hp proliant microserver gen8 g2020t As a media server

[IanR]

Frist i gess i should say hi all     Hi all from the uk  

 

 

I would like to get some info in my idea to replace my server (  i3 8gb ram 14Tb win 7 64bit) with a smaller hp proliant microserver gen8 g2020t so i went and got one i have read up on here how people have used the opic drive sata on the motherboard to boot os from a ssd 120gb that would leave me with 2x 4tb wd red and 2x 3tb wd green .

 

Each tv in my home have a WD Live box as there not smart tvs ( Yet !!) 

 

so here my Q what do i need to do and how ????? there are so many of you on here that have tryed differnt things i am not sure? 

[Trig0r]

Hello from elsewhere in the UK...

 

What OS knowledge do you have?

 

There are loads of different ways to setup the Gen8, you really do need to give us a bit more info..

 

Mine for instance is running on Server2012r2 with the Server Essentials role.

Hyper-V

  VM for Plex

  VM for Torrents

 

Xeon E3-1260

16Gb RAM

Extra NIC (For the VM's)

HP Optical drive

1x256Gb Samsung 840Pro as boot drive in bay 1

3x4tb Seagate drives

Using Drivepool to stick them all together, Scanner to keep an eye on them

[IanR]

Very Little  does the Xeon E3-1260 and 16 Gb Ram make that much dif if i am only using it to stream files to a WD Live box ?

 

I want to use the Optical drive for my ssd with os on it.

Edited May 13, 2015 by IanR

[Trig0r]

I was finding Plex was being slow as we now have multiple devices at home and the G1610T I started with wasnt really coping well given we have 2 Apple TV's, 3 iPads and 3 phones setup to use it so I upgraded to an i3-3220T and then to the Xeon, the 16Gb of RAM helps as I like to give the VM's at least 4 each to play with.

 

I've got one of the USB to microSATA connectors so I will move my Optical drive to USB at somepoint and rebuild with the SSD stuck somewhere in the case and then run with 4 drives in the main chassis, just not sure which way I'll do it yet, I might get rid of the extra NIC and put a card in there that will give me all 4 bays on SATA3...

[IanR]

Could i use the usb to microSata to run the ssd with the os on it and then i can still have the Drive bay ?

[Trig0r]

Dont think so no, optical drive on USB will show up in the OS though so thats the way I am doing it, plus USB vs SATA speeds, I'd rather have the SSD on something it can use rather than be crippled by...

[samuk]

I'm running a p222 raid controller...as i wanted Raid 5 and all 4 bays running @ full speed. Read write performance increased over the built in controller and the p410 I tried.

 

Ssd in the odd port for the OS

Edited May 14, 2015 by samuk

[IanR]

I dont need raid as i back up bt i relly with to keep all four bays for 4x4tb wd red and use the 120 ssd for os so i think if i use a usb to  odd and use the sata on the mother board then i can run win7 64 bit what do you think?

[schoondoggy]

Here is how I had my Gen8 configured at one point. DVD drive on a USB to SATA, SSD on the SATA port for the ODD. four data drives in the bays:

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7545-gen-8-usb-slim-sata-adapter-for-odd/

You need to enable the B120i and set all of the drives to single RAID0, HP's version of JBOD.

You can also use AHCI if you follow these steps:

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5886-gen8-25-hdd-in-the-odd-bay-discussion/page-3#entry67539

[schoondoggy]

As for CPU and memory, I tend to go overboard. I would go with a XEON and 16GB. 

You may not need that much, but it sounds like you have many devices that could pull data from this box.