HP Micro Server - what a lovely toy (especially with 16TB raw storage)

jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
I love this little box.

Especially since there is a nice cash-back offer in the UK (The N36L though, with 1.3Ghz and 250GB HDD).

I was looking for a small NAS with 'potential' so that was the best choice really. My main concern was a remote management card, so I had a system built based on SuperMicro so I can add an IPMI card.

When a colleague read out loud that this thing supports IPMI 2.0 - I was flicking out my CC immediately.

Now the UK offer comes with 1.3Ghz (N36L), 1GB of RAM and 250GB SATA.

Seing that the thing has an internal USB port, the main question is : Shall I install ESXi .. well OBVIOUSLY .. however, fake raid isn't recognized as such and as a result the Raid 1 is being seen as two single disks.

Didn't want to hack myself some RDMs and run software Raid, so 2008R2 it was (with free ISCSI target). Needless to say I got myself some RAM and upgraded it to its maximum of 8GB ...

The I thought - having a 24/7 running NAS I might as well use it for stuff like ripping DVDs, Mediaserver and the sorts. CPU isn't the strongest, but let's face it, the thing has enough time while I am at work or during the night to churn through those rips ...

Unfortunately some programs refused to install on server (DVD Shrink) but once the installer (and later the executable) is added to the exclusion list of DEP (enabled) - it works all like a charm ....

(tried Windows 7 under Hyper-V first but discovered it doesn't support USB passthrough - WTF - so scrapped it).

I still installed ESXi on a USB stick which I can boot from when I want to test something for study purposes (simply because I bought the stick and it is too small to use for proper stuff, so might as well leave it in there).

For this one I used the built-in 250GB as system disk. Then I insert a spare 750GB Enterprise model SATA from Seagate for non-essential stuff and two 2TB spindles (Seagte green 5900 rpm drives) mirrored for "stuff to keep" such as itunes.

A DVD burner is a no brainer :)

Now the fun bit is that I read a few posts on other forums where people tried to put in 8 disks / raid controller and started to modify the case with a dremel ...

Just in case there are people here trying to acomblish the same, here is how I will "mofidy" my second one on order, giving you 16TB raw storage ...

1. Get a Supermicro Mobile Rack which fits 4x2.5" disk, installed into the ODD bay
2. Get disks for above (4 x ST91000640NS) = 4TB, fitted in the 3.5" ODD bay
3. Get disks for the 4 internal bays (4 x ST33000650NS) = 12TB

Total : 16TB Raw storage

Raid card..... onboard obvioulsy won't cut it but the 8 channel cards from Adaptec, 3Ware and Areca come with low profile plates so they fit into the PCIe slot.

The SuperMicro Mobile Rack has one power connector (already in place for the ODD drive) and 4 SATA connectors. The 4 internal bays are connected via backplane, but also here the backplane is connected via 4x SATA cable, going to a multi lan fan-out straight to the motherboatd.

The Adaptec 5805 for example has 2x Multi-Lane Fan-Outs so you can connect all 8 disks just fine.

This box would even be better with 16GB - but as mass-storage with small footprint - brilliant :)
My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p

Comments

  • EveryoneEveryone Member Posts: 1,661
    Meh, looks like something I'd rather build myself.

    Also you put 3.5" where you meant 2.5". :P I was going to as how exactly you planning on fitting 4 3.5" drives into 2.5" bays, until I looked at the part number.

    Pretty expensive drives... looks like you'll be spending around $2k just on drives.

    Have you considered running FreeNAS on it at all?
  • SteveLordSteveLord Member Posts: 1,717
    Everyone wrote: »
    Have you considered running FreeNAS on it at all?

    Good one. There's also UnRAID. Runs of a flash drive. Free for up to 3 drives I think. I have a NAS box here in the office that I put together out of spare parts.
    WGU B.S.IT - 9/1/2015 >>> ???
  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Everyone wrote: »
    Meh, looks like something I'd rather build myself.

    Also you put 3.5" where you meant 2.5". :P I was going to as how exactly you planning on fitting 4 3.5" drives into 2.5" bays, until I looked at the part number.

    Pretty expensive drives... looks like you'll be spending around $2k just on drives.

    Have you considered running FreeNAS on it at all?
    SteveLord wrote: »
    Good one. There's also UnRAID. Runs of a flash drive. Free for up to 3 drives I think. I have a NAS box here in the office that I put together out of spare parts.

    Wouldn't want to limit myself to JUST a propriaty NAS OS ... Like I say in the first post, I am using it for way more than just serving storage ...

    Cost = true - IF you pay retail and aren't accidentally OEM partner :p

    And what do you mean I said 3.5" ?
    1. Get a Supermicro Mobile Rack which fits 4x2.5" disk, installed into the ODD bay
    2. Get disks for above (4 x ST91000640NS) = 4TB, fitted in the 3.5" ODD bay

    The Mobile Rack fits in a single 3.5" slot housing 4x2.5" drives. (2. Get disks for the above - i.e. the Mobile Rack mentioned in 1. :) )
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
  • EveryoneEveryone Member Posts: 1,661
    For a multi-role, why not do sort of a "Datacenter in a box" as I'd like to call it. Run ESXi off a flash drive, and run something like FreeNAS off a flash drive inside of ESXi. Have FreeNAS handle the storage, and pass some of the storage back to ESXi via iSCSI. Then you get a hypervisor, and a SAN/NAS all in one.


    I want to build one, but can't justify the cost right now, especially since my wife is on maternity leave. I spec'd out a hexacore Xeon system and 9 TB of raw storage to put in an existing 2U case I have for around $1200. I don't even know what I'd do with 9 TB. I've been backing up all the DVD's we own, and still have most of the 2 TB I have right now available.
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