Freenas on HP MICROSERVER AMD TURION 2 NEO54

[fefele]

hello guys.

I will buy a micorserver and I'm here to get information on this system. I would like to install a free OS, I have already tried FreeNAS 8.3.1 and ubuntu 13:04 server-i386-pc (32/64bit). I want to install FreeNAS 9.1.1-x64.

can anyone tell me if I can install FreeNAS 9.1.1-x64 on HP MicroServer AMD TURION 2 NEO54?

thanks

 

[warri]

It should work. Make sure you have at least 4GB, better 8GB of RAM installed.

 

[gpsguy]

I'd suggest either 8 or better yet, 16Gb of ECC RAM. This is the RAM, I installed in my N54L.

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
ECC Unbuffered Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G

You can mount your flash drive internally. Although this is a picture of a N40L motherboard (courtesy of wegotserved.com), you can see the USB port near the corner at the bottom of the picture.

I believe the blue screws holding down the motherboard are Torx #15. HP includes a tool, I bought my own.

 

[fefele]

thank you very much gpsguy for your support. the internal usb port is very important to store an usb memory with OS. maybe it is 2.0 and not 3.0 like other external usb port.

 

[Rick Johnson]

I'm running the same HP MicroServer N54L (Newegg had a Black Friday special on it). I went with 16GB of RAM despite the "official" support for 8GB - several 16GB kits have been demonstrated as reliable. I'm successfully using a Crucial 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR3 1333 CL9 unbuffered kit - P/N CT2CP102472BD1339. Said kit can easily be had for under $190 USD shipped if you look around.

The OS lives on a 2GB Sandisk Cruiser on the internal USB port. The orange pulsing glow from within is a mismatch for the green and blue lighting, but it works reasonably well, and the image doesn't benefit from anything larger.

I pulled the 250GB drive the host came with and dropped 4x 3TB WD Red drives in a RAIDZ1. It seems to run just fine, though I found throughput a bit better off the 250GB Barracuda drive than I do from the 4x3TB drives in a RAIDZ1 config. I opt to rsync my critical data to another local host hourly, and would personall opt for RAID-10 before RAIDz2 for throughput on this config, but I wanted the extra storage of a RAID-5 style config.

Only gripes about this hardware would be USB 2.0 only ports (add-in card can solve) and SATA-2 vs. SATA-3 (again, an add-in card can solve). The NIC may be a bottleneck in some cases (another add-in card), but given you only get 2 PCIe slots (1 x16v2 and 1 x1), you'd have to pick and choose your upgrades. Given that I saw 900+Mbps when populating the server w/ ~1.8TB of data (USB 3.0 external from my desktop using gcp under Ubuntu over CIFS), I don't think you'll find too many bottlenecks. The CPU is a bit under-powered for things like real-time HD Transcoding under Plex (currently required for Roku subtitles :-/ ). I kinda wish each drive tray had status and activity lights, but at the budget price, it's fine w/o.

Overall, it performs much better than the D-Link DNS-323 it replaces, while still remaining reasonably power-efficient.

 

[ftpmonkey]

In the UK, these are currently less than £100 after cashback.

http://www.serversplus.com/microserver_cashback

I'm guessing the OP has one up and running now. How do you find it?

 

[gpsguy]

I *think* the OP just bought a 4Gb stick of RAM. He didn't take our advice to start with 8 or better yet, 16Gb.

less than £100 - that's an excellent price. The last deal I saw in the US (about 2 weeks ago), was had an after rebate cost of $250 USD.

 

[Nindustries]

Do note that a USB 2.0 port is perfectly fine. Those few seconds on startup don't really matter, and FreeNAS doesn't correctly handle USB 3.0 anyways.
SATA3 is only useful when using SSDs in your NAS.

In the UK, these are currently less than £100 after cashback.

Do these ship in Europe? Thats dirt cheap, if they do i'll be ordering one for my brother. :)

 

[ftpmonkey]

They are extremely cheap. That is even cheaper than when I bought my last one (£110 after cashback). I am so tempted to buy another!

Must resist....

