3 ms·

If you're only looking for file serving and nothing cpu intensive, then the ancient Generation 7 HP Microservers are dirt cheap and hold 4x 3.5" drives. Random

If you're only looking for file serving and nothing cpu intensive, then the ancient Generation 7 HP Microservers are dirt cheap and hold 4x 3.5" drives. Random Ebay example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285860481238 https://www.ebay.com/itm/285860481238 (I don't know that seller at all) The cpus in that generation of microserver are utter crap though, so don't expect Plex, streaming/transcoding or similar on them. --- The Generation 8 release of HP Microservers are much more capable cpu wise, as the cpu is socketed and can be upgraded to 4 core / 8 thread models (eg E3-1265L v2). They're still fairly cheap on Ebay too. Random example from Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364891465755 https://www.ebay.com/itm/364891465755 (I don't know that seller either)

jasomill 2y ago
I'll second the recommendation for the E3-1265L v2 as an upgrade for the Gen8. Note that the onboard SATA/firmware RAID controller on the Gen8 only supports 6Gb/s SATA on two drive bays; the other two (and the SATA interface to the optical drive) are 3Gb/s. While this probably doesn't matter if you're talking about spinning rust NAS, it seems worth pointing out. The drive bays are perfectly capable of 6Gb/s — both SATA and SAS — with a different controller; HP Smart Array P222, also cheap on eBay, is the officially supported option.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Yeah. It's a real shame there's only a single PCIe slot (PCIe v2 x8) in them. Ideally I'd like to put both a sas controller + 10GbE+ network card in the things, but it's just not possible. :( --- Actually, it might be possible after all: • https://www.ebay.com/itm/184105150543 https://www.ebay.com/itm/184105150543 • https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/unique-oem-dual-lsi-2308-mellanox-connectx-3-vpi-combo-expansion-cards.30532/ https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/unique-oem... This could be a fun experiment. :)

jasomill 2y ago

I'll second the recommendation for the E3-1265L v2 as an upgrade for the Gen8. Note that the onboard SATA/firmware RAID controller on the Gen8 only supports 6Gb/s SATA on two drive bays; the other two (and the SATA interface to the optical drive) are 3Gb/s. While this probably doesn't matter if you're talking about spinning rust NAS, it seems worth pointing out. The drive bays are perfectly capable of 6Gb/s — both SATA and SAS — with a different controller; HP Smart Array P222, also cheap on eBay, is the officially supported option.

justinclift 2y ago
Yeah. It's a real shame there's only a single PCIe slot (PCIe v2 x8) in them. Ideally I'd like to put both a sas controller + 10GbE+ network card in the things, but it's just not possible. :( --- Actually, it might be possible after all: • https://www.ebay.com/itm/184105150543 https://www.ebay.com/itm/184105150543 • https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/unique-oem-dual-lsi-2308-mellanox-connectx-3-vpi-combo-expansion-cards.30532/ https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/unique-oem... This could be a fun experiment. :)