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Advice on Storage Expansion with HP Microserver


kkhan

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Would appreciate some advice and help as running out of storage.

 

Have a N54 HP Microserver assembly server which is maxed out at 5x3TB plus a 512GB SSD. Running tRAiD on this array. So need to expand this and the cheapest option appears to be a Direct Attached Storage box (DAS) using eSATA. Seen models from Startech, IcyBox, Hornettek etc all with mixed reviews.

 

Need a plain vanilla version as using tRAID. Auto power up power down, very quiet. Any recommendations?

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pir8radio

I used to hate drobo's but i now use a drobo mini and love it..  It houses all of my movies...  You can add a mSATA SSD card to it for caching and it really speeds things up.. It can grow with you, its a raid, but as drives fill up you can put larger drives in, one at a time without rebuilding the whole array.  I had many issues with older Drobo's but not the mini...  It has served me well...   Something to look into..  The larger drobo's are probably cheaper, drives are cheaper, and you can get larger capacity drives for the larger drobo's..  the mini uses 2.5" drives which are usually more expensive and limited to around 2tb each..  The mini can handle 16TB total as 2.5" drives increase in size.   

Something to look at...

Edited by pir8radio
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Thanks Pir8radio. Was starting to think my hardware was obsolete and no one had any similar experience!

 

The Drobo's are really nice and look like a quality product set. However, as I am using software RAiD (tRAID From FlexRAID) all the RAID functionality in the Drobos are pretty much redundant. It then becomes a very expensive solution for me.

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pir8radio

I thought you said you only have ONE external sata port available? I probably filled that part in my own mind, but a single sata port is only good for one drive, typically, any multi bay external drive you hook to a single sata port will also have some kind of built in raid.  The units that have multiple sata cables (one per drive) would require you to have as many sata ports on your HP.   Fill in the blanks where i may have guessed wrong here...  Maybe someone can give you better suggestions with a little more info.. 

 

Naa your hardware is still worthy!  I'm an HP (server) fan too..   :D

Edited by pir8radio
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CBers

I used to have a 4-bay StarTech DAS unit with 4x2Tb drives in connected to my N36L MicroServer via eSata until recently.

 

I also used port multiplier to connect the 4 disks in the DAS.

 

It all worked fine.

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Hi,

 

I have the same set up as you, and i use a similar item to this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4-bay-icy-box-ib-3640su3-external-jbod-system-for-35-sata-hdds-with-usb-30-and-esata-host on the esata port on the micro server and then have ssd on the internal sata port and then a pcie card hosting another drive in the micro server with esata aswell so i will hopefully be adding a 8bay das (direct attached storage) device.

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pir8radio

yea i would agree with @@scalda if your using port multiplier your multi bay drive will be limited to 6Gbit/s for all drives, a SSD in the main HP server on its own sata port for transoding will probably get you decent performance.   Cool, well good luck @@kkhan!

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Hi Scalda. That is a good idea as it will yield a neater build.  I will duplicate your setup.

 

Three questions: first you are using the IcyBox but some reviews state it has poorly designed ventilation.  What is your experience.  Secondly, what SATA card did you use? Thirdly, presumably you have the modded BIOS on your Microserver as do I.  I have never tested the port sharing on the external SATA port - any gotchas or is it pretty straight forward

 

Thanks to all for the useful advice.

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@@kkhan Sorry i haven't replied sooner.

 

the das box that i am using is from startech, and i pluggs straight into the onboard esata port on the back, but to get the port multiply working i followed this guide http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4727-successfully-enabled-port-multiplier-on-esata/, but the thing that is not clear is that you need to disable the ide mode on the 4/5 ports in the bios under south bridge settings. 

 

I have one of these in my 5.25 bay to allow me to run my ssd and my extra 3.5 hdd in the microserver case it's self http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004LOANNK?keywords=icybox%203.5%202.5%205.25&qid=1453038938&ref_=sr_1_4&sr=8-4

 

As for the extra sata card any pcie sata card will work but make sure it has a low profile bracket as i made that mistake and mine is lose in the case. try and get one that has the 2 internal and 2 external and has port multiply on the ports aswell as then you can use one of the internal ones for a extra drive in the microserver and then set one of the esatas for another dad further down the line.

 

I myself have been looking at the 8 bay das to upgrade my system to allow me to have more drive space as i have 9TB at the moment and it's pretty much full.

 

I hope this helps.

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@@scalda. Thanks, help much appreciated. Startech has much cheaper DAS boxes without RAID support as I use tRAID so will probably get either the 4 bay or 5 bay models without RAID.

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Boredcat

I recently added this device (FANTEC) to my N40L. It is the same as box as Startech sells (just rebranded). I as was unable to get it working using the eSATA  multiplier. I ended up installing a low profile USB3 card and connected the FANTECH using USB3. 

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