Storage The HP Micro Server Thread

Definitely wait till its back to £100 or less, they have released a new version so it's bound to be back on in the new year.

Currently I'm running OpenMediaVault on the 250gb hdd moved to the 5.25" top bay. And running the lower 4x 1.5tb drives in RAID 5. OMV has a large plugin directory and currently it also provides torrents, samba shares, and oracle virtual servers. I've got 2 VMs running a minecraft server and a plex media server which can handle 720p encoding.

 

To be honest, the new G8 version is much much better, but also more expensive in most markets*. It has a HP RAID controller, dual LAN, iLO - simply a completely different feature level compared to the G7 Microservers (N40L & friends).

*Here in Slovakia the base G8 model with G1610T and 2GB RAM can be bought for 250 euros, which is a very good price.

 

The new G8 model is a lot more expensive and not sure you will be able to mod the bios to allow you to use 6 disks like the older model the N54L is spot on the price performance ratio.

 

That is why i said it is much cheaper here in Slovakia. G7 was ~200€ most of the time, we never had a cashback option. So a G8 for 239.86 € is a good deal compared to the prices of G8 i seen around the internet in UK.

Of course 6 drives with G8 microserver is impossible, as the motherboard has only one mSAS (for 4 drives) connected to the B120i controller and a single SATA connector for the DVD drive :


On other side you got two USB3 ports, so it is actually a better option if you are planning to connect some 4 bay USB3 external bays (or if you are lucky, there are maybe some 8 bay too), so you can easily have 4 internal+1 internal+4 via USB3+4 via USB3 = 13 drives!

Now add the fact that the motherboard has actually 2 LAN ports, so you can convert it to be a router too, plus it has iLO and in worst case scenario you still have the low profile PCI-E slot, and it is in my opinion a much better option if you can get it for the price like i can. If i wouldn't have my monster server, i would seriously consider it.

EDIT: And now i see it also has a microSD slot on the motherboard .

 

At the price difference it is a good option for you, would like to see one setup with 13 drives attached.

 

Just about to rebuild my n36, would you recommend openmediavault over unraid?

 

Both have merits but omv can do much more and think is better supported

 

QFT, I use OMV, has much more options / plugins for doing more than just RAID data storage. Great web interface and dead easy to setup and free.

 

+1. I've not tried the new version (5) yet since Fedaykin (4) is running just fine for me and I don't believe all of the plugins have been ported as yet?

Maybe a wee project for Christmas with a scotch in hand...

 

Does everyone use raid 5?

The attractiveness of unraid was the free use of any size hdd

 

I don't use any RAID at all. Really think it's counter productive in a home environment unless you're running something "mission critical". In my server I use separate 2TB discs for music, movies and pictures and a 500GB disc for backing up our home computers. I regularly back these up to large capacity USB drives.

Having seen more failures *because* of RAID I'm much more comfortable with this.

 

I tend to agree, I worry that my OMV install may mess up and I'm left with software raid 5 that I can't save. But as you've said I have back ups elsewhere raid 5 gives me speed and I can save it with one drive failure.

 

Linux software RAID configuration backup = copy the /etc/mdadm.conf file somewhere for safekeeping (to cloud for example) .

 

Thanks!

 

FYI https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_Recovery

 

Cheers guys could be really useful in the future. Has anyone updated to the new version of omv?

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

 

I'll probably update this week, simply because I like tinkering. I believe v5 has an inbuilt file manager which will be useful. Not sure if all plugins are migrated though? DLNA, CUPS and Transmission are my most loved.

 

Does the G8 not have eSATA? It would be better to use eSATA then USB 3 for an external HDD case(like 4 bay case). the G7 series has it, even the NL 36 has it. I would be surprised to hear that the G8 doesn't.

 

eSATA in G7 didn't support port multipliers, so it was much worse for non-RAID external storage than USB3. And no, G8 doesn't have eSATA.

 

Hot $@#! I hate it when they cut corners like that.
Thank you for the info

BTW does any one know how high we can push a Low profile GPU in the GEN 8 boxes?
In Gen 7 it went crazy high to like a HD 6650 low pro if memory servs.