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 2.66GHz \| 4GB RAM \| 120GB SSD \| NVIDIA Hybrid SLI \| Windows 8 Pro] PC: [Intel Core Quad Q9550 @ 3.2GHz \| 8GB DDR2-1066 RAM \| MSI P45 Neo2 \| 120GB Sandisk Extreme SSD \| 2x HD6850 Crossfire \| Asus Xonar D1 \| Windows 8 Pro]

10th May 2011, 1:25 PM	#3
-MB- Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Australia Posts: 353	I got one for me 8gb Ram, Probably WHS 2011 i'd say, 4x 2tb for data and 80gb SSD for boot Bu this may change, its still sitting in the box waiting for the drives, adapters etc to arrive bought a few at work too for some testing and stuff

10th May 2011, 2:02 PM	#9
[KEi]SoVeReIgN Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 7,276	Couldn't help myself.. Windows Server 2k8 R2 60gb vertex 2 SSD 2 x 2tb WD Black 2 x 1tb Seagate 7.2k 1 x 250gb oem No raid at the moment, really want to run hardware raid 5 across 6 2TB drives, or alternatively run ZFS on freenas - But I want speeeed.. Anyone got freenas up and running on this box? Can you max out the gb connection?? (~80mb/sec+?)

10th May 2011, 2:05 PM	#10
dav3 Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Adelaide Posts: 858	Mine should arrive today For now I'll probably just grab 4-8gig RAM and play with some of the open source OS's. (Hopefully) next pay day I'll grab a 2tb drive, SATA tray for the 5.25" bay, and a USB NIC, and throw Windows 2003 Server on it along with some of the hard drives from my existing server. I'll grab something like a Radeon 5450 later on so it can double as a HTPC at some point and have a play with XBMC, and maybe a SATA controller with eSATA ports so I can expand with external drives if I need to.

10th May 2011, 2:16 PM	#13
^catalyst Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: melbourne Posts: 10,060	I'm down. Box + 5x 2TB Hitachi's. Solaris 11 Express Soon to be 8GB of RAM. Mainly for NAS, might do some media serving depending how it all goes.

10th May 2011, 2:49 PM	#15
Ekliptix Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 26	Still waiting to find out for sure if I'll be getting mine. I plan on running WHS 2011 with 4 x 2 TB drives with 4 - 8 GB RAM to use mainly as a media server. Just a n00b question, how are you fitting in 5 drives? I'm assuming you're using the top slot instead of the optical drive, but do you need to purchase an extra drive caddy or something to do this?