HPE Proliant Servers

  • Hi Spy Alelo


    Can I pick your brains on options please? I have an N54L which I bought new in about 2013, and aside from adding RAM it's pretty much as it came out of the box (I did run OMV off a USB stick originally, but now using a 120GB SSD with OMV6). It's mainly used as a media server, but also to backup a desktop and couple of laptops. At times it's struggled with 4k content, but suspect that's as much a network issue as a data handling one! At the moment it's working fine.


    I've hit 85% capacity with my 4x3TB WD Reds in RAID5, so have begun the process of migrating to new 6TB WD Red Plus drives (3rd one currently rebuilding the RAID as I type) but what's got my attention now is that the hardware is clearly getting quite old and although no failures to date I do worry it might one day just go pop in a way that's not economically viable to repair. The server lives on a shelf high up in a cupboard so dust isn't much of an issue and temps of drives happily sit around 28-30C (82-86F) so really just wondering at what point I'm likely to be living on borrowed time (I suspect I already am!)?


    I saw your suggestion of the Gen 10 Plus above, and that's defo an option (although lack of an optical bay is a minus, as I was always tempted to fit one to the N54L for running Handbrake straight onto the storage - having not done it so far, it's defo not a deal breaker!). From a practicality point of view, if I swapped/cloned my OMV installation drive into a Gen 10 Plus is OMV likely to 'just work' and be a simple hardware swap, with maybe a repair of the install to deal with hardware differences, or will I need to treat it as a completely new install?


    Are there other generations of the micro servers still in production that are worth looking at as options?


    Many thanks


    Adrian

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I agree that your old server may have reached the point that is no longer a good option to keep feeding new drives to.


    As far as transitioning, I’d recommend a fresh install so you can take advantage of UEFI, and you will need UEFI anyway if you need to boot off a NVMe SSD which I strongly recommend.


    As of right now, Microservers only exist on Gen7 (yours), Gen8, Gen10 and Gen10+. Gen8 has been discontinued for a while and Gen10 was not a great replacement in my opinion since it lacks a lot of what made the Gen8 a great server.


    Gen10+ brings it all back, has more options and it is smaller. Definitely avoid a discontinued model if you can help it since UEFI is a big deal and this only started on Gen9 hardware. Gen10 as far as the Microservers are concerned.

  • Thanks for that Spy Alelo - looking at the Gen10+ it appears there's a few different versions available here in the UK. I presume for a NAS solution then the 'lowest' spec one (Pentium G5420 processor) is more than sufficient, and not worth spending more on the Xeon processors? I note the basic one ships with 8GB of memory (which is all my N54L has anyway) and the more expensive ship with 16GB. Is it worth adding memory if OMV is all I'm running on it?


    I've noted those links to the card and NVMe SSD - definitely on my radar to go that route :)

  • Adrian E are you looking at this one I use zfs on my N54L I'm trying to work out from the specs/data for that Gen10 if this is doable or is the raid controller specific for software raid only

    Yes, that's the one I'm looking at. I'm still using Ext4 on my N54L so can't comment on the zfs query (it's beyond my knowledge, but seen quite a few threads about it so presume in OMV6 there are reasons for going that route, over ext4 if starting from a new build?)


    Hopefully Spy Alelo can comment on the techie query :)

  • Adrian E are you looking at this one I use zfs on my N54L I'm trying to work out from the specs/data for that Gen10 if this is doable or is the raid controller specific for software raid only

    I’ve seen people run truenas on the 10+ (don’t get the 10) so ZFS is supported.

    Former Xpenology user moved to OMV 6.x with ZFS.

    HP Microserver Gen8 - 16GB RAM - 1x 32GB USB - 1x 480 GB SSD - 4x 16TB Exos (Shucked) / ZFS - OMV 6.x bare metal

    HP Microserver Gen7 N54L - 8GB RAM - 1x 32GB USB - 1x 240 GB SSD - 4x 4TB / ZFS - OMV 6.x bare metal

  • Yes, that's the one I'm looking at. I'm still using Ext4 on my N54L so can't comment on the zfs query (it's beyond my knowledge, but seen quite a few threads about it so presume in OMV6 there are reasons for going that route, over ext4 if starting from a new build?)


    Hopefully Spy Alelo can comment on the techie query :)

    ZFS is great. Has good performance and bitrot protection. Very simple to move a pool from system to system. Can snapshot your data for version control.

