HP Microserver

Latest revision as of 11:41, 4 October 2011

[edit] General Info

On the 21st of September 2010, Stanza posted a thread in the storage & Backup section of OCAU's forums discussing the HP N36L MicroServer. Since then ownership of these servers has taken off wildly amongst OCAU members and world-wide.

The servers themselves are small, inexpensive (currently $225 - 250 is standard) and have plenty of functionality and expandability making them perfect for enthusiasts like those who frequent the OCAU forums.

People commonly use them as a NAS or a HTPC, with others looking at virtualisation and clustering.

[edit] Models and Specs

[edit] N36L

The current spec of the N36L is below. Previous versions differed in having a 160GB HDD and a 110watt PSU.

Processor

• 1 x AMD Neo 1.3gHz
  

Processor cores available

• 2
  

Memory, default:

• 1GB
  

Memory, maximum

• 8 GB
  

Memory slots

• 2 DIMM slots
  

Memory type

• PC3 DDR3 - ECC Unregistered or non ECC. Registered ECC *NOT* supported
  

Expansion slots

• 1 half-height, half-length PCIe x16 Gen 2 1 half-height, half-length PCIe x1 Gen 2
  

Network controller

• 1GbE NC107i 1 Port
  

Display

• Integrated VGA with standard DB15 (shared 128mb memory)

Drive description

• (4) LFF SATA
  
• Non-hot plug 3.5-inch SATA
  

Storage, Default:

• 1 x Seagate 250Gb HDD in one of the "Cold swap" bays.

Storage

• Integrated 4 port SATA RAID
  
• 1 x External SATA Port
  
• 1 x "Optical" SATA Port
  

Power supply type

• 1 built-in power supply 160 watts
  

[edit] N40L ?

Rumoured to be available soon, with a 1.5gHz processor and 2gb ram, required significantly more watts to run.

[edit] Common Hardware recommendations

Remember that these have only 1 PCIE g2 16x slot and a g2 1x slot, so you are going to be limited to what you can do. I am trying to run mine as both a HTPC and a file server; just using the SATA ports available and utilising the 16x PCIE slot for a video card.
If you are looking for huge amounts of storage, I would suggest looking at a raid or sata controller for the PCIE 16x slot

[edit] Video Cards

If you want an Nvidia card or want to run *Nix, the GT210's are generally thought to be the best card for the box. Ensure you get a low profile card with low-profile bracket.

If you want an ATI card, or want to run Windows, the HD5450 are generally though to be appropriate. Again, ensure you get a low profile card with low-profile bracket. Myself and other users have reported that the HD6450 Low profile cards work as well.

[edit] RAM

These boxes come with Unregistered ECC memory as default. If you are looking to run a ZFS file system, it is suggested that you stick with this and allocate 1gb per TB of ZFS.
You can use a maximum of 8Gb of ram with these systems.

Known working ram from the OCAU users spreadsheet:

Kingston ECC KVR1333D3E9S/4GI
Kingston non-ECC KVR1333D3N9/4G
Kingston KVR1333D3N9K2/8G
Kingston non-ECC KVR1333D3N/2G
A-RAM non-ECC AR4GB1333D3V
G.Skill non-ECC F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT
Geil Enhance Corsa GEC38GB1600C9DC
Geil Non-ECC GS-F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT
Corsair CMV4GX3M2A1333C9
Crucial ECC CT2KIT51272BA1339

[edit] Hard Disks

The Hitachi Coolstar 3TB drive is supported and recognised by BIOS.

[edit] SSD's

[edit] Optical Drives

[edit] RAID Controllers

[edit] SATA Cards

[edit] Drive bay expansions

[edit] Keyboards, Mice and misc

[edit] Members boxes

[edit] Interesting OCAU links

[edit] Interesting Outside Links

[edit] Acknowledgements

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=905262 - the thread that started it on OCAU
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=958208 - N36L owner's club
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/au/en/sm/WF05a/15351-15351-4237916-4237917-4237917-4248009.html - HP's page on them.
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13716_na/13716_na.HTML