Author Topic: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide  (Read 274911 times)

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #60 on: February 04, 2012, 02:47:13 AM
It sounds to me like you might have a dodgy card. I know its a noob thing to suggest but have you tried just taking it out and reseating it, etc in case it just isn't sat in the slot right and thats causing the problem?

Also, are you trying this with all the drives disconnected to make sure it's not the drives being plugged in causing a problem?

Yes to both.  Took it all apart twice and reseated.  The server sees it in the bios so I'm assuming its in there.  I have tried it with 0 to 4 drives.  Very frustrating situation.   

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Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #61 on: February 04, 2012, 08:22:37 AM
It definitely sounds like the card is buggered then, in the interests of your own sanity I'd RMA it now and wait for a new one.

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #62 on: February 05, 2012, 19:01:54 PM
It appears that my 512 memory module is bad.  I pulled it out and the card started working as advertised.  I was able to update  the firmware to the latest version.  I then tried using the
memory module again and the card hung on initializing.

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Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #63 on: February 05, 2012, 22:37:37 PM
Perhaps its just incompatible rather than bad, but at least you found out what the problem was :thumbup:

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #64 on: February 05, 2012, 22:39:41 PM
Let us know how you get on when you get the new module, out of interest which OS are you planning on using on the server and for what purpose?

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #65 on: February 07, 2012, 21:25:00 PM
Hi im new to the forum and to the proliant server, my experience starts and ends with a readynas duo so far. I have bought the WHS 2011 but npw im seeing the unRAID option and really dont know which option to take. I would like to use the server for file storage and backup and also run XBMC. Im lost with what raid option to use, can you experts help me out plz.

How easy is unRAID to use and what drives will i need to get?

Thanks  ;D

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #66 on: February 07, 2012, 21:37:36 PM
Hi im new to the forum and to the proliant server, my experience starts and ends with a readynas duo so far. I have bought the WHS 2011 but npw im seeing the unRAID option and really dont know which option to take. I would like to use the server for file storage and backup and also run XBMC. Im lost with what raid option to use, can you experts help me out plz.

How easy is unRAID to use and what drives will i need to get?

Thanks  ;D

Hey coffeebeankat! Welcome to the forums!

If you want to run XBMC you cant choose unRAID, you'll need to use WHS. This guide should give you everything you need.
Formerly sexytw

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #67 on: February 07, 2012, 21:49:00 PM
Like sexytw mentions unRAID isn't suitable if you want to run XBMC, as unRAID is a dedicated operating system and you can only run unRAID, if you wanted to use another computer with XBMC then you could use unRAID on this one and access the files over the network.

In terms of which HD you need to purchase, it's pretty much up to you in terms of size & cost, and the number of HDs is dependant on the type of RAID you want to run..

The Duo I believe supports RAID 1 which can mirror two drives, which is pretty much the simplest form of RAID along with RAID 0 (RAID 0 is a bad idea and joins two drives)

The next option up is RAID 5 which provides a parity drive, which is slightly better in terms of protection, but involves 3 drives, I suggest a bit of googling here, otherwise this could become a very long post.

Personally I'm running RAID 1, and some others on here are running RAID 5, if you have any specific questions, were more than happy to answer ;)

EDIT: And welcome to the forums BTW!!
Last Edit: February 07, 2012, 21:53:11 PM by XEntity #187;

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #68 on: February 08, 2012, 23:03:45 PM
Like sexytw mentions unRAID isn't suitable if you want to run XBMC, as unRAID is a dedicated operating system and you can only run unRAID, if you wanted to use another computer with XBMC then you could use unRAID on this one and access the files over the network.

In terms of which HD you need to purchase, it's pretty much up to you in terms of size & cost, and the number of HDs is dependant on the type of RAID you want to run..

The Duo I believe supports RAID 1 which can mirror two drives, which is pretty much the simplest form of RAID along with RAID 0 (RAID 0 is a bad idea and joins two drives)

The next option up is RAID 5 which provides a parity drive, which is slightly better in terms of protection, but involves 3 drives, I suggest a bit of googling here, otherwise this could become a very long post.

Personally I'm running RAID 1, and some others on here are running RAID 5, if you have any specific questions, were more than happy to answer ;)

EDIT: And welcome to the forums BTW!!


Hiya , Thanks for the warm welcome :) I decided to opt for the proliant as abig learning thing for me from the ready nas as recently the ready nas had a firmware blip and i couldnt access any of my data as the drives are in ext3 (i think) it took me a week to workout how i was going to save my data hence i want the most relaible RAID option but one which allows me to have as much redundant space as possible, i dont really understand RAID in a big way although i have googled it a few times and given it a reasonable study but it still leaves me unsure of which one to use. :disappointed: I am aware that RAID 1 just mirrors the first so i have 2 x 1.5 tb drives at present but only 1.5 tb redundant. If i had say 3 drives all 2tb each what would be my total redundant if i use RAID 5 ? also would these drives have to be formatted before using and if so what to ? if then i added another 2 drives @ 1.5tb  from the readynas (selling it on) would that make the current drives downsize to 1.5tb as thats what the readynas does. I have had my proliant 2 weeks and as yet havent powered it up as im worried i will muck it up  :worried: I  have also got a graphics card today , should this go in before i power up and install OS or after?