 

[toliman]

ended up getting a N54L, and used 5 leftover 2tb drives (and some other drives...) and it generally works well.

initially i Tried Nas4Free, sticking with FreeNAS for now (better support)

also found a problem getting ECC unbuffered, but i'm not using 2x Kingston KVR13E9-8I in a pair for 16gb. they don't come in a pair, but they will work together if your local supplier doesn't have ECC unbuffered in stock, or available.

Also, you can add a 5th drive to the unit, just be sure to get the modified BIOS firmware for the N40L to N54L series (gen 7) to make the extra SATA port, full-speed with AHCI support.

There's this guide http://terfmop.co.uk/blog/2013/07/3...-guide-allow-hot-plug-sata-and-5th-sata-port/
a slightly longer version of the same content, just with more pictures http://homeservershow.com/hp-proliant-n40l-microserver-build-and-bios-modification-revisited.html

which both use the camilo mod of the BIOS, but much easier , is to use the AV forums version from thebay, here, http://www.avforums.com/threads/hp-n36l-n40l-n54l-microserver-updated-ahci-bios-support.1521657/

there is a more recent official HP BIOS update for supporting more modern windows installs, but i don't believe it supports ACPI for the 5th SATA port, or hot-swapping.
so unless you need those features, probably better to have AHCI support.

still saving money to replace the older WD Green 2tb drives with 4tb WD Red's, but it works well.
and a lot faster than when it had 2GB. or before i got a netgear 8 port gigabit switch (who knew that a DSL router cheaped out with 100mbit ports). both very handy upgrades.

 

[guglez]

Hello,


I've just received my new n54l with 2gb ram and 250gb hdd. I have several questions abut the optimal config. As far as I know this server does not have a powerful CPU. So I want to ask the following:

If I will install 16 gigs of ram - this is good or it will be an overkill? Should I use ECC ram or regular ram? I've never used freeness before so I can't predict the load and possible bottlenecks. I'm not sure about the drives configuration. Possibly I will install 4x3Tb (Z1 or Z2 setup) wd green av-gp because they are quiet. Or red series disks are better?

Thanks!

 

[gpsguy]

@guglez, if you want to do ZFS on FreeNAS, you'll need a minimum of 8Gb ECC RAM. If money's tight - buy one 8Gb stick. In the future, you'd be able to max it out with another 8Gb stick. 16Gb isn't overkill. RAIDz2 is preferable, especially with larger sized drives.

Read about the WD Red vs Green in this thread. Do read the various stickies and the official documentation.

 

[guglez]

@guglez, if you want to do ZFS on FreeNAS, you'll need a minimum of 8Gb ECC RAM.

Why ECC? The price is significantly higher.

 

[cyberjock]

Here's why:

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ecc-vs-non-ecc-ram-and-zfs.15449/

If your non-ECC RAM goes bad, it'll trash your pool and its backups before you realize what has happened.

 

[guglez]

wow... In this case I will buy ECC ram. What's the maximum file read/write speed I can get on N54L?

 

[cyberjock]

There's many factors that affect performance of a pool. I will tell you N54Ls don't break speed records. They are not very powerful and not very expensive, and you can expect it to perform appropriately. From what I've seen on the forums, speeds of 30-50MB/sec over the network with CIFS are fairly typical.

 

[guglez]

30-50mb/sec is not super fast. Where is the bottleneck? CPU?
And what if I will add SSD for caching?

 

[cyberjock]

CPU isn't very fast and CIFS is single threaded. It's just not a good CPU if you want great speeds.

 

[gpsguy]

As cyberjock already said, it depends on a number of factors, including the protocol used.

With CIFS, I'd expect to see speeds closer to 50 MB/sec. I have a N40L and see speeds in the 40's. Your CPU is 30% faster than mine.

My guess, is that performance would probably be worse if you added an SSD for caching (L2ARC). In general, they are used for specific use cases, where user's already have 32+Gb of RAM.

30-50mb/sec is not super fast.

 

[guglez]

I'm going to use NFS and AFP as a primary protocols. I'm a Linux/mac user. Just tested FreeNAS setup on a intel xeon server with 32Gb of ram and 8x4Tb WD red disks(7 disk Z2 config and one disk is a spare). So I've got only 35Mb/sec via samba and 85mb/sec via nfs.