MicroServer N36L/N40L/N54L - 6 Drive Edition

[neilt0]

Preamble
I had been looking to replace an older server that had 10 small drives with a smaller machine with less drives, but with larger capacity.

A deal on the Proliant Microserver had been posted last year, which I didn't take up, but was recently re-promo'd by HP and now with a slightly larger drive, up from 160GB to 250GB.

This time, I couldn't resist. At £121 (US $195) for a chassis, PSU, low power dual core CPU/mobo and RAM with 4 coldswap slots and potential to add a 5th drive, I think it's the bargain of the decade as far as small servers go.

OS at time of building: unRAID 4.7 Pro
CPU: AMD Athlon™ II NEO? N36L (1.3GHz Dual Core, 12W TDP)
Motherboard: ? Here is a photo of the motherboard
RAM: 1GB ECC (standard, upgradable to 8GB)
Case: HP
Drive Cage(s): 4x Cold Swap plastic and metal + 1x Icy Box IB-168SK-B
Power Supply: 150W
SATA Expansion Card(s): None (motherboard includes 2x PCI-E slots)
Cables: n/a
Fans: 1x 120mm fan for whole chassis + 1x 40mm PSU fan

Parity Drive: 2TB ST32000542AS
Data Drives: 2x 2TB WD20EARS, 2x 1.5TB ST31500341AS
Cache Drive: 320GB WD Scorpio 5400rpm
Total Drive Capacity: 7.32TB

Primary Use: SABnzbd, Transmission, Blu-ray server, day-to-day file storage
Likes: Very lower power. Very Quiet (21dB). Compact. Very cheap. Well designed and constructed. Easy to swap out drives. Slide out motherboard tray. IPMI card option. A screwdriver (which fits all screws in the system) and drive screws are held in place in the front door!
Dislikes: You can almost fit another 3.5" drive in the top part of the chassis, but not quite! Plastic parts of coldswap bays feel a little flimsy, but these should be easily user-replaceable if they do break. 250GB drive is a waste of money. They shouldn't have bothered including it.
Add Ons Used: SABnzbd, Transmission, SickBeard, Bandwidth Monitor NG, unMenu, lighttpd, php, nzbgetter, ntfs-3g, screen, unrar.
Future Plans: Upgrade RAM. Upgrade 2.5" cache drive.

Boot (peak): 115W
Idle (avg): 27W (all drives spun down)
Active (avg): 35W (downloading to cache drive at 20mbps with SABnzbd)
Light use (avg): 36W (unpacking rar with SABnzbd)

Parity check speed (at start): 64,271 KB/sec

This photo shows the standard 4 drive slots and the 5th slot added in the 5.25" bay with the use of the Icy Box IB-168SK-B:



In order to run the 5th slot at full SATA speeds, you will need to modify the BIOS. Thanks to zheka_ppp for his help in locating the files needed to do the mod.


I ran an eSATA to SATA cable back in through a PCI slot, up in to the cavity behind the 5.25" bay:




It's easy to fit a 2.5" drive below the 5.25" bay. Viola! 6th drive! I chose this to be the cache drive, so I don't have to worry if the eSATA cable accidentally gets pulled out of the back at some point:




And the Icy Box IB-168SK in place with the 5th drive:



The eSATA to SATA cable is a bit thick and long, but there's plenty of room in the case to accomodate it. I have a thinner cable somewhere (I do not have Cable OCD  ) so when I find that, I may replace the current one.

Closing comments

Other tweaks made:

• Write caching turned on in the BIOS
• VGA set to 32MB in the BIOS
• PCI Power saving turned on in BIOS
• wdidle3 /d for WD drives

I think the HP Proliant Microserver is a fantastic little box. If you are in the market for a server with relatively few drives, and you can get it on a promo price, I highly recommend it.

[aiden]

In my build I could never get the hot swap bay to seat snugly in the ODD because the mounting mechanism is squirrelly.  Did you have any problems?

