OK, I had to try out your excellent idea, kapfel. I managed to fit 4 3.5" drives in the top and the 2.5" drive as well! Total drives: 9!

 

I think cooling may be an issue, but the case would act as a heatsink for most of the drives, so I will be trying this out.

 

So, what was the verdict on this?  What did your drive temps look like?

 

I didn't ever implement it, but I'm waiting on a 2TB Hitachi deal from Scan, then I'm planning on putting up to 3 drives in that space later this week. I'll post if and when I do so.

anyone tried an SATA PCIe card in one of these? I'm guessing they need to be in some sort of micro form factor?

 

If anyone could point me to one that they know works with the server, that'd be awesome

 

<3 my little microserver

anyone tried an SATA PCIe card in one of these? I'm guessing they need to be in some sort of micro form factor?

 

If anyone could point me to one that they know works with the server, that'd be awesome

 

<3 my little microserver

 

PCI-E low profile. You can use one 16x and one 1x.

Loads of people on avforums and hardforum have stuck 'em in. avforums dudes put 5450 graphics cards and hardforum dudes put P400 RAID cards in.

 

ETA: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=13327845&postcount=1466

 

 

I have a new 2TB drive out for delivery to me today. Once it's precleared and added to the array, my plan is to move one of my Adaptec 1430SA cards to the Microserver to take me past 6 drives.

awesome, went ahead and bought one of these:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270792034892&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:1123

awesome, went ahead and bought one of these:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270792034892&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:1123

 

Is that supported in unRAID?

Hmmm. That's a good point. There are a few reports on the boards of people purchasing them to use in their unRAID, but I can't find any actual build reports with the 620s. I already ordered one though, so I guess we'll see.

So will HP hold a firesale on these?? I would pickup quite a few if they donlike the touchpad this weekend...

So will HP hold a firesale on these?? I would pickup quite a few if they donlike the touchpad this weekend...

 

The Microserver has had a generous rebate on it for many months in the UK and Australia.

 

HP are potentially divesting their PSG group -- personal computers (laptop/desktops). This product is neither, it's a server, and it's in their Enterprise division, so I don't anticipate the Proliant range to be going anywhere yet.

I have almost finished my build and I noticed that the array without a parity drive still only got 30mb writes, without a cache drive.  I am waiting for parity to finish it's initial build but do you think it should have been higher without parity??  I also note that my parity is only building at 28-29mb/sec which seems to show something may be limiting write speeds.

 

BTW here is a neater way to stuff 2 drives into the top of an N36l.  Will post pics of a fan mod to keep them cool.  They currenlty run at around 40-42 with case on doing preclear/parity build.

 

 

I have almost finished my build and I noticed that the array without a parity drive still only got 30mb writes, without a cache drive.  I am waiting for parity to finish it's initial build but do you think it should have been higher without parity??  I also note that my parity is only building at 28-29mb/sec which seems to show something may be limiting write speeds.

 

BTW here is a neater way to stuff 2 drives into the top of an N36l.  Will post pics of a fan mod to keep them cool.  They currenlty run at around 40-42 with case on doing preclear/parity build.

 

 

 

Yes, you need to do the Russian BIOS hack to improve speeds.

 

I saw the Nexus Double Twin on avforums and am considering using it, as I put my 1430SA in yesterday and it's tough getting more than 2 drives in that space. I may end up with 2 drives there and 1 to 4 2.5" drives in the space below.

I already have the russian hack in place (I think).  Before the russian hack I noted during preclears that the upper 2 disks appeared to share BW ie they were doing the full read at about 50mb/sec each where as the others were doing it at 100mb/sec each, aftert he hack all drives were listing preclear read speeds of 100Mb/sec when stating out.  I also noted that the preclear writes were at about 80mb/sec it's only when writing to the drives through unraid that I can only get up to 30mb sec transfers.  I have a second N36l  I am going to flash and patch up to preclear some other disks and do some testing to see if I can work out if it is an issue or the way it is.

 

I have the nexus double twin but I also found another brand that I can't find now that did the same thing.

Did you enable the write cache in the BIOS?

 

I precleared a Hitachi 2TB Green drive the other day (attached to the 5th SATA port) and it started at about 110MB/sec.

Yes I enabled write cache in the bios.  I had 4 3tb Hitachi drives all preclearing at over 100mb/sec at the same time when they started out just seems to be when writing through unraid.  Not sure have another box will do some testing.  I did post my syslog in the gerneral foumr to have looked at as I noted the 250Gb drive that came with the unit which I still have in there is only running at UDMA100 as opposed to UDMA133 but I don't know if that will affect all the drives esp with the cache drive off.

The drive that came with it is pretty fast, I think.

 

I'm considering Dremeling out that part below the 5.25" bay to add another 3.5" drive, but I'll probably wait for the warranty period to end:

 

The drive that came with it is pretty fast, I think.