    Former Xpenology user moved to OMV 6.x with ZFS.

    HP Microserver Gen8 - 16GB RAM - 1x 32GB USB - 1x 480 GB SSD - 4x 16TB Exos (Shucked) / ZFS - OMV 6.x bare metal

    HP Microserver Gen7 N54L - 8GB RAM - 1x 32GB USB - 1x 240 GB SSD - 4x 4TB / ZFS - OMV 6.x bare metal

  • I'm running Proliant N54L since 2-3 years and recently was considering upgrade - mostly because of energy prices going up.

    However, when calculated how much current hardware consumes monthly and compared this to cost of new drives. I was considering SSDs only as fastest and most power efficient. Cost of upgrade would be compensated by lower energy bills in next few years.

    In my case I don't have problem with specs of my server. I don't use media servers because all amazon sticks and smart TVs can run VLC with Samba access and it looks like media centre - no needs for Plex or other DLNA anymore. No trans-coding - just file transfer and it's compressed file transfer, so more efficient.

    I was planning to upgrade disks to SSDs, but Server itself was planed to be replaced by spare RPi4 4GB I have.
    Thing is that I don't want to run 3.5 HDD drives with raspberry - so if I've abandoned upgrade to SSDs, I've also abandoned use of RPi4.

    In terms of UEFI - I hate it. It causes problems only.
    I have HP ProBook where it was nightmare to install Linux - all because UEFI manager can't recognise boot image and I had to enter path manually in the BIOS, but problem was that in UK keyboard layout of ProBook backslash button don't work in the BIOS. Eventually, I started pressing all buttons one after one and finally found backshlash under hash key.

  • Sorry for reviving this thread, but...


    I could get a Proliant Microserver Gen10 plus v2 with a Pentium Gold. I am somehow tempted to replace the meanwhile unsupported Helios64 even if it runs smoothly on my hand. The question would be: Are 2 cores enough for a NAS? And: Would the HP Microserver outperform the ARM64 machine that I have? Corewise the Helios64 has 6 but I somehow think it has also something to do with the use case.


    Actually I store all my data within encrypted drives on the NAS. It acts as a media server mainly for music on a ssd but does also serve for movie streaming once in a while from other 3,5 spinning drives. I use some media dockers and sometimes jellyfin is laggy and Photoprism never worked smoothly with the Helios64


    So, would the HP significantly push me forward within that use case? Or would it be wiser to keep the Helios64 with moderate to low power consumption? Also to take into account would be the RAM. HP has 16GB and the Helios64 just 4GB.

  • bunducafe The Proliant Microserver Gen10 plus v2 is dinky but expensive in the UK/EU, running from an external power brick. I've no direct experience of this latest unit, only the earlier GEN8. Have you seen these reviews here and here ? No product is perfect and it's worth googling for known problems. Unlike the GEN8, getting advanced ilo 5 means the additional purchase of an enablement unit.


    On paper the G6405 easily out performs the Helios64 rockchip cpu. I'd expect G6405 with 2 core 4 threads to have no problem with your stated use. The one area it might be limiting is if you wanted run virtual machines within OMV.


    Of course power consumption is another matter and I can't offer any real world figures there.

  • Krisbee Thanks for the info. I already had a quick look into the links... now I am even more tempted to get the thing... indeed it is kind of a bargain to get the Microserver which not really helps in decision making :)


    So if, in the far future, I would play around with VMs, would it then be feasable to upgrade the CPU? Or is that kind of tricky / impossible here?

  • So if, in the far future, I would play around with VMs, would it then be feasable to upgrade the CPU? Or is that kind of tricky / impossible here?

    Doesn't the second link list a table of CPUs? As it's a proper socketed cpu with a decent fan free cooler a swap/upgrade looks possible to me. Prices and availability of the various compatible xeons is the question.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I do happen to have one of these with the iLO5 enablement card. You can get the card for around $40 on Amazon.


    As far as the CPU is concerned, it is plenty powerful as a NAS and run Dockers or any other containers you choose. VMs are okay if you have plenty of memory, but not stellar.


    If you get one, I recommend a NVMe M.2 SSD on a low profile PCIe adapter for your boot drive. Any low cost solution will do, and this thing is rock solid in terms of reliability. And yes, is more efficient than your older setup.

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