HP ML10 V2

I've got a feeling that these are going to become quite popular after this deal:

https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/243408

Anyone have any experience with these ?

I plan to use 2 to replace my current N36L ZFS boxes and another specced up as an esxi host. Looking to put 8 drives in each with 2 2 x 3.5" to 1 x 5.25" drive bay adaptors, unless there's a better way to do it ?

Specs: http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04567802.pdf

 

Aha. They are so cheap because they were being given away with any other server purchase when Synnex lost the HPE contract.

We got one, it's not horrible, but not particularly good either. Free is free though.

 

Got one myself the other day - iLO is neat (once you buy an advanced license on ebay). Setting up a server box from your desktop (and even shooting ISO's at it for installs/firmware upgrades) is pretty neat.

Holds 6 3.5" hdd's (two in 5.25 in bay adapters) or could hold 4 3.5" drives and 8 2.5" drives if you use an extra couple of disk controllers in the pci-e slots and 4 in one 5.25" bay converter thingies.

I am migrating my ZFS over to a set of 5tb drives since one of the seagate 3TB disks died (thankfully I have backups in case ZFS's redundancy fails me).

Planning to max it out with 32gb (already ordered) of ram and stick a xeon in it, in place of the pentium, as well as install my HP Tape drive in the box for backing up my data, then install esxi on it to run some virtual machines, with my nas configuration being virtualised.

These boxen do sound like a harrier taking off when they first start, but quieten down after a few minutes when the bios completes and the OS loads.

PC LAN ships really quick too - I got mine within a day of paying for it!

 

What 32GB RAM is everyone using for these? I am wanting to do the same for a VM host server

 

I might grab one for a first server build, how good are the psu's, is amps enough for your array or larger?

Mind you, I'm only starting with 2x 3tB

thanks

 

How is the noise once the os loaded and settled down? I am thinking of getting one of these box but concerned about noise and heat. Weighing this between the gen8 as well.

 

I can shoot a video this weekend with a iphone DB meter in the foreground, while off, during bios and then regular operation of mine if you like. I just need to get my dslr back off my friend.

edit: My freenas did some updates and wanted a reboot. I recorded the sound levels at 1m from the front of the server.

During takeoff, landing and turbulance (bootup bios stuff): 57dB
During cruise(freenas running): 42dB

No where near as bad as my old PW9120 UPS - that sounded like a 747 taking off. This just acts like a wanna be harrier for a few minutes while it boots. I can't hear the box over the stock intel fan in my main rig (will be a different story once I water cool the main rig).

The power supply fan is a constant on speed thing (no "variable speed" fan in this budget server's power supply) but it could be swapped out with an equivalent but lower noise model (just snip off the yellow/rpm wire on the replacement fan)

There have been reports of people also swapping out the trent 9000 turbojet engine fan at the rear of the CPU cooler - I find nothing wrong with the noise it makes, it settles down and the majority of the noise comes from the PSU fan.

Of course my server has yet to see any real load and I'm about to test that now - its about to install plex which goes banana's on cpu usage when its grabbing all the data for the TV Shows and Movies etc (box art, synopsis etc)

 

Update on my project:

Decided to do a bit of an upgrade.

Current setup: 3 x N40L

2 x ZFS servers w/6 x 3tb disks, 8gb RAM
1 x physical home server

New setup:

2 x ZFS servers on ML10V2, 8 x 3tb hdds
1 x ESX home server w/Xeon 1231 and 16gb RAM

Had to buy
3 x ML10V2 servers
3 x IBM M1115 HBA's (Flashed to 9211-IT mode following the instructions here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/29059-sas2008-lsi92409211-firmware-files/)
4 x 8gb RAM - 8 each for the ZFS servers and 16 for the ESX machine
6 x Drive bay caddies (Lets me fit 4 extra 3.5" HDD's into the 5.25" bays)
6 x SAS to SATA forward breakout cables
5 x 32gb USB drives (OS x 2 for the OmniOS ZFS boxes, 1 for ESX)
4 x Toshiba 3tb HDD's to add to existing 12 for 8 per box
3 x HPNC360T dual Intel gigabit LAN PCIE cards
1 x Xeon 1231v3 for the ESX machine

Will post a build log next week when I get time to put them together in case anyone else is interested ?

 

Sure would be interested in seeing your build log. What caddies did you buy as I quote posted above - it'd be great to squeeze a pair of extra drives into the machine so I can copy my old array across in situ rather than faffing about sticking it on an external set of drives then copying it back over.