[neilt0]

In my build I could never get the hot swap bay to seat snugly in the ODD because the mounting mechanism is squirrelly.  Did you have any problems?

It looks like the bezel might be slightly at an angle, but the IB-68 has adjustable wibbly bits, which I haven't tried to wiggle yet.

[aiden]

The Kingwin I used didn't have any way to make such adjustments.  Oh well.  :/

[slewis1972]

Hi

looking at buying the same NAS. I though am considering putting uraid on a usb stick and placing it into the internal USB port. Did you consider this and if so, why did you rule it out?

Thanks

[neilt0]

Hi

looking at buying the same NAS. I though am considering putting uraid on a usb stick and placing it into the internal USB port. Did you consider this and if so, why did you rule it out?

Thanks

Huh? unRAID can only be installed on a USB flash drive, and yes, it's on the internal USB port.

[neilt0]

I read the power meter too soon. On idle, with all drives spun down, it's measuring 27W! 

I've updated the first post.

[aiden]

Hi

looking at buying the same NAS. I though am considering putting uraid on a usb stick and placing it into the internal USB port. Did you consider this and if so, why did you rule it out?

Thanks

Huh? unRAID can only be installed on a USB flash drive, and yes, it's on the internal USB port.

Maybe he just can't see it in the picture.  I too used a USB flash drive and stuck it directly on the board.  That's one of the great features of this pre-fab rig.

[neilt0]

Hi

looking at buying the same NAS. I though am considering putting uraid on a usb stick and placing it into the internal USB port. Did you consider this and if so, why did you rule it out?

Thanks

Huh? unRAID can only be installed on a USB flash drive, and yes, it's on the internal USB port.

Maybe he just can't see it in the picture.  I too used a USB flash drive and stuck it directly on the board.  That's one of the great features of this pre-fab rig.

Yep, good point. I used a very tall Cruzer Contour:



Which will not fit unless I use a flexible USB adapter:



So, it's sitting flat against the PCI-E slot:

[aiden]

Yep, good point. I used a very tall Cruzer Contour...
Which will not fit unless I use a flexible USB adapter...
So, it's sitting flat against the PCI-E slot.

I can confirm a Lexar FireFly fits perfectly in there.  Regardless, the point is that the USB port works as advertised for booting unRAID.

[kizer]

This is such a cool little build. I just dig how compact and everything just fits.

[aiden]

This is such a cool little build. I just dig how compact and everything just fits.

It really is one of the sexiest OEM designs I've seen for this niche.

[neilt0]

This is such a cool little build. I just dig how compact and everything just fits.

It really is. And it's an excellent performer. And...27W with 6 drives installed!

There are some really nice design touches. See more photos here:

http://www.tenniswood.co.uk/technology/windows-home-server/review-hp-microserver-for-windows-home-server/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-hp-microserver-for-windows-home-server


and here:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamasrepus/sets/72157625461896900/with/5204509633/

[kizer]

I have an Intel P4 2.8ghz machine I use for daily torrents and what not. I was compairing the specs and this thing blows it out of the water and appears that it would run a lot quiter and I'm sure it would put out a lot less heat.

2.8 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+4+2.80GHz
HP http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+Neo+N36L+Dual-Core

2.8 - 415
HP - 847

Damn so many options and so little money. LOL

[neilt0]

I have an Intel P4 2.8ghz machine I use for daily torrents and what not. I was compairing the specs and this thing blows it out of the water and appears that it would run a lot quiter and I'm sure it would put out a lot less heat.

2.8 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+4+2.80GHz
HP http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+Neo+N36L+Dual-Core

2.8 - 415
HP - 847

Damn so many options and so little money. LOL

Yeah, it's as fast as an Intel Core Duo T2350 @ 1.86GHz.

I kept an eye on the CPU usage with htop while transferring data over Samba and simultaneously running SABnzbd and Transmission and it copes perfectly well.

Even though the AMD CPU clocks at 1.3GHz, it's faster than the Intel Atom D525 @ 1.80GHz (also dual core), which has a score of 711.