What's the best option to replace an HP Microserver?

[clockworks]

I've got 2 HP Microservers - N40L as a media server, and a newer one (can't remember the model number, but it's got a fancier front panel) as a CCTV recorder.

The N40L went bang the other day - DVD drive power connector melted, took out the PSU. Fortunately I had a spare N40L in the lost, and used the PSU from that to fix the media server.

This failure got me thinking - what do I do when either of these die of old age?
Both are running WHS2011, and have been very reliable until one went pop.
I use 2, because 3 HD IP cameras and serving HD video is too much for just one of these cheap servers. They cost less than £100 when HP were doing their regular cashback offers.

Any good value small servers out there?

[shtu]

The old N40L and N54L Microservers were an utter anomaly pricewise - at the time HP ran some spectacular discount\tradein schemes to keep stock moving. I was taking 5+ year old basic laptops worth £50 tops, and getting £150 discount against new ones.

The Microserver is up to G10 now, but the price isn't what it used to be, https://buy.hpe.com/uk/en/servers/proliant-microse...

If you want a cheaper solution and are happy to get your hands dirty, something Pi-based would be doable for £not much.

[xeny]

Synology NAS possibly?

[anonymous-user]

If you can find one I really recommend the G8 Microserver.

Not only does it come with Integrated Lights Out but for about £25 you can get a seconhand Xeon CPU and uprade because the CPUs are not soldered on. The Gen 10 is v expensive and missing a load of features that the G8 has.

[ging84]

ChocyLint1 said:

If you can find one I really recommend the G8 Microserver.

Not only does it come with Integrated Lights Out but for about £25 you can get a seconhand Xeon CPU and uprade because the CPUs are not soldered on. The Gen 10 is v expensive and missing a load of features that the G8 has.

They also took away the little screwdriver on the gen10, that was my favourite feature.

[Brother D]

If you have the space, there are some real bargains on proper servers. I just got a 1RU HP G7 360 with 136gb ram and 2tb HD for $100...
Depreciation on corporate assets is insane. Also recently purchased a PaloAlto 5050 firewall for $250. Retail for it in 2017 was $80,000...
https://www.firewallprice.com/product/paloalto-pa-...
https://www.ebay.com/i/133363005339?chn=ps&nor...la-935431405133&abcId=2146001&merchantid=7869194&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4f35BRDBARIsAPePBHwEBETBJSYIo2NT0yS1JKgbwAYvu08Ul2skrCZ6-rxykOHIpwQMUn4aAssmEALw_wcB

[theboss]

Brother D said:

If you have the space, there are some real bargains on proper servers. I just got a 1RU HP G7 360 with 136gb ram and 2tb HD for $100...
Depreciation on corporate assets is insane. Also recently purchased a PaloAlto 5050 firewall for $250. Retail for it in 2017 was $80,000...
https://www.firewallprice.com/product/paloalto-pa-...
https://www.ebay.com/i/133363005339?chn=ps&nor...la-935431405133&abcId=2146001&merchantid=7869194&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4f35BRDBARIsAPePBHwEBETBJSYIo2NT0yS1JKgbwAYvu08Ul2skrCZ6-rxykOHIpwQMUn4aAssmEALw_wcB

Nice - is the Palo fully licensed / usable though? I’ve seen plenty of ultra cheap recycled enterprise appliances which are useless without a £50k license file!

I was looking at all the consumer and SME NAS options and just decided to buy a refurbed R730XD stuffed full of disks for less than a decent NAS chassis on its own - much more kit for the money.

[clockworks]

Gen8s seem to fetch decent money on eBay, but I guess that'll be my best option.

I don't really want the noise (or electricity costs) of running a full-size server.

[sjg]

Another Microserver really. There are a few PC cases designed for similar use (mini ITX board, 4 or more drive bays) but building one up would be pricey.

If you want more modern software, mine now just Windows 10 and Stablebit Drivepool which is very similar to how the old WHS worked - plain NTFS drives with hidden folders and data replication (down to folder level if you want) all presented as a single big drive. No worries about data recovery if anything went bang.

