So new HP Microserver specs have been leaked and it looks dam good!

http://www.servethehome.com/hp-proliant-microserver-gen8-specs-leaked/

http://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/HP-ProLiant-Microserver-Gen8-Specs-600x388.png

To be honest after setting up a Proliant (N54L), I regretted not just building a low-power i3 box in mini-itx form.

The Proliant on idle uses about 40-45W idle. My 4.5GHz overclocked i5 desktop/gaming rig with a GTX670 idles at about 65W. Not exactly as massive a saving as I was expecting.

Pros:
* Small size

Cons:
* Pain in the butt to insert a card or swap hardware around, as everything is tied together and super-compact.
* Need to do heaps of research to get compatible hardware based on size restrictions (e.g. low-profile PCIe cards with low-profile fans)
* Motherboard is all integrated and custom. Can't just swap it out if playing up - need to buy a new Proliant.
* Getting drivers or OS support is more fiddly than a mainstream Intel board.
* PSU fan is small (40mm) and hence can get noisy/whiny. Had to replace mine.
* Other restrictions you don't realise unless you do heaps of research (not all SATA ports are full speed, etc)

To be honest after setting up a Proliant (N54L), I regretted not just building a low-power i3 box in mini-itx form.

I am actually looking at doing this ATM. I have the old N36L and looking at upgrading my NAS drive and HTPC into all in one machine.

Main problems for me with the Proliant I think are actually problems with FreeNAS which Is what it's running.
There is no easy way to backup your Proliant. Plugging a USB drive into the proliant does f*** all, and FreeNAS comes with no features to backup to USB drive. However you can run a backup app on say your gaming PC to get the Proliant to back up ... to itself... via CIFS shares.. but the data goes through the network to your gaming PC, and even with Cat6 it will take like 2 months to do the backup. I think I will put the USB drives onto another machine so the Proliant doesn't have to handle both read and write during the backup, but.... that's... s***....

Copying files to the Prioliant frequently just crashes the Proliant. I had to get a special program to copy files at a speed-limited rate so the Proliant wouldn't crash. It takes a very very very long time to boot up. Without USB drives plugged in it will boot within half an hour, but with USB drives plugged in it takes several days for it to go through it's bulls*** checks. I believed this was a problem with only having 1 GB RAM, so I upgraded to 4 or 8 or something... but no difference in performance.

FreeNAS also has no good options for setting up your hard drives. I use ZFS on the internal drives which allows you to combine the 4 drives into 1 drive. No other file system (that comes with FreeNAS) allows you to combine 4 drives into 1 drive, so ZFS is the only option. But it seems like ZFS may be the cause of some of the other performance problems I mentioned, and I don't even have deduplication turned on. But needing more than 8GB RAM to serve 300mb video files is a bit f***ing unreasonable, not to mention RAM compatible with the Proliant is f***ING EXPENSIVE, plus nobody wants your old ram. Changing the RAM was an absolute bitch of a task with this machine too, you have to unplug every fragile little wire inside the computer to be able to slide it open. Besides, it's primary purpose, to serve those files, works just fine. It is when trying to add more files, reboot, backup, or otherwise manage the system that the performance issues become apparent, so why doesn't it just f***ing slow down and do things at it's own pace instead of getting ahead of itself and then just purely s***ting itself when the RAM fills up or whatever?

Plus all the obscure file systems in FreeNAS just means that if the Proliant is f***ed and I take out the hard drive and plug it into a normal computer.... windows won't have any f***ing clue what's up. So I can't get any data off my drive. I may as well be using an Apple computer in the mid 90s. In fact windows will determine that the hard drive is not formatted at all and will prompt me, or whoever, to wipe the drive. There will be no suggestion at all that data exists on the drive. It is a SECRET file system, and data will be lost.

I think the Proliant would much better serve as a BACKUP MACHINE to a more competent NAS.

It is frankly a lot of work and time wasting for me to change my mind about freenas or any of it's settings, as reconfiguring the drives would require backing up the 12GB to other drives, then starting over and then copying it all back. Takes for friggen ever.

Interesting thermite, i think you might be doing something wrong. I am running FreeNAS and did have a few problems at the start however running FreeNAS 8.2 its been pretty bloody good. I bought 8gb ECC RAM for about $70 about 2 years ago, so i am guessing it cheaper now. I am running 5 x 3TB HDD. But some of those problems i think is to do with FreeNAS. However the new Microserver will have its own RAID card so now you wont need to use FreeNAS

I am looking at upgrading mainly to get back into the Windows platform. Looking at running Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 using Storage Space

But I don't want RAID, especially hardware RAID. :( I just want the 4 disks to be seen as 1 disk, not with some bulls*** striping, just when one drive fills up... start using another one...