 

I'm considering Dremeling out that part below the 5.25" bay to add another 3.5" drive, but I'll probably wait for the warranty period to end:

 

 

How'd you get all those power connectors up there? Just daisy chaining Y splitters?

 

And did you have to modify anything to get the 3.5" drive below the optical bay? Right now I have two 3.5" on top of it and a 2.5" stuffed in there, but it would be awesome to replace the 2.5" with another 3.5".

The drive that came with it is pretty fast, I think.

 

I'm considering Dremeling out that part below the 5.25" bay to add another 3.5" drive, but I'll probably wait for the warranty period to end:

 

 

How'd you get all those power connectors up there? Just daisy chaining Y splitters?

 

And did you have to modify anything to get the 3.5" drive below the optical bay? Right now I have two 3.5" on top of it and a 2.5" stuffed in there, but it would be awesome to replace the 2.5" with another 3.5".

 

That's not my pic! As I said, I'm considering doing it. That photo is from the Australian OC forum. These servers are super cheap over there too, so they are doing some interesting things. I don't think he extended the cables, just re-routed them through that square channel. He did some extensive Dremel work there.

 

Here's the full thread: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?p=13298828

Where is the 2,5" disk located that comes with the N36L?

 

My ideal setup would be 6 x 3 TB disk and the 2,5" disk as the appdisk. Is this feasible without much of a hassle?

Where is the 2,5" disk located that comes with the N36L?

 

There isn't one. You get either a 160GB or 250GB 3.5" drive.

Where is the 2,5" disk located that comes with the N36L?

 

My ideal setup would be 6 x 3 TB disk and the 2,5" disk as the appdisk. Is this feasible without much of a hassle?

 

with a bit of work. you "could do it".

from what I am seeing, 2 3.5" drives up top get  to hot without a fan mod of some kind.

I would stick to a single 3.5 or get some 2.5" drive in a 4in1 adapter..

that would be pretty expensive route IMO.

 

If you really want 6x 3TB and 1x 2.5" drives, I would get an Supermicro atom board and a fractal mini R2 ITX.

the footprint is about the same size and no modding needed.

assemble and boot. the performance would be about the same.

 

It will run you about $50 more.

 

Where is the 2,5" disk located that comes with the N36L?

 

My ideal setup would be 6 x 3 TB disk and the 2,5" disk as the appdisk. Is this feasible without much of a hassle?

 

with a bit of work. you "could do it".

from what I am seeing, 2 3.5" drives up top get  to hot without a fan mod of some kind.

I would stick to a single 3.5 or get some 2.5" drive in a 4in1 adapter..

that would be pretty expensive route IMO.

 

If you really want 6x 3TB and 1x 2.5" drives, I would get an Supermicro atom board and a fractal mini R2 ITX.

the footprint is about the same size and no modding needed.

assemble and boot. the performance would be about the same.

 

It will run you about $50 more.

 

 

I've been running 2x 3.5" drives in that space for months, as have many others. No major heat problems. The 2.5" drive fits under that 5.25" bay. I'm running 7 drives right now.

 

The setup you mentioned would be much more expensive compared to the current price in the UK and Australia. USAsians, you fellas should be keeping your fingers crossed for a similar deal!

Yes, 2x3.5" drives in the optical bay is fine--my green drives sit in the low 30C range when spun up and never break 40C even during parity checks/sync.

 

Very easy to slip a 2.5" drive under the optical bay, so I think 6x3tb (3.5") and a 2.5" for cache could be done easily. This is basically my setup except that I'm using 2TB drives because I'm poor

 

Remember that you'll need a PCI-E SATA adaptor to add a 7th port though (6th is provided via eSATA port on back).

I have 2 3tb Hitachi coolspin drives in there and they run at 42-44 while doing a parity check.

Thanks for your input.

 

I am really not sure because I could get the N36L for about 180 euros. But then I would need to get some ECC Ram.

 

On the other hand the Fractal R3 is nice case and its easy to add 8-11 drives.

 

Questions over questions, I am really not sure what to get as it's just a secondary server.

Thanks for your input.

 

I am really not sure because I could get the N36L for about 180 euros. But then I would need to get some ECC Ram.

 

No, you don't. Not only does the machine support non-ECC, it supports mixing non-ECC with ECC, so you could add a very cheap 2GB or 4GB non-ECC DIMM. That's what I did. I have 5GB in mine.

 

I paid about the same amount of money for my N36L as I would a good case OR motherboard. Getting a whole machine for that is a steal.

You convinced me now.  

 

Before I drop the order, could you give me your feedback on this configuration:

 

- Microserver N36L 250gb-version

- 4GB Kingston RAM (KVR1333D3N9)

- 6 x 5K3000 3TB

- 1 x 2,5" harddisk for sabnzbd downloads

- Some mounting device for 2 x 3,5" HDDs in the ODD slot (any idea what kit I could buy to make this setup work?)

- Some lowprofile 1-port SATA card, though I'm having trouble finding one.

 

What do you think?