/HSG/

Bump for interest, those HP micro servers are adorable.

>>55760475
Also, I'm planning on running OMV on it, with a cheap SSD hooked up to the ODD slot, so if I want some Windows server in one of my dense moment, I can just, you know, have it.

>>55760475
I got one. It's pretty awesome.
Avoid the integrated RAID though.

>>55760677
Wasn't planning on using that onboard fake-RAID, I'll let the OS handle that.

>>55760685
As long as you turn it to AHCI, you should be good with that. Booting can be awkward: I boot mine off the internal microSD (/boot), and there's an SSD crudely mounted with insulation tape in the top section where the slimline optical drive would go, if I had one. (You need a floppy power Berg to SATA power adapter to do that.) Port 5 is SATA 2 (only ports 1 & 2 are SATA 3) but that's no big deal. It only does BIOS boot and it takes like 3 minutes to POST.

You need a key for iLO Advanced if you want remote console over network. Happily, you can pick those keys up on eBay for a pittance, they're legit, and they work forever.

It runs great. The always 100% fan firmware bug isn't there anymore: runs at about 12% and is barely audible (I was worrying about having to replace it, and ths connector is proprietary because of course it is). I even actually got my cashback (to my surprise, I never trust those rebate things).

It's solid. Incredibly good for the knockdown price.

>>55760881
>As long as you turn it to AHCI
I read around the forums, and people said that when turned into AHCI, the fan is fucking loud, for some godforsaken reason, also people report unaccurate SMART reading with AHCI.

But, allegedly, if you turn at least one of your drives (most commonly the SSD hooked up to the ODD slot), everything becomes A-OK. So I plan on using my SSD as a single-drive RAID0, and the 4bay HDDs will be RAID-ed by mdadm.

ordered one today,
not going to put an ssd in yet because I don't have a spare one but an older 2.5 sata

I also bought one of those fancy 9,5mm fake dvdr HDD caddy to connect to the ODD and ofc an adapter cable

as for the boot, I've read one can setup a single disk raid0 from the ODD having things running smoothly without AHCI / usb or microsd solutions

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i've had mine for about a year now. lowest end variant possible, 2G ram and a Celeron 1810G, two 2TB-drives in RAID 1, running debian 8.

i use it to host my owncloud, windows file shares and as a dev server. power usage is very low, running it 24/7 hasn't had much of an impact on my power bill, which is very nice.

what exactly are the iLO advanced features?

Can I get some advice here about baby's 1st home server?

>>55762550
for example not getting disconnected every few minutes.

>>55762734
dude, are you using dialup for ssh?

>>55762808
He was talking about iLO. SSH has nothing to do with it.

>>55762822
he was asking what the advanced features were, you responded that not getting disconnected every few minutes was one of them. i assumed that you were implying iLO > SSH/remote desktop.

>>55762849
Well, for remotely installing an OS or viewing the BIOS through network, or sending a reset/cold boot/poweroff signal, that's the way to go.

>>55760902
As I mentioned, that firmware bug has already been fixed since earlier this year. My Gen8 microserver has AHCI on all drives including the SSD (I use btrfs on dm-crypt on the SSD mounted to /, microSD ext4 mounted to /boot, and btrfs on dm-crypt as a multi-device on all four hard disks), SMART seems accurate and functioning on all 4 Seagate archive drives and the Crucial SSD, and the (Delta) fan operates normally at a non-offensive, barely-audible 12-15% (depending on load and temp, affected most by ambient temperature) once GRUB2 boots and throughout the OS running. (It POSTs at 100% for safety and there is no mistaking the two, Delta fans are loud, but it slows down afterwards.)

I suppose a lot of posts are simply out of date or running old firmware - which js a possibility because HPE restrict firmware update downloads to those with active warranties, because... I don't know, because they're money-grubbing gits I guess.

Remember that I am booting off the microSD. Otherwise it'd want to boot off the drives in the array. However that works perfectly for me, because that holds the unencrypted /boot partition which loads the kernel and initramfs, and I have a USB HSM token with keys in the internal USB slot.

I also swapped the stock Celeron G1610T for one of the compatible low-power Xeons of that vintage because I happened to be able to get one cheap: however in most cases that won't be needed and it seems that if you can get one of the right model now, you'd probably pay as much for it as for the rest of the server, sans disks!

I am not using any crazy blob drivers , or any software RAID. It's Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but Debian jessie would probably have worked just as well if I didn't mind slightly older software.

>>55762550
Primarily being able to use remote console after boot, and being able to network-online ISOs. I didn't really need it: just a bonus to help any rescue.

Uptime is currently in the 80 days range I think (I run rebootless).