So you run 5 x 3 TB in your Proliant? What filesystem ?

Do you also have another 5 x 3 TB drives to backup those drives? If so.. how?

Yeah that's why i would move to Windows Storage space it does that.

I am running ZFS at the moment, I dont care about/do backup I just want to be ok if one drive fails. I dont really have anything real important on there just lots movies etc. Important stuff i have on a few devices around the place and on the cloud.

OK well I'm motivated to have another crack at sorting my stuff out properly. I suspect that the performance/crashing issues are partly because I've kept 12GB of USB drives plugged into it. If it won't boot well with those plugged in, it may also explain the crashing.

Try Nas4Free as a suitable alternate for FreeNAS. Linux with ZFSonLinux is also a pretty option. Install webmin or something if you want a web GUI to drive it all (except setting up the ZFS pool). Nas4Free gives you heaps more software RAID options (such as the RAID options build in to FreeBSD which are pretty good). If you go Linux, you have lots of options and you might not even need ZFS at all, (MD Raid and/or LVM).

yeah also make sure you installed the right version to the USB key. The first time i did it i put everything on the USB stick except for media which meant lots of reading and writing on the USB stick. The stick died in about 6months.

I'm setting one up for someone ATM, and wanna get DLNA working

What is the simplest way?

End goal is just streaming to a Samsung TV

openmediavault and the mionidlna plugin or mediatomb which you can install a number of ways

I'm setting one up for someone ATM, and wanna get DLNA workingWhat is the simplest way?End goal is just streaming to a Samsung TV

If you can run Plex media server as Samsung TV supports Plex

http://www.samsung.com/us/appstore/app/G00002687241#



http://www.plexapp.com/


Edit you can run Plex server on OpenMediaVault

http://linuxpluse.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/openmediavault-plex-media-server-as-home-media-server/

I'm setting one up for someone ATM, and wanna get DLNA working

What is the simplest way?

End goal is just streaming to a Samsung TV

Look into OpenMediaVault JMR - works a treat

Thermite, I'm running Windows 7 on my N36L and using 'Drive Bender' which is a 'disk pooling' piece of software.
It basically keeps all of the disks I'm using as NTFS, and sets them up as one gigantic partition.
Files are stored on a single disk; and if I want something kept on multiple disks, I just nominate the directory, and tell it how many copies I want.

I was pondering a N54L... tho I might hold off for the next model.
Trick is, will it be <$300.
(which is what made the N36L such an appealing option)

Very good IVY_Mike, thank you

I will definitely revisit this thread next time I'm redoing it, but it's such a hassle to redo it!


I don't know how you guys who use cloud backup can use that. You don't get much space. I don't take many photos, I mean really I am very much against living life through a lens, and I have 17GB of camera photos, not including video of which there is tonnes more than that.
15GB of important documents, 374GB of work files

Sure the other 11 Terrabytes aren't as important, but the bit that is important... still s***loads of it compared to what online storage services will give you....

There are some that will do a large amount, but you're pretty much paying for a new hard drive every month at that rate. Some say 'unlimited' but as if...

just crashed the bastard by trying to copy multiple files *sigh*

B120i - meh, its nice they have dropped in dual nic but broadcoms a sack of s***. Intergrated ilo engine is great, I just did a round on installing RAC in a few G7's today. Personally I would of prefered a P210i and dual intel nic but then its going at add a s***e tonne to the cost

well i have few cloud accounts, i've got 23gb with Dropbox, 25gb with skydrive and what ever you get with gmail storage

Very good IVY_Mike, thank you

I will definitely revisit this thread next time I'm redoing it, but it's such a hassle to redo it!


.

I installed win8 on my microserver and from what I remember it does all the drive pooling etc natively, similar to how the original home server functioned.

I installed win8 on my microserver and from what I remember it does all the drive pooling etc natively, similar to how the original home server functioned.

Correct its called Storage Spaces, WIndows 8 and WIndows Server 2012 does this, which i will be doing in next couple weeks, just trying to find places to store 5.9TB of data :S

Hmmm, looks like this might be something I'd actually recommend to others (depending on the RAID controller)

I am looking at upgrading mainly to get back into the Windows platform. Looking at running Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 using Storage Space

I was looking at that for my home NAS at the end of last year but decided against it. Storage Spaces only allows simple (i think it's RAID0), two-way mirror (like RAID1), three-way mirror (33% available space), and parity (pretty much RAID5). There's no RAID6 equivalent.

In my test setup, ReFS was pretty slow (even when the OS was installed on bare metal). Admittedly I'd have gotten better performance with NTFS, but I wouldn't have gotten as much benefit from it as I'd like. Also, if I recall correctly, a thin provisioned parity "space" (whatever the term is) that's nearing it's physical limit might not rebalance properly when you add more devices to it. Maybe I might be doing it wrong at the time... haven't seen much about best-practice and optimal setups.

