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Posted 5 February 2014
HP Microserver £263.94 down to £97.94 (after £166 cashback) @ ServerPlus
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SantasLittleHelper
Joined in 2010
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sorted byThis IS the Raspberry Pi of the server world.
However, it does have it's limitations and it's not for everybody: -
- It won't bring you tea in bed.
- It's not an iPhone
- It hasn't brought about world peace.
- It's dangerously addictive; you buy one, you NEED more.
Great - can you buy one for £79? no? Is this the cheapest price around (for the past 8 months) yep.
Sounds hot to me
Yes- I've done exactly that- it can even transcode 1080p without too much issue
To give people an idea of what it can do, here's what I've got running so far on mine:
Ubuntu OS
Samba + AFP - to serve files up to PCs and Macs around the house
SABNZBD, Couchpotato, Sickbeard - to automatically download, extract and organise any films, tv shows I want as soon as they come out
Timemachine server - to automatically back up my Macs
Plex - to serve up films/tv shows to pretty much any device in the house - TVs, media players, iPads, iPhones + remote viewing from a browser
Shairport + USB soundcard - to use as an Airplay server and instantly stream music to my hifi straight from my Mac/ipad/iphone
Google Cloud print server - can now print to the printer connected to it from anywhere (eg from work)
And some stuff I'm planning to get set up shortly:
CCTV recording server - add a couple cheap IP cams and the right software
Headphones + Mopidy - automatically download any music it thinks I might like and then serve local + spotify music as one library
libimobiledevice.org - Automated wireless iphone sync/backup (not sure if possible yet)
Offsite backup - sync certain data to a friend's server and vise-versa
And if anyone else has any other ideas of how it could be used, that'd be great!
But I don't need three microservers, do I?
Actually they also list a low profile 2 port usb3 pci express card for about £10 ex vat which I would be tempted to buy though I did pay a lot less on Ebay for one, its cheaper than a heavy duty decal kit, wwwhhhaattt!:)
(edited)
Welcome to the party
I run mine with ESX VSphere with 3 virtual machines.
VM1
PFSense to control my home network and handle my ADSL convection
VM2
Freenas with 2 HDs in a ZFS raid for all my media
VM3
Ubuntu minimal running all my downloading tools. sabnzb, sickbeard, couch potato, Mylar
Runs brilliantly. I added more ram and a dual gig Intel NIC.
the only negative is the super bright as the sun HP blue light on the front.
"Include a 3 Year Warranty Upgrade and get an extra £66 cash back! In support of this offer, buy this 3 Year HP Care Pack Upgrade (UR482E) and claim a further £66 cash back. With our exclusive Microserver 3 Year Warranty Bundle below, this effectively gives you the warranty free of charge!"
If your at all worried you can email the company which deals with the cashback via promotions@out-bound.co.uk
If I remember rightly it took little over a month from confirmation to the check through the post.
You can email them the claims form directly (using the above email address) and it will be processed within a few hours.
I have an older HP Microserver running Vortexbox if you add an optical drive it will then automatically rip any disc inserted - DVD and Blu-ray in Vob format (can be mirrored to mp4) and CD's to lossless flac files (can be mirrored to mp3), it has Plex Server built in as well as many other features. - I'd definitely recommend it, a little linux knowledge is handy but they do have very helpful discussion boards, being a techy though I was able to solve any issues I had by Googling.
My microserver has an internal USB port in which I have a 32GB USB flash stick running the OS, freeing up all 4 bays to be used for NAS storage. If this has the same internal port then it does make it more flexible.
Also if you do go the Plex route, you can use a NowTV box as a client and sideload the Plex for Roku app (instuctions are easy to follow and a quick google should bring up all you need to do it)
I bought my older model a couple of years a go for around £110 after cashback and it is still one of my best ever purchases.
quote=moozoo]What do you use the dual gig NIC for?
[/quote]1 NIC is the input from my ADSL modem in bridge mode.
2 NIC is out to a gig switch
I was reading the onboard NIC can give trouble in freebsd. I went with the safe option of a 2nd Intel NIC I knew would play nice in ESX
Thanks for the info about my virtual fw. as this is only for home use I am not too fussed. I also installed the snort plugin. also want to look at as blocking now :-) I love this little server.
Thanks for the 1p and tape trick too. I will block out the LED when I get home.
Tell me about it, went to bed at midnight and by the time she woke up at 6am i'd got one. I just got a blank look from her, no excitment at all oO
Now to convince herself we need it... haha maybe i did that in the wrong order...
I'm in the same boat with you mate.
My N40L uses about 50w, although this one is supposed to use a little bit more. I'd say mine costs around a fiver a month to leave on 24/7.
I was thinking to use it as a media server / file storage place.
Like others use it with
Plex
Couchpotato
Sick Beard
Can I use VLC on it to transcoding for streaming?
Do I even need attach a monitor/keyboard/mouse to it?
What else would I need to buy for it to make it work....hardware and software?
Could I put it in a little quiet corner and leave it on...just connect it to the adsl router?
Can I use it as a DHCP server?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to think if its worth it for me.
Any help is much appreciated.
(edited)
ESXi (vSphere Hypervisor) *IS* the base OS you don't install it on top of anything else. Other options if you want a usable base OS would be to use KVM or Xen on Ubuntu (or other distro).
The label on the outside has the serial number (or mine has at least)
This is the 3TB scan.co.uk/pro…4x7
The 250GB is in one of the 4 bays, most people just take it out. But you can fit another drive into the optical drive bay using an enclosure.
i got mine on amazon. Only got 8gb and non ecc (so it wont work with the 2gb installed) but cheaper than ecc.
It was the cheapest i could find inc delivery but that was a few days ago
I used an external bd/dvd rom to install windows on mine no problem.
I would use this to install ESXi, and then the following for XPEnology, as it is a newer version, and nanoboot is newer than gnoboot.
cyanlabs.net/Thr…SXI
Yep, an expensive bad nights sleep for me
Outline and details of the care package are here
But I think Hp have little to worry about. They're very cool running. One hard disk, maybe.
Ive got 3 already LOL
Indeed welcome to the party. I love my N40L microserver, using it for media storage and backups, set-up in the loft. I loved it so much that I bought another (N54L) - although it has yet to see any use, apart from testing that it works about four months ago. But at around £90 or so after cashback I really "needed" another.!
Good price and heat added.
Or how to dual monitor with this?