How do you guys host your storage?

[reverend]

Just a heads up for anyone thinking of getting into these, HP released a new Microserver - the N40L.

It's pretty much the same but with a better base spec as follows:

AMD Turion II Neo N40L 1.5GHz Dual-Core CPU, 2GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM (8gb max), Internal SATA Cold Plug SATA 250GB Hard-Drive, Embedded RAID 0/1, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 150W PSU, 1 Year Warranty

They're still doing the £100 cashback on the new ones too so I picked one up from Dabs and you can get Quidco and stuff with that, works out about £130.

Just a pain in the arse that I waited until now as disk prices have gone through the bloody roof!

[Tim.Lad]

Not regretting my purchase best self built NAS ever 5TB raid lol

Ouch just been looking at the price of drives what's that all about !!

[reverend]

Crazy isn't it - I nearly bought 4 more of the Samsung HD204s a while back - really wish I had now! The porn collection will just have to go on hold for a while now!!

Still loving the first one, it's brilliant running Kalemsoft to stream stuff to the Touchpad from anywhere too, hoping the extra grunt of this one will mean I can stream the higher bandwidth HD stuff better!

[BertRoot]

I got one of the N36 ones a few weeks back and have to say it is the tits. Lacking discs at the moment though cos of the price hikes. Cracking little box running 2k8 r2 currently.

Just noticed the wife has had confirmation of the 100 quid back as well, was a bit worried as I work for HP and offer is not open to us.

[casio]

Not regretting my purchase best self built NAS ever 5TB raid lol

Ouch just been looking at the price of drives what's that all about !!

Same here m8 I built my freenas box about a year ago, maybe more and other than the odd power cut the only time its been off is when I added more drives and going by the prices I glad I did it in the summer I upped it from 6tb to 11.5tb I know ive said it before but 11.5tb should last me a while providing I leave the 1080p films alone lol

[beerman]

Damm, wish I'd waited now. I have the N36 with 4x2TB drives and stuck a graphics card and 4gb ram I had in there and running XBMC on top of Windows Home Server. Works well for watching 1080p films and added together with all the features of WHS it's excellent. I only paid £120 a month or so ago so would have waited if I'd known the new one was getting the cashback as well.

[Over Carl]

Another interesting option, get a poweredge 2900 of ebay for around £400, for this you should be able to get a xeon quad core (5300 series), and 4gb. Another 4gb can be found on ebay for around £30, 2900 has 12 dimm slots for max 48gb. Also has 8 drive bays - nice for a big raid, and I've also got part jg110 to convert a dvd bay into 2 more 3.5 hot swap bays. Proper hardware raid controller, and if lucky you may even bag a drac remote access card.

I've got one box currently loaded with small but fast sas drives which I'm using as my hyperv host, and I've got another with no drives just waiting for me to get a job again and prices to come down, although the perc5 (&6) cards won't take drives bigger than 2tb.

[Geko]

Can someone tell me how WHS compares to the linux build on my qnap?

I want to use it for streaming to Squeezebox and to XBMC. Any issue?

And for backing up data in RAID 5.

[beerman]

Can someone tell me how WHS compares to the linux build on my qnap?

I want to use it for streaming to Squeezebox and to XBMC. Any issue?

And for backing up data in RAID 5.

As long as what you are streaming to can access SMB shares it'll work fine. raid 5 can be setup either using a hardware card or in software as the base for whs 2011 is server 2008 r2

Sent from my HTC Sensation XE

[Geko]

What is power consumption like on the 8 bay beasty that overcarl posted about?

Can I install sabnzbd and sickbeard and the like onto WHS?

[Over Carl]

2900 has 930w psu, maybe even 2 of them if you have the redundant psu option. I'm sure it doesn't pull all that* but I noticed it warms up the room quite nicely! A matey told me I would be looking at around £200/year after his experience with his similar size hp's. I'm hoping to borrow a clamp meter and test it some time, will post back if I ever do.

Iirc I tested a dell precsionn t3400 a while ago, psu rated at 525w, I observed something like a 150w load.

[BertRoot]

The HP sits at about 55w IIRC under load.

[Tim.Lad]

I have notice sab and sickbeard write to the disk a lot even when they are idle so if you are worried about power consumption run your OS on one disk and have you data on the others, i have 1 250GB os disk and 4 x 2tb in software raid5 this was the raid drives all spin down when they have been idle for a while but the os disk stays spinning all the time

[eblaster101]

the guys managed to fit another 3.5 drive in the disk drive bay

http://lime-technology.com/forum/ind...&topic=11585.0

might be giving that a shot when i get mine.

[beerman]

I have a 3.5 inch in my 5.25 inch bay. Mines just attached with Velcro although I'll be removing it and changing it to a 2.5 and sticking it under the bay in the free space when I get a Bluray

[Tim.Lad]

the guys managed to fit another 3.5 drive in the disk drive bay

http://lime-technology.com/forum/ind...&topic=11585.0

might be giving that a shot when i get mine.

That's how mine is setup not hard all you need is a cheap £3.00 5.25 to 3.5" adaptor

[Rob]

I really tempted to get a HP server, I was looking at a qnap 410 but that costs 250 and then your more limited although it will just work out of the box without much config choices choices.................

[eblaster101]

got mine today is a nice bit of kit problem is i cant setup raid 5 without wiping exisitng drives dont have no where to backup the data

[Geko]

I really tempted to get a HP server, I was looking at a qnap 410 but that costs 250 and then your more limited although it will just work out of the box without much config choices choices.................

I have a 409, and I am looking myself at the HP server. I prefer the windows OS, and the fact I am not limited to 4 x 2TB.

[Tim.Lad]

got mine today is a nice bit of kit problem is i cant setup raid 5 without wiping exisitng drives dont have no where to backup the data

I had that problem and just bit the bullet and got a full set of new 2tb drives and then sold the old ones on here to recoop the costs