I ended up running OpenIndiana with napp-it for ZFS under ESXi 5. ZRAID2 (similar to RAID6) with 8 drives in a single vdev served over NFS & CIFS. Only issues I've had was mapping unix & windows users (I don't run any form of AD at home).

Performance is worlds apart from Storage Spaces + ReFS.

yeah Parity (RAID 5) is what i am looking for, I am not very good with Unix/Linux so really want to keep with windows based.


Has anyone used FlexRaid???
http://www.flexraid.com/

But I don't want RAID, especially hardware RAID. :( I just want the 4 disks to be seen as 1 disk, not with some bulls*** striping, just when one drive fills up... start using another one...

Windows 8 does this pretty well with Storage Spaces, which is in server 2012 as well.

There's some implementation caveats (you want to plan it rather than just mash disks together ad hoc), see http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/storage-spaces-explained-a-great-feature-when-it-works/

Edit: s*** yeh so this was answered a few times. Anyway I'm using it and it hasn't f***ed anything up yet.

yeah Parity (RAID 5) is what i am looking for, I am not very good with Unix/Linux so really want to keep with windows based.Has anyone used FlexRaid???http://www.flexraid.com/

I am just setting up my server now with flexraid. Was originally runing freenas which I must admit was working pretty well. I was more after the drive pooling with some redundancy than anything else.

yeah Parity (RAID 5) is what i am looking for, I am not very good with Unix/Linux so really want to keep with windows based.Has anyone used FlexRaid???http://www.flexraid.com/

i thought windows server does raid 5 natively, or at least it did back with NT4 which is the last time i looked at it. :)

I am just setting up my server now with flexraid. Was originally runing freenas which I must admit was working pretty well. I was more after the drive pooling with some redundancy than anything else.

Yeah same. OS on SSD and 5x3tb HDD for my Data

how is flexraid going was told people are having problems with it running windows server 2012

I'm running WHS2011, Software raid5 on mine. No problems at all. Seems to max out the 1gb network more or less. More than i need. I have an n36. I've been hapy with it but if I was doing it again I'd defiantly get an i3 + mitx box.

I ended up running OpenIndiana with napp-it for ZFS under ESXi 5. ZRAID2 (similar to RAID6) with 8 drives in a single vdev served over NFS & CIFS. Only issues I've had was mapping unix & windows users (I don't run any form of AD at home).

Performance is worlds apart from Storage Spaces + ReFS.

Read this over and over again, storage spaces is a f***ing slow pile of s***

Solairs 11 + Napp-it here

so Herbal, can i run Windows 2012 on SSD drive then run Solairs 11 + Napp-it on top of it?

As this stage i think i will install Driverbender heard lots of good things
http://www.drivebender.com/

My gripe isn't server 2012 its specially storage spaces and ReFS that I have a problem with.

Its more of a we tried it in several configurations and hit the s*** out of it and it was utterly f***ing crap. Don't take my word for it, deploy it yourself benchmark it up. I have a work college running it on an N40L which has shown woeful mediocre performance (sub 30mb transfers) but he is sticking with it because he just likes windows. Its not a bad thing or nothing or even an anti ms thing, its a boat tonne of testing that's already been done, and it was a crap thing.

I actually like Server 2012 (with the exception of the tiled s***) most of its pretty decent. And I was genuinely excited when I was at MS having them talk it up. But getting my hands on it, its been less so... allot less so

I am not entirely convinced on BTFS for that matter either. I a waiting on what happens with bcache which finally got merged other week. And once they iron the remaining stuff out then it could be a coffin nail for zfs, but I am not going to run off and implement it in production just yet.

I'm getting rid of my last of 3 micro servers cause its just not suitable for my needs anymore, but the G8 is a compelling option if the specs are to be believed. I would be interested to see what cpu support is like. It reads like the cpu might be upgradeable. Would be good it you could drop E3-1260L in there up it to 32gb of ram and it would be great little vm box for people. I can't see it happening since it starts to eat into the low end ML series

Ok well i'll tell you how i'll go.

I believe I have decided to go with Windows 2012 with Drivebender

Yes been reading alot about Space Storage and everyone said its really slow. At the moment i am just copying files to other hdd i got lying around 5TB of s*** i need to move :(

I would be keen to hear your results on Drivebender, I am dirty at the moment since I have been fixing up retarded issues with a mates MSA2000 G2 HA config which has put me in a foul as f*** mood.

So do try it post your finding back here and see what you think. Do try BTFS and also give ZFS a go as well

will do i have zfs now with freenas 8.2