HP Microserver storage limit

[Jonny Wright]

So, was just looking at the specs for the HP Microserver (already own one) to check supported RAID modes and noticed it supposedly has a storage limit of 8 TB (4 x 2 TB 3.5? SATA drives). What is it creating this limit? I was intending on installing 4 x 3TB WD drives in the "pluggable" slots and any other drive I can find lying around in the optical drive connections.

After reading some reviews for the 3TB WD drives I noticed it needs some tweaking to get it working, ie UEFI BOIS and formatted as GTP as opposed to MBR. Would these tweaks help me get around the storage limit?

Thank you please

[+BudMan MVC]

What tweaking? Depends on what your doing with it - yes since the bios does not support UEFI - you might have some issues booting off of 3TB disk - depending on the OS in question.

Yes you can put 3TB drives in the thing. You can even put 4TB drives in it -- but depending on what OS and what drive your wanting to boot off of you might has some issues.

You could put 6 drives in the case (2 in the optical drive section), and even have external drives -- so no that 8TB limit is not true.

Boot your OS off the internal usb (thumbdrive) - then sure 6x4TB, cooking with gas ;)

[gunny2k6]

microserver's dont have UEFI they have nomral old bios so booting from 3tb + will mostly like fail,.,,,... so it short anwers to what causes hp to say/listy that 4x 2tb dives is the max is the fact that the bios cant handle booting .... ! .....as the microservers are largely a discontined product now and with ms killing of home server there wont be much help from hp for you ...

better off building a custom nas/server out of standard pc parts ... use mini itx/micro atx motherboard and case ... ? i did and dont regret it so much simpler to upgrade. as for now i have non uefi mobo so for me an update is just new mobo/cpu :p no need to look at whole new solution

as mentioned above the space limit is not a problem. all there saying is u might not be able to boot from it ... yes tehres ways around it but you will have ro read/research and do trial and error to get it working ... as support of of the box is not going to work

[+BudMan MVC]

"with ms killing of home server"

And why do you think that means discontinuation of the microserver line? It supports other OSes - its not just a home market box. It supports RHEL, full blown flavors of windows server.

Yeah you can always build your own box -- what was the cost? Did you build it for less than $300? I got my N40L, plus bumped it to 8GB, and it came with a 250GB Hdd for $300 to my door. I added another nic and 2TB for like $150 more, so complete cost I was $450 for my project. What did your build cost?

[Osiris]

Yeah budman nailed it with his response.

These are great devices and extremely flexible, I believe the NL36 tops out at 3TB but the NL40 (most recent model) is capable of reading the 4TB drives. Also like he said very easy to get 6 x3.5" drives in these baby's. Definitely one of the best purchases I've made although I believe world wide prices have spiked as this model is coming to its end of line, but initially these could be picked up for $150.

Hopefully HP will announce the successor model soon although it wouldnt surprise me if they don't continue to line...they seem to be drawn to dumb decisions.

[+BudMan MVC]

There was same discussion about the N36L, which then they came out with N40L, so maybe we will see N50L? or something like that - but just because MS is phasing out their WHS versions does not mean that these little boxes will not continue. They support much more than just WHS OSes.

Be official supported or not - I am running ESXi 5 on mine - and its like the greatest thing since sliced bread.

But again - if you can build your own box for cheaper, then go that route. But if your looking for cheap out of the box ready for cheap cost. These boxes rock.

[Jonny Wright]

Ah nice, I didn't realise the BIOS issue is only really an issue for boot drives. That makes things much easier, thanks!