HP ProLiant MicroServer

4ftersh0ck said:
Hi guys, I just picked up a N54L:- I am battling to find stock of the Sapphire HD6450 graphics card. I want a card with a silent heatsink only. I found the following 2 on Takealot, anone here using either successfully? Any recommendations? Thanks

1) MSI AMD Radeon HD 5450 - PCI-Express 1024MB DDR3 1066 1334MHz Graphics Card - 1GB
2) ASUS AMD Radeon HD5450 - Graphics Card
Click to expand...

Café viva GT520 nvidia
 
I recently made a few adjustments to speed up my file transfers with my HP N36L (using Ubuntu 12.04 and software RAID 5 over 4x 2TB HDD, with 8GB of RAM), which was fairly slow in terms of write speed, and also to external NTFS drives.

The first issue that I stumbled upon was that the CPU was maxed out, yet it was only running at like 800MHz-1.1GHz instead of 1.3GHz.
You can get the CPU speed of the 2 cores by running: cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep MHz
I then set the minimum speed of the 2 cores to 1300MHz by running: for i in 0 1; do cpufreq-set -c $i -d 1300MHz; done
^^ This increased my write speed sto external HDD's that uses NTFS partitions...

Then after I performed a distro upgrade yesterday, I saw that my CPU usage was still very high and then I noticed that my RAID 5 was doing a resync.
Running `cat /proc/mdstat` revealed that it was doing ~50MB/s.
Changing the NCQ queue depth from 31 to 1 (disabled) on all 4 HDD's (/dev/sd[abcd]) immediately took the resync speed to ~70MB/s.

I then used the optimization script posted in the Ubuntu Forum ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1494846&p=11622143#post11622143 ) to suggest better read-ahead values for the disks and RAID volume, as well as the RAID volume's stripe cache size.
By simply changing the read-ahead values and the stripe cache size, my resync speed increased to 100MB/s !

If you have more time to run benchmarks, then you can use the following script ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1916607 ) to iterate over a bunch of values so that you can find what suits you the best :)

Oh - and my write speed to software RAID 5 was so slow for MySQL that I actually moved my whole DB to a RAM drive. When I have time (over the next weekend) I'm keen on testing whether performance is still as bad with the new HDD/RAID parameters.
 
Last edited:
Adding new storage

Ive maxxed out my server hard drive capacity at 4 X 4Gb but would like to remove the hard drives from my desktop and have the storage remotely located (as with my current server).
What is the best way of doing this? adding another server? just adding more external storage? Ive looked at Drobo units but they are really expensive
Any thoughts?
 
maximum said:
Ive maxxed out my server hard drive capacity at 4 X 4Gb but would like to remove the hard drives from my desktop and have the storage remotely located (as with my current server).
What is the best way of doing this? adding another server? just adding more external storage? Ive looked at Drobo units but they are really expensive
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

If you would like to look at NAS storage, take a look at the Qnap range. I quite like their products. Otherwise Synology is also an option but they also get expensive.

E.g. http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?sn=822&c=351&sc=514&t=523&n=3372
 
nadimm said:
Corrected... I think. Tappatalk links are wonky
Click to expand...

Ok so I installed the add on in the link from openelec.tv. I downloaded the first set of downloads (NOT openelec 4...)

Is something suppose to happen?
 
The_Mowgs said:
Ok so I installed the add on in the link from openelec.tv. I downloaded the first set of downloads (NOT openelec 4...)

Is something suppose to happen?
Click to expand...

You should have another repository. Sabnzbd should also update as per usual. I'm assuming you're on openelec
 
My N40 micro server's PSU fan is busy dying. Looked at replacing just the fan but it looks like that involves soldering and about a million more ways to blow stuff up so if anybody has a spare PSU lying around feel free to PM me :)
 
Hi Guys (Noob alert - Last time I assembled my own system was 12 years ago)

Finally cancelled my DSTV and getting a N54L on the R1099.00 Esquire Special.

