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Wow. Time flies. And my new Home Server Project was replaced by my new New Home Server Project. The HP Microserver Gen8. Also fondly known as The Borg Cube.


This is the heart of my network, paired with an external MacAlly USB 3.0 enclosure and a 3TB WD Red drive for backup. Next to that are my ASUS RT-AC66R router, my vaunted Motorola SB6120 cable modem, and a Netgear gig switch.

The innards of my server are a bit more interesting though. Assistance provided by SysAdmin Cat (aka "Watson"):



The Microserver Gen8 is really neat in a lot of ways. First of all, it has a full-fledged HP iLO on board, just like HP's other servers. Full remote management (some features require a purchase of an advanced license key, but that can be obtained inexpensively if you know where to look). Secondly, HP's new Intelligent Provisioning feature, letting you do RAID configuration or OS install provisioning straight from the server (the newest upgrade fully supports Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2). An onboard Broadcom-based dual-gig NIC. And a PCIe x16 slot, which is being used in my server by an HP SmartArray P222 hardware RAID card with 512MB of flash-backed write cache. Finally, what the Gen7 server was missing: an upgradeable processor. The basic Celeron G1610T processor was quickly scrapped in favor of an Intel Xeon E3-1265L v2 low-voltage 4-core/8-thread CPU.

And finally, another not-so-stock option.



A member of The Home Server Show Forums (thanks, SchoonDoggy) and great modder in his own right invented the bracket you see that hangs off the power supply, supporting two additional 2.5" drives in the server itself. I have a RAID-5 array of four 2TB drives in the front bays for my data, connected to the hardware RAID controller. I have two Crucial M500 240GB SSDs on SchoonDoggy's drive bracket, running off the server's onboard controller in RAID-0 to boot the operating system. The server is running Server 2012 R2 Standard (with the Server Essentials Role) and is backing up fully to the external USB3 drive nightly. It serves up all of my media, and backs up my home desktops. It's also running Folding@home on light settings (which loads the CPU cores to 50%) as part of my folding farm on Team 2630 (The Tech Report, who else?).

This is one of the coolest little boxes I've ever seen from HP. (Ferris Beuller voice) "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

Next step: get that 10Gb Fiber FLoM and go crazy.

CampinCarl wrote:

Next step: get that 10Gb Fiber FLoM and go crazy.

If you're talking about that port on the back expansion slot, that's an external SFF-8088 SAS connector from the RAID card. Though yes, it does look a bit like fiber.

If I wanted to, I could add a Sans Digital TR4X+B 4-drive external RAID enclosure through that connector, and add another four drives to the system. However, I haven't filled my 6TB RAID array by a long shot yet, so I might as well wait.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816111183

Oh, one other cool thing I forgot --HP supports the SmartArray P222 in this system, so the onboard iLO picks it up and monitors it as part of the box.

Fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing this!

Nice!

Did you get the E3 1265 v2 because the server needs a GPU/IGP, or can it be run completely headless?

Tempted how do you find the temps on the Xeon, are they safe enough?

Voldenuit wrote:

Nice!

Did you get the E3 1265 v2 because the server needs a GPU/IGP, or can it be run completely headless?

The server's iLO has a built-in Matrox G220eh, so the GPU is not needed. I run it completely headless, as the iLO has a full IP-KVM. The iLO will also let you remote mount a CD or an ISO image, or even a folder, so you can load an OS or boot up to do a firmware update completely remotely.

I bought the E3-1265L v2 for several specific reasons.
-L for low-voltage. The Microserver's heatsink is rated for 35w TDP, and this is the coolest quad-core Xeon (45w TDP).
-Much better performance in case I go the hypervisor route (transition from 2core/2thread to 4core/8thread).
-Support for VT-d, AES-NI, Turbo, TXT, features the original CPU doesn't have.

If I knew I wasn't going to go hypervisor for sure, I'd run the E3-1220L v2, which is 2core/4thread, 17w TDP and has the other features. Right now, I'm using my old Gen7 N54L Microserver to test Hypervisors out (currently trying Citrix XenServer), but it's a weaker CPU, better suited for a single OS; it's okay to find out what I want to run in the long run.

To Mentawl: The temps on the CPU are quite reasonable, even when running Folding@home on light (which is constant 50% on each core). The one temperature I'd like to control better is the hardware RAID controller chip on the SmartArray card. Everything else is good, and I've never had a hint of instability even with the upgrades.