 

I'll do one.

Tried the fit of the OWC drive bay caddies, it holds them in place but the top pair don't completely slide forward. They're in there fine but just sit in via friction, can't screw them in. I'm happy with it but it's not 100% ideal.

Will put up pics next week, still waiting on RAM and SAS cabling to arrive.

 

Annoyed that I missed picking up a couple of these at the price, awesome to replace the N40L's with.

The lack performance in the old Microservers is starting to show.

 

Anyone able to compare the noise to a Gen8 or N54L?
Is the HP ML10 V2 as quiet?

How is the power consumption?

 

Any of you tried swapping the fan out for a quiet one?

 

There's one with 1TB on special on ozbargain today... $229

 

Not any longer...

 

Well just ordered 16Gb of this memory: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/231367372840?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

and two of these hard drives: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/331143499429?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

That brings me closer to the specs of the server in my signature. A couple more ram sticks and hard drives w/ controllers; a 4 port nic, and finally an E3 V3 xeon of some kind and that should round out my ESXI/NAS in one box. And perhaps a quieter power supply fan

Update:
Just installed the ram - and testing the hard drives.

Bear in mind that upgrading the ram on these things significantly increases the POST. On post installation it will perform multiple reboots while in bios - must be reconfiguring itself, then it will be stuck on Memory & QPI Initialaztion start for quite a while.

Subsequent boots are normal - just with the longer wait time at Memory and QPI (assume due to basic memory testing).

2nd WD is being checked, first is installed and the dead Seagate DM001 3Tb tossed. Resilver completed without errors and all my media plays fine after I got OpenElec set up on the mac mini, and configured PlexBMC.

 

Just setting up one of these to upgrade from a N56L Microserver, what a cracking unit they seem to be! Picked up one for $200 with a G3240 and 4GB RAM, stuck another 8GB stick in to give me 12GB total for now,

iLO4 Advanced activated easily, and wow, just works great once you get the hang of it - love the remote console.

Worst thing is having to deal with the HP registration to download the SPP (service pack that has the drivers etc) - I couldn't get the registration to recognise my serial/product number, ended up having to grab it from a torrent which is just bloody ridiculous,

Worked out how to set the RAID card back to AHCI mode, as I'm using Storage Spaces in Server 2012R2 - have not migrated all the drives over yet; hopefully can get it to boot to port 6 (my boot SSD) as opposed to port 1, worst comes to worst I'll just have to refiddle the cables.

cuahtemoc, any link to those drive bay caddies you used?

 

Great to see some comments on these. I'm tempted to grab one, but have heard they're a bit noisy (not so concerned about startup), and wanted to know how warm they run. I'd just have 8gb and 4 drives in it and run plex and downloaders, timemachine/shares etc. If I stick it under the stairs will that single fan be ok?
Currently I'm using an X58 kit with HSF + 3 fans in it, so moves a lot more air.
I assume it'd be at least as good as a microserver, being less cramped?
But I would get it to do a little transcoding, so assume it will get louder under load.
Also, I've read the fan speed is software controlled - is that only under windows drivers? Anyone running ubuntu (or any linux) as OS on it?

 

They're loud on startup, but in normal use (i.e. once Windows Server has booted) it's about as loud, maybe a little louder than a standard PC/Microserver? I'm running 12GB RAM in mine, 4 drives in the bottom bay (2x 4TB, 2x 3TB), and a 2TB and a SSD in the top bay, all running quite nicely.

Good thing about the ILO is that it gives you some funky graphs for the temps too! This is my current temp graph - this is just sitting in my lounge room, but it gives you a bit of an idea, I've been setting it up so it's had some load on it too. Fan speed would be controlled by the ILO rather than software as you're thinking, so should be fine under any OS?


Click to view full size!

Massive special on them on Ozbargain at the minute too, $159 plus shipping! I should have waited a few more days LOL!

 

That's great, thanks for sharing. Ambient under my stairs ranges from 21-27 so likely to be a bit higher, but I'll have to check mine at home now. Not sure high high 40'C is for an idle CPU? Wonder what it'd hit transcoding some 1080p in plex... hopefully not too hot though. Would sit idle 95% of the time anyway.

Did see the current deal on, hence my interest
Be an opportunity to reclaim my server as a desktop and whack a chunky video card in it. Just need to convince the wife to let me have an ATX case on/under the desk. Next challenge ...