Please bear with me as I ask a few questions that has probably been answered a few times already.

1. I know I have to get a graphics card and see on the Wikia page that not all of them fit or have to be modified to fit.

Will this card from Kalahari fit? Have e-bucks to blow so can get it there --> http://www.kalahari.com/Technology/MSI-AMD-Radeon-HD-5450-1GB-Graphics-Card_p_46330201

Otherwise I will be getting this one from Esquire --> http://www.esquire-shop.co.za/ProductDescription.aspx?id=1674567

2. What is the minimum RAM recommended to run Win 7 with XBMC? Do I need to upgrade? (I'm still reading up on the OpenELEC distro so might still go that route)

3. WiFi..... Until I get the hang of everything I will continue all my downloads on my laptop and copy them over/stream to the N54L for viewing purposes. I would prefer to do this over WiFi. What card/adapter can I use to achieve this?

Thanks guys.

Might ask a few more irritating questions later.
 
I installed XP on a N54L a few months ago and sourcing drivers was a nightmare.

Which Windows OS (non server) has all the drivers included and won't give me grey hairs? The HP site only has Windows SERVER version drivers...
 
FlashSA said:
I installed XP on a N54L a few months ago and sourcing drivers was a nightmare.

Which Windows OS (non server) has all the drivers included and won't give me grey hairs? The HP site only has Windows SERVER version drivers...
Click to expand...

Windows 8 dropped into mine in several minutes and that was all I had to do.
 
APoc184 said:
Hi Guys (Noob alert - Last time I assembled my own system was 12 years ago)

Finally cancelled my DSTV and getting a N54L on the R1099.00 Esquire Special.

Please bear with me as I ask a few questions that has probably been answered a few times already.

1. I know I have to get a graphics card and see on the Wikia page that not all of them fit or have to be modified to fit.

Will this card from Kalahari fit? Have e-bucks to blow so can get it there --> http://www.kalahari.com/Technology/MSI-AMD-Radeon-HD-5450-1GB-Graphics-Card_p_46330201

Otherwise I will be getting this one from Esquire --> http://www.esquire-shop.co.za/ProductDescription.aspx?id=1674567

2. What is the minimum RAM recommended to run Win 7 with XBMC? Do I need to upgrade? (I'm still reading up on the OpenELEC distro so might still go that route)

3. WiFi..... Until I get the hang of everything I will continue all my downloads on my laptop and copy them over/stream to the N54L for viewing purposes. I would prefer to do this over WiFi. What card/adapter can I use to achieve this?

Thanks guys.

Might ask a few more irritating questions later.
Click to expand...

1. Card should be fine - I have the same one, just the silent one (I.e. no fan)

2. I just added another 2GB - so 4GB in total. If you have the budget, definitely worth getting a second 2GB module

3. No idea on this one - sorry man - I got myself a netgear WNA1000M to use on my desktop, but not overly impressed with the speed. Browsing and general use is fine, but data transfer rates aren't so hot. Hopefully someone else can suggest a better option.
 
Flidiot said:
1. Card should be fine - I have the same one, just the silent one (I.e. no fan)

2. I just added another 2GB - so 4GB in total. If you have the budget, definitely worth getting a second 2GB module

3. No idea on this one - sorry man - I got myself a netgear WNA1000M to use on my desktop, but not overly impressed with the speed. Browsing and general use is fine, but data transfer rates aren't so hot. Hopefully someone else can suggest a better option.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.

I'm trying to source a silent card but if all else fails I will just get the one from Kalahari. Esquire does not have stock of the ASUS Silent card.

I added an extra Kingston 2GB RAM to my basket at Esquire. Had a quick read and non-ECC RAM should be fine according to the links I found. Correct?

Hoping somebody can give me good advice and perhaps a link to a simple but reliable wireless card or adapter. Want to order everything at once.
 
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