HP Microserver

moondoggie86 said:
UI looks nice. Only issue I had when initially choosing an OS was that majority (Synology) had their own file system so you have to format the drive. I just wanted to dump my drive with all the files in the server without needing to format the drive i.e. not losing my files).
Click to expand...
Nice and secure, mine runs Plex, Roon, iTunes server, Synology photos + home videos, Synology Music on i3 with 4gb ram and 14TB storage.
 
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moondoggie86 said:
Can take ECC and non-ECC ram. Doesn't have to be low profile as well. Got 2 4gb ddr1600 non-ECC ram installed.

Can take non-ECC ram without the custom bios.
Click to expand...

karnuffel said:
It can use non-ECC. I used normal desktop RAM in mine before mother nature decided to fry it... BZZZZZZZZZZZT
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Thanks, I have an 8th Gen (Celeron Dual Core G1610T) which uses ECC, not the OP's model, are you saying that if I replace it with non-ECC DIMMS it will work?
 
moondoggie86 said:
Thanks for the write up! Was thinking of moving away from Plex due to the h.265 limitation and the huge strain it puts on the cpu. I'm seeing cpu usage up to 70% when streaming 1080p h.264 videos and usage of 100% when copying files to and from the server (which drops the copy speed by 70% when reaching 100% usage).

I'm currently running with 4gb of ram (only found out my first dimm slot is busted when I tried to upgrade my capacity).

Plex shouldn't need to have an active connection if you're using direct play. Normally it's required when making the server available to the outside world. Port forwarding might have helped but alas it seems you are quite happy with Jellyfin (which I'll install this afternoon kind sir).

Oh and for everyone else, lol, there's n40 and n54 wiki's with custom bios'. I think the one I got allows me to install 16gb (I think) of up to 1600mhz ramzors.

There's a list of compatible dimms on there as well.
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I think you should be happy with Jellyfin. I will however warm you that the Android TV client for Jellyfin isn't very polished, and mine craps out and crashes every 8 or 10 videos that I play. I haven't found a resolution for it yet, but the Jellyfin subreddit is full of complaints around the same issue.

You will also need to disable the transcoding on Jellyfin, as per below, otherwise it will try and transcode EVEN if the media player reports that is is capable of direct play.

1615970760439.png

You will also need to turn off this setting, otherwise you won't see the username in Jellyfin on the client:

1615970854554.png

4GB should be more than plenty, pity about the fried RAM port though. I only have 8GB because I had some spare modules gathering dust. I ran most of the above services on a 1GB Pi 3 but Unifi and Jellyfin are notorious RAM hogs.

WRT Plex, I believe that it is because Plex doesn't use local auth to authenticate the users so it requires internet otherwise it refuses to play media. The Plex forums are also full of threads regarding people not having access to local media with no internet connection, which sort of defeats the purpose of locally hosted media.

The custom BIOS was done to mine before I got it, and it is as you said highly recommended. I have used the ODD SATA port for my boot drive, so that means that I have 4x drives in SnapRAID with mergerfs enabling full access and saves me from using one drive for the OS. I also like keeping things separate which makes admin a bit easier.
 
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RonSwanson said:
Thanks, I have an 8th Gen (Celeron Dual Core G1610T) which uses ECC, not the OP's model, are you saying that if I replace it with non-ECC DIMMS it will work?
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From what I understand yes you can use non-ECC, but mixing ECC and non-ECC is not a great idea.

Maybe this can help:
Using ECC decreases your computer's performance by about 2 percent. Current technology DRAM is very stable, and memory errors are rare, so unless you have a need for ECC, you are better served with non-parity (non-ECC) memory.
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Sauce:
www.crucial.com

What is ECC memory?

Find out more about what ECC memory is. This article highlights the differences between ECC and non-ECC memory and explains when you might need ECC RAM.
www.crucial.com www.crucial.com
 
I definitely wouldn't be running Windows on it.

Mine runs TrueNAS Core and basically only does storage duties, can get bit bogged down if you throw too much at those two poor cores.

Mine has 16GB ECC in it, mainly because ZFS loves eating memory.
 
karnuffel said:
From what I understand yes you can use non-ECC, but mixing ECC and non-ECC is not a great idea.

Maybe this can help:

Sauce:
www.crucial.com

What is ECC memory?

Find out more about what ECC memory is. This article highlights the differences between ECC and non-ECC memory and explains when you might need ECC RAM.
www.crucial.com www.crucial.com
Click to expand...
Agreed that running ECC and non-ECC isn't a great idea, was just checking that the MB / BIOS wouldn't moan about 2x non-ECC 8GB dimms.

And I am running Ubuntu with ZFS, amongst its many roles it serves as a backup server as well.
 
PhireSide said:
I second this.

Running OpenMediaVault on my N40L and it's performing flawlessly. The OS is on an older SATA SSD and it also runs a dozen or so containers in Docker.

Anything with a GUI will choke the CPU as it is pretty weak, but a headless OS works well for serving content and services.
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Any chance you would share your setup.
Think I can get my N40 out under the dust covers & use it again.
 
RonSwanson said:
Agreed that running ECC and non-ECC isn't a great idea, was just checking that the MB / BIOS wouldn't moan about 2x non-ECC 8GB dimms.

