Doing our first HP MicroServer

YeOldeStonecat

YeOldeStonecat

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I never thought I'd do one of these....but for a really small law office, that want's to work mostly from "the cloud"...I'm doing one.

They've been on this HUGE Dell PE 2900 or older....running SBS11. Moved 'em to O365 E3.
Gonna stick in this little Microserver. Just built it with 4x Crucial SSDs..and 16 gigs of RAM, just an i3 CPU. Going to run Essentials 16, host Quickbooks, doing the account sync with O365, and host files/sync files via DattoDrive.

The Microservers have drive sleds (not hot swap) that only fit 3.5" SATA, so I used 4x of the WD Raptor 2.5" drive "ice pack" sleds to adapt the 2.5 to 3.5".

MIcroserver1.jpg MIcroserver2.jpg
 
I like the micro server. My only concern is the power supply because my clients are in an outlying region and do not get the next business day warranty. Also one to watch out for: on some models the first two slots were SATA 6 and the second two slots were only SATA 3.
 
I've done a few micro servers as well and they've been great.
The only thing I don't like is if one of the drives fails in the raid the system reboots and then sits on a screen waiting for you to confirm if you want to continue using the system in the degraded state.
Couldn't find a way to stop this.
 
Was gonna keep it simple with a pair-o-1's. (that's what it defaulted to doing, I'll re-run the weeeezard) Might ponder a big RAID 10 if it's supported in this little baby RAID controller. I'm guessing it's just built on the Intel onboard...not the usual Smart Array controller we're used to.
 
The Gen8 had a RAID controller with flash backed write cash upgrade option - probably same available for Gen 9 if you want to supercharge it!

HP Smart Array P222/512 FBWC 6Gb 1-port Int/1-port Ext SAS Controller
Part 631667-B21
 
Why Datto Drive?
I've installed a few Dell T20 units for clients with the cheap Xeon and 2 SSD, been great
 
Got ya.

Not a huge fan of Datto Drive. No file locking, lan sync, etc

Went with Anchor.

Has file server enablement which is cool.
 
Would take me a few years to build up enough clients willing to pay the high prices of Anchor (eFolder)...and make that very high initial buy-in worth it.

DattoDrive has 1x better than file locking, it has auto conflict resolution with dialogue that jumps up on people trying to work on the same file. I like that better than just having it flip the bird at you telling you the file is already in use.

I don't know what you mean by no "lan sync"...
 
This is my setup. Still a work in progress. My plans are to eliminate the 2 & 4 U's with all 1 U's (hopefully R210's as I love love love them - even though they only have 2 drives, you CAN put 3 in them. And also switch from the 42U Sun rack to a 24 U short rack.

Anyway, from top to bottom.

1st 2U missing as its a pfSense and am switching the failed 80 GB HDD to 2 PNY 120 SSDs raid 1 and 1 PNY 60 for cache.

Netgear JGS524 ProSafe 24 Port Gigabit Switch

Old Dell 17" monitor

Data station (recovery, cloning, etc.) ***

8 port power switch

2 Dell R210's

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server w/ NextCloud (3x 8TB Reds w/ software raid 5) ***

XPEnology server (4 2TB HGST drives) *****

Dell PE 2950 with 6 2TB Greens (raid 6)

HP 385 G2 with 8 Crutical MX300 250GB SSD's (raid 6)

HP GL350M with Windows Server 2012 RC2 and 4 1TB WD Blue HDD's

Not shown is a recent purchase. A IBM x3250 M2 1U

As I mentioned already, my plan is to use only R210s. I have a connection to obtain 4 more and can get them for $80-$100 each. He may do $60 each without the drives because frankly, I dont need them.

*** DIY servers using: iStarUSA Server Chassis D-214-MATX
***** iStar D Value D-213-MATX

20170408_132944.jpeg
 
The biggest problem I have with older servers like the PE2950 (and @YeOldeStonecat's comment on reusing old equipment in another thread) is the power draw. I used to use an old decommissioned dual Xeon server as a desktop at home (always on, running Crashplan as a destination for my laptops, wife's PC, etc.). When I finally shut it down for the last time I think my power bill dropped by at least $10-15/month, and I wasn't even running it with a bunch of drives.
 
Your PCMD said:
This is my setup. Still a work in progress. My plans are to eliminate the 2 & 4 U's with all 1 U's (hopefully R210's as I love love love them - even though they only have 2 drives, you CAN put 3 in them. And also switch from the 42U Sun rack to a 24 U short rack.

Anyway, from top to bottom.

1st 2U missing as its a pfSense and am switching the failed 80 GB HDD to 2 PNY 120 SSDs raid 1 and 1 PNY 60 for cache.

Netgear JGS524 ProSafe 24 Port Gigabit Switch

Old Dell 17" monitor

Data station (recovery, cloning, etc.) ***

8 port power switch

2 Dell R210's

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server w/ NextCloud (3x 8TB Reds w/ software raid 5) ***

XPEnology server (4 2TB HGST drives) *****

Dell PE 2950 with 6 2TB Greens (raid 6)

HP 385 G2 with 8 Crutical MX300 250GB SSD's (raid 6)

HP GL350M with Windows Server 2012 RC2 and 4 1TB WD Blue HDD's

Not shown is a recent purchase. A IBM x3250 M2 1U

As I mentioned already, my plan is to use only R210s. I have a connection to obtain 4 more and can get them for $80-$100 each. He may do $60 each without the drives because frankly, I dont need them.

*** DIY servers using: iStarUSA Server Chassis D-214-MATX
***** iStar D Value D-213-MATX

View attachment 7227
Click to expand...
1-2 R710's could replace that whole stack in compute power, reduce noise and likely less heat/power consumption, however disk space would be an issue unless you went with 3.5" R710's and used large drives.

Edit: I do like R210's for pfSense/Untangle.
 
@Slaters Kustum Machines yeah the 710's are nice. And I could pick them up for less than $200 (3.5"), but they like the 2950 are rather long. I like the 210's because they are short, only have a 250 watt PSU and honestly, when on and at idle, barely draw anything at the wall and are dead quiet. My 2950 however has 2 750 watt PSU's and it sucks up power only during startup, at idle, not so much, but still more then the 2 210's combined. I don't run my setup 24/7. Just the pfSense box and the 2 210's and switch. Our electric bill stays below $150/mo due to the solar farm and we sell back to the company. :D
 
@YeOldeStonecat

Anchor is $5 user.

No lan sync means you have to upload all data then sync down, lan sync will transfer between machines.

You want locked files in small biz. It will open as read only
 
Oh..for the purpose of syncing folders..I'd just use native Windows tools. I don't see the purpose of a 3rd party util just for LAN sync of folders.

IMO the dialog Datto creates of open file dispute is more granular, gives choices, and is better than just a default flipping of the bird to you.

5 bucks/user/month your cost? Or MSRP? Initial buy in of Anchor was like...whatever equiv was of 200 bucks a month "cost" just to get the ball rolling with them.

I'm used to having higher end clients that don't wince at bills...but I must say I'd have a hard time pushing that after markup. Heck even at cost. DattoDrive being FREE for the first year, unlimited users, 1TB, after the first year 10 bucks a month (MSRP) still unlimited users...hard to beat. Gets the appetite of end users wet...and then you ramp up to higher packages with more options.
 
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