Thanks for help x :)

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #69 on: February 08, 2012, 23:52:53 PM
Erm...that's how raid works.

2 x 1.5 tb can only store 1.5 tb of data in a redundant state.

1 drive is a physical copy of the other.

By the way ext3 is quite a common drive format, loads of tools out there for it including just a simple linux live cd.

I think 3 x 2's will give you 3 tb of redundant space but you'd be spanning physical drives so it'd not be the greatest, raid5 though will likely reduce that to 2tb.

2 x discs striped, 1 mirrored no?

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Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 23:59:42 PM by M3ta7h3ad #187;

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #70 on: February 09, 2012, 00:11:42 AM
Raid 5 will give you 4tb of usable space and 2tb of parity, spanned across the 3 drives.

In terms of formatting I'm not sure how it's done in WHS as its software RAID, so I assume you install WHS on one drive then build the other two drives in to the array? Someone else on here will have experience of that though, so you want no data on the drives before installation. I'm not sure what adding 2x1.5tb drives will then give you, unless you just mirrored those as a separate RAID 1

In terms of what you then format the array to, in windows its likely to be NTFS, Ext3 is usually used by Linux, which is basically what most dedicated NAS boxes are running, as it can be very slim and resource light.

In terms of the graphics card, install it first, only because it'll be easier to fit and you won't have to mess around with it as much, but really doesn't matter either way.
Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 00:19:46 AM by XEntity #187;

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #71 on: February 09, 2012, 08:33:54 AM
Raid 5 will give you 4tb of usable space and 2tb of parity, spanned across the 3 drives.

In terms of formatting I'm not sure how it's done in WHS as its software RAID, so I assume you install WHS on one drive then build the other two drives in to the array? Someone else on here will have experience of that though, so you want no data on the drives before installation. I'm not sure what adding 2x1.5tb drives will then give you, unless you just mirrored those as a separate RAID 1

In terms of what you then format the array to, in windows its likely to be NTFS, Ext3 is usually used by Linux, which is basically what most dedicated NAS boxes are running, as it can be very slim and resource light.

In terms of the graphics card, install it first, only because it'll be easier to fit and you won't have to mess around with it as much, but really doesn't matter either way.


Thanks , To start off then using raid 5 i have to have minimum of 3 disks? The software i used was a free linux tool which scans through the drive then lets you select what you want to copy, took a while though to do but saved some very important files for me. If a drive went down in RAID 5 would it be just a case of replace it and it would rebuild?

Great to know the card can go in first saves a bit of fiddling, Will it boot up using the onboard graphics then have to be switched to use the card after installing drivers?

Just like to say a great thread on a great site , have been browsing some of the very good information and hope it will guide me to getting my machine working a treat (eventually) :)

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #72 on: February 09, 2012, 08:41:12 AM
you can plug the card in the connect your monitor straight too it to boot.... your on-board will probably be disabled automatically as soon as it detects the card :-)

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #73 on: February 09, 2012, 18:23:58 PM
Thanks , To start off then using raid 5 i have to have minimum of 3 disks? The software i used was a free linux tool which scans through the drive then lets you select what you want to copy, took a while though to do but saved some very important files for me. If a drive went down in RAID 5 would it be just a case of replace it and it would rebuild?

So yes raid 5 is a minimum of 3 disks, and once you had set-up the RAID array, if one drive were to fail you would need to replace that drive and re-build the array, as it needs to re-copy the data to the 3rd disk, this can take some time but will mean you will retain your data, but each drive that is added to the array will be wiped first, so don't add a disk to the array with data on it!

Exactly how that is done in windows, I hope someone on here can comment? Or there should be a guide specifically for WHS on the intergoogle (I'm using the on board RAID 1 so haven't had to configure anything in the OS, and after a quick look it looks like the OS drive can't be part of the RAID array, which makes sense) so you would need at least one additional boot drive, although you could mirror that one if you wanted?

Hope the guide has helped anyway, sorry the info about WHS RAID 5 is a little outside my knowledge..

Re: HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide
Reply #74 on: February 09, 2012, 22:06:51 PM
Thanks , To start off then using raid 5 i have to have minimum of 3 disks? The software i used was a free linux tool which scans through the drive then lets you select what you want to copy, took a while though to do but saved some very important files for me. If a drive went down in RAID 5 would it be just a case of replace it and it would rebuild?

So yes raid 5 is a minimum of 3 disks, and once you had set-up the RAID array, if one drive were to fail you would need to replace that drive and re-build the array, as it needs to re-copy the data to the 3rd disk, this can take some time but will mean you will retain your data, but each drive that is added to the array will be wiped first, so don't add a disk to the array with data on it!

Exactly how that is done in windows, I hope someone on here can comment? Or there should be a guide specifically for WHS on the intergoogle (I'm using the on board RAID 1 so haven't had to configure anything in the OS, and after a quick look it looks like the OS drive can't be part of the RAID array, which makes sense) so you would need at least one additional boot drive, although you could mirror that one if you wanted?

Hope the guide has helped anyway, sorry the info about WHS RAID 5 is a little outside my knowledge..

Thanks, i was wondering how i would set up the RAID 5 as never done that before as readynas just works out of box in mirror. So i will need 4 drives, can the WHS run from a usb drive in this case, what size would it need to be ?


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