[clockworks]

sjg said:

Another Microserver really. There are a few PC cases designed for similar use (mini ITX board, 4 or more drive bays) but building one up would be pricey.

If you want more modern software, mine now just Windows 10 and Stablebit Drivepool which is very similar to how the old WHS worked - plain NTFS drives with hidden folders and data replication (down to folder level if you want) all presented as a single big drive. No worries about data recovery if anything went bang.

Windows10 a viable option now then?

I must admit, I found some aspects of WHS2011 a bit of a faff to set up, really wouldn't fancy doing it again on a new machine (finding drivers, etc.).
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when fitting a replacement PSU fixed my N40.

[sjg]

Works fine for me, I just have the big DrivePool with various shares off that, plex server and a VM running Pihole. All fine on Win10.

[clockworks]

sjg said:

Works fine for me, I just have the big DrivePool with various shares off that, plex server and a VM running Pihole. All fine on Win10.

Thanks

[fourstardan]

I've got a M40L hardly used if you want to make an offer.

It's only ever been used when I bought it for playing with virtualisation/NAS when I was an engineer.

[clockworks]

fourstardan said:

I've got a M40L hardly used if you want to make an offer.

It's only ever been used when I bought it for playing with virtualisation/NAS when I was an engineer.

What spec is it please?
Just had a look on eBay, and a basic one goes for about £40.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Full servers in the home are a no no especially if rack mount noise is just stupid and power isn't great . My r730xd is pulling almost 300w at idle.

[devnull]

Apart from Nerd flexing, there is no need to run enterprise kit at home. As above, any savings in the tin will be decimated by electricity costs - and noise!

I took a couple of DL360 G8s home once to complete a work project and work from home. The fan noise nearly caused a divorce!

[shtu]

Yeah, big "no" to buying conventional rackmount servers. Let me put it this way, I have two HP rackmounts, an N40L and an N54L.

The N40L is on 24/7, the 50 occasionally, The two rackmounts are in the garage doing nowt and have been for years.

a Pi + Plex or something would probably do what you need.

[theboss]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Full servers in the home are a no no especially if rack mount noise is just stupid and power isn't great . My r730xd is pulling almost 300w at idle.

What's the configuration?

Mine is running at 224 on idle with 2 x 90W TDP Xeons, 18 disks, redundant PSUs and an nVidia Quadro card.

Power profile is OS Controlled and Windows balanced power mode (in a commercial setting I would always put this on max performance but I can live with it at home)

I did have to force some IPMI commands on the iDRAC to drop the fan baseline due to the presence of a non-OEM GPU

When I did this it dropped from about 350 to the current draw.
See https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-Hardware-...

It's still running BGI on a 16-disk RAID50 volume after which I expect it to drop a fair bit further.

Running Plex natively in WS2019 it's doing hardware video encoding and decoding on the GPU so the CPU is hardly affected by transcodes.

I get the drawbacks of running enterprise boxes at home but if somebody can find me a NAS box that can do all this and run a bunch of VMs effortlessly for under £2k including 60TB of raw storage with huge expansion potential I'd love to know about it. Just need to find somewhere out of sight/earshot for it.

[Pieman68]

ChocyLint1 said:

If you can find one I really recommend the G8 Microserver.

Not only does it come with Integrated Lights Out but for about £25 you can get a seconhand Xeon CPU and uprade because the CPUs are not soldered on. The Gen 10 is v expensive and missing a load of features that the G8 has.

Probably the main reason that they brought out the Intel based Gen 10 Plus. We hardly sold any Gen 10 Microservers but once the Gen 10 Plus came out with the ILO reintroduced we've seen demand come back

[xeny]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Full servers in the home are a no no especially if rack mount noise is just stupid and power isn't great . My r730xd is pulling almost 300w at idle.

Look closely at the BIOS power management options. Mine idles at ~180 W with a pair of 10 core CPUs and 14 x 9TB drives. Fan noise unless I work the CPUs hard is pretty tolerable - I shared an office with it on a desk at one point while we were waiting on some structured cabling.