And I am running Ubuntu with ZFS, amongst its many roles it serves as a backup server as well.
Click to expand...
Hey I have to apologize and eat some humble pie here. Seems like the Gen8 does not like non-ECC RAM. Sorry for the crap advice.
 
IceQB said:
Any chance you would share your setup.
Think I can get my N40 out under the dust covers & use it again.
Click to expand...
No problem

It's not anything special, but I have an N40L running OpenMediaVault with a few docker containers.
I have it filled with 4x 2TB drives, 3x for data and 1x for parity. I use mergerfs and SnapRAID in conjunction with each other for redundancy and easier file share access. I have the BIOS mod done to it, so that I have the ODD SATA port bootable with an SSD running the OS.
 
Thanks @PhireSide, have a 128GB SSD I can put in there.
Have 1 x 4TB, so will be looking at getting another 3 4TB drives.
Could I get it running with only the single 4TB & setup redundancy once I get other 3 drives?
 
IceQB said:
Thanks @PhireSide, have a 128GB SSD I can put in there.
Have 1 x 4TB, so will be looking at getting another 3 4TB drives.
Could I get it running with only the single 4TB & setup redundancy once I get other 3 drives?
Click to expand...
Yip, this is how I would do it if I were you:

  • Mod BIOS to enable OS booting from ODD SATA (https://n40l.fandom.com/wiki/Bios)
  • Install OS of choice to SSD connected to ODD SATA port (for the sake of this example let's use OpenMediaVault - https://www.openmediavault.org/)
  • Setup 2TB in Bay 1 - setup your file shares as preferred
  • Once you get your other drives, setup SnapRAID and use Bay 1 - 3 for data and Bay 4 for the parity drive. Your parity drive needs to be as big as your largest pool drive. So if you have 4TB data drives, your parity drive needs to be the same size
  • Setup Mergerfs to pool the three drives together as a single mount point
  • I used some tutorials from TechnoDadLife aka Kiefer Sutherland's stunt double - he is active on YouTube and has some nice, clear tutorials that you can follow if you get stuck. He also has a very nice setup video for OMV specifically -
 
I currently run one of these as a download box, nas(3x3TB + externals), plex host etc. seems to do the job ok.. esxi running from flash with 16Gb non-ecc ram. No ssd. I do offload transcoding to a separate machine till I get a new one to act as a processing box.

Uhm.. ideally this thing is good as a nas due to low power nature. I run vsphere6.6 or 6.7.
 
PhireSide said:
Yip, this is how I would do it if I were you:

  • Mod BIOS to enable OS booting from ODD SATA (https://n40l.fandom.com/wiki/Bios)
  • Install OS of choice to SSD connected to ODD SATA port (for the sake of this example let's use OpenMediaVault - https://www.openmediavault.org/)
  • Setup 2TB in Bay 1 - setup your file shares as preferred
  • Once you get your other drives, setup SnapRAID and use Bay 1 - 3 for data and Bay 4 for the parity drive. Your parity drive needs to be as big as your largest pool drive. So if you have 4TB data drives, your parity drive needs to be the same size
  • Setup Mergerfs to pool the three drives together as a single mount point
  • I used some tutorials from TechnoDadLife aka Kiefer Sutherland's stunt double - he is active on YouTube and has some nice, clear tutorials that you can follow if you get stuck. He also has a very nice setup video for OMV specifically -
Click to expand...
Do you also speed up the video to 1.5x when watching his tuts lmao!
 
PhireSide said:
I think you should be happy with Jellyfin. I will however warm you that the Android TV client for Jellyfin isn't very polished, and mine craps out and crashes every 8 or 10 videos that I play. I haven't found a resolution for it yet, but the Jellyfin subreddit is full of complaints around the same issue.

You will also need to disable the transcoding on Jellyfin, as per below, otherwise it will try and transcode EVEN if the media player reports that is is capable of direct play.

View attachment 1037552

You will also need to turn off this setting, otherwise you won't see the username in Jellyfin on the client:

View attachment 1037554

4GB should be more than plenty, pity about the fried RAM port though. I only have 8GB because I had some spare modules gathering dust. I ran most of the above services on a 1GB Pi 3 but Unifi and Jellyfin are notorious RAM hogs.

WRT Plex, I believe that it is because Plex doesn't use local auth to authenticate the users so it requires internet otherwise it refuses to play media. The Plex forums are also full of threads regarding people not having access to local media with no internet connection, which sort of defeats the purpose of locally hosted media.

The custom BIOS was done to mine before I got it, and it is as you said highly recommended. I have used the ODD SATA port for my boot drive, so that means that I have 4x drives in SnapRAID with mergerfs enabling full access and saves me from using one drive for the OS. I also like keeping things separate which makes admin a bit easier.
Click to expand...
I'm having some teething issues with Jellyfin but I'm quite liking it.

I've added an additional line in the script when installing to add my Anime as well which is working nicely. The default metadata providers can't find info on my anime for shizz though lol (weird prOn names appear). So I installed AniDB which is working quite nicely.

Script.PNG

The issue I'm having at the moment is that it's not displaying all my movies (legally obtained _cough_) and series (yet again...legally obtained _excessive coughing_) even after refreshing the metadata and libraries (will see tonight where I screwed up).

Next step is to install SABnzbd and Sonarr but I've been procrastinating with it due to all the effort in getting a news server/ host, setting up API keys etc. (well it was a mission setting it up in a windows environment back in 2012 so I hope it's better now lol).
 
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