>>55763119
Is there any benefit of putting /boot to a separate drive?

>>55763138
Not as such. Config demands it.

I have an encrypted root (on the SSD), and the hard drive volume (on /arch) too, so /boot has to be a separate partition in any case, so there's some way for the system to boot into initramfs to get keys to decrypt the root and boot the system.

My SSD is in port 5 (the optical drive port), and shoved in the top where that would go. But you can't tell the BIOS to boot from that: only to boot from the RAID card in AHCI mode, upon which the RAID card's firmware would dumbly try the first drive (port 0, the first hard disk). So, that won't work and that's why /boot isn't just a partition on the SSD on this occasion.

They don't recommend booting from microSD normally: microSDs aren't known for their reliability and quality and they don't do fancy sector remapping like SSDs, they're actually pretty dumb flash. However I've got a decent quality genuine Samsung microSD in there. There haven't been any issues - writing is slower to it than the SSD (when update-initramfs -u runs, which as anyone who's run Debian or Ubuntu knows, is every time you sneeze or blink when doing an apt dist-upgrade, including twice or thrice in one run!) but it's still pretty reasonable because it's a very good microSD card I'm using and I'm using a journaled filesystem (ext4).

I do have a spare handy, and can always mount an ISO with iLO Advanced, or a good old USB stick, to recover if that died.

Using the server primarily for a NAS (Samba 4), as well as the front-end firewall/router (2 good Broadcom NICs as opposed to shit Realtek): internet in port 2 to the untrusted cable modem, port 1 goes to LAN's gigabit switch (as does iLO port), and I have a decent Atheros WiFi card in the low-profile PCIe port, policy routing the WiFi using WPA2 Enterprise using hostapd. Oh, and a trusted random source, using the custom internal USB HSM and some custom software with a custom protocol based on Trevor Perrin's "Noise".

It works a treat.

>>55763331
>upon which the RAID card's firmware would dumbly try the first drive (port 0, the first hard disk)
So it would go through the drives from port0 to port 4(ODD) to find a bootable system? The how do they expect you to boot from the ODD, should the need arise?

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old pic - its very different now, tried to take a new pic but came out a blurry mess since i had to stand on one leg and hold rack door open

two n36l microservers in there now

>want to build home server
>buying a second hand server isn't an option
>build a core 2 duo based one out of old parts

Not too bad I guess

I need a cheap HDMI gpu for an unRAID server (turns out the mobo has no onboard graphics). Any recommendations? Ability to play 1080p video is nice but not really important. The most important aspect is low power draw.

>>55766692
I have a GF 720 in my home server. Reason I got it was because a.) it was only like $45 new, and b.) unlike anything higher-end than that, it can be had with a passive cooler on it.

Comes with a low-profile bracket too, so you can stuff it in a rackmount case or something, if you like.

so, this iLO advanced isn't a jew scam right?
30bucks is not that much per se but ffs

>>55760475
Been running a HP MicroServer constantly for nearly 12 months now. It's got 12TB storage, upgraded ram to 16GB and installed an SSD in the empty disk bay.

Extremely solid pieces of equipment especially if you install something like CentOS on it. It doesn't have native RAID5 support but you can just add a decent RAID Controller.

>>55766802
What are you running on it that requires that much ram?

How bad of an idea would a cheaper r710 be for a first server? Trying to get something that will take 3.5" drives so it can function as a NAS, too.

>>55766841
It's running a plex server, web server, hosting a few home automation apps and databases such as mongoDB and SQL.

I use it as an all round general server at the moment, looking at getting a second server to rack mount into my cabinet so I can split my network up a bit better.

>>55766790
Depends on that you need the features it provides.

I'm a sysadmin, and I don't know how many occasions it saved me from going down to the southern side of the city into the server room, just so I can do things that can't be done when there's no networking on those bladeservers.

If you plan on using it at home, especially if you put it womewhere you can easily physically access it, then I guess it's a bit of a luxury,

>>55763352
If you're booting from the RAID card in AHCI mode, you can tell the AHCI firmware to boot from an optical drive or a hard drive. You just can't tell it which optical drive or hard drive; it boots the first drive of that type it sees.

Yes, that is a bit silly. Welcome to HPE.

>>55766790
It kind of is, but you can get a code for less than that. You really don't necessarily need it for a home server, it just allows you to mount an ISO over the network and gives you a remote console you can use after the BIOS exits; if you're at home you might find it alright to just use a regular keyboard, mouse and VGA-compatible monitor (yes, VGA: the onboard graphics are a Matrox chip, partying like it's the mid-1990s) and maybe a USB stick or something.

You would be amazed at the things people try to nickel-and-dime "enterprises" on. HPE are still better than One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.