What OS for HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10

[Class]

Hi fellowians!

 

I've recently bought this small server, for home use. Question, is how to config it? Out of the box, it's recommended with HPE ClearOS which I don't know at all.

Can any1 recommend me a main OS that can VM/Container others? I know only one, which is vSphere Hypervisor.

USAGE would be mostly or better to say, mainly a VPN server for all other PCs and mobiles. 2ndery would be simply to store and backup data. I didn't buy HDD-s yet, but I'm looking into getting 4x3TB and in Raid10.

 

Thanks in advance for the tips.

[Haggis Veteran]

If you want a full on Hypervisor tou could use ESXi

 

I have an older model. have had it for years and i always had debian on it and its been rock solid

 

[DevTech]

On 2018-03-28 at 6:48 PM, Class said:

Hi fellowians!

 

I've recently bought this small server, for home use. Question, is how to config it? Out of the box, it's recommended with HPE ClearOS which I don't know at all.

Can any1 recommend me a main OS that can VM/Container others? I know only one, which is vSphere Hypervisor.

USAGE would be mostly or better to say, mainly a VPN server for all other PCs and mobiles. 2ndery would be simply to store and backup data. I didn't buy HDD-s yet, but I'm looking into getting 4x3TB and in Raid10.

 

Thanks in advance for the tips.

You appear to want a very simple home server computer for which VMs are not needed for anything.

 

If you have an interest or need for VM tech, then ideally you want a Hypervisor.

 

ESXi is a bare metal Hypervisor I think, so you need to check their supported hardware page very carefully.

 

Most recent versions of Linux have the standard Linux Hypervisor built into the kernel. You need to make some manual configs if you want to have Hypervisors embedded inside Hypervisors known as "Nested VM"

 

Windows 10 Pro includes the Hyper-V Hypervisor which supports Nested VMs out of the box but is still known to be cranky with GPU virtualization. Hyper-V is probably the most advanced Hypervisor due to extremely clever integration with Windows 10 but this mainly benefits personal usage by developers and I.T. and for server usage I don't think it is any better or worse than other options.

 

That's the Big 3 Hypervisor list but there are a few specialized ones including direct Docker  Container Virtualization and also Bare Metal Kubernetes.

 

For Linux, Ubuntu has guest support for Hyper-V built right into the ISO download, otherwise RHEL, Fedora, CentOS (same base) are popular for server/hypervisor use at a I.T./enterprise level so lots of support will be available.

 

 

 

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I use ESXi on my home server and have a pfSense VM as firewall / VPN.

 

I also run a game server open to the internet, which is on its own VLAN and has no access at all to my home network.

 

For storage I actually just run a Windows 10 VM with a SATA controller passed though to it and have setup various network shares. You can use Stable Bit Drive Pool to pool multiple drives together and offer redundancy for selected folders if desired.

 

The way I see it is raid is not a backup solution, its a high ability solution for data you always want to be online. If any data on your raid array gets corrupted you will be restoring from a backup anyway. If anything goes wrong with that array its going to be more trouble than its worth for a home server, which is why i don't use raid at home. I kept is simple and ensure I have multiple backups not on my home server of any important data.

 

I'd also agree with DevTech, Hyper-V on Windows 10 is pretty nice too. You could run Windows 10 as your main os to share files, run Plex if you have a photo / media library, then have a VM running OpenVPN Access Server for a nice easy to manage VPN.

 

It really depends what you want to get out of setting this up. When i set my home server up I wanted to gain some experience with ESXi, which I was later able to put to use in my day job.

[Class]

Finally, I have time to reflect on this one. ?

 

Btw, here is a rig description if for some reason it wasn't clear from the name:

Quote

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Server

AMD Opteron X3216

8GB-U DDR4

4* 3TB Toshiba SATA3

 

Found a decent article on this topic also here: http://www.virten.net/2017/11/homeserver-esxi-on-hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/

 

Got all the hardware. Bought 4 cheap HDDs and it's almost sure I will run them in RAID 5/6 or maybe even 10.

 

Software, I'm still unsure what I will pick as "main OS" - in general I'm an experimental type of guy, but also don't like to constantly change and reinstall everything. So I want to have a base that allows me to setup "sandboxes".

 

At the moment, I'm thinking of ESXi, because it's free. Currently checked on HPE site, and officially it's not on the compatibility list, but users have confirmed it works out of box with stuck ESXi and also the customer HPE image.

 

Last week I had the idea to go for Windows Server Essentials. Anybody any experiences with that?

Edited May 14, 2018 by Class

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, Class said:

Finally, I have time to reflect on this one. ?

 

Btw, here is a rig description if for some reason it wasn't clear from the name:

Found a decent article on this topic also here: http://www.virten.net/2017/11/homeserver-esxi-on-hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/

 

Got all the hardware. Bought 4 cheap HDDs and it's almost sure I will run them in RAID 5/6 or maybe even 10.

 

Software, I'm still unsure what I will pick as "main OS" - in general I'm an experimental type of guy, but also don't like to constantly change and reinstall everything. So I want to have a base that allows me to setup "sandboxes".

 

At the moment, I'm thinking of ESXi, because it's free. Currently checked on HPE site, and officially it's not on the compatibility list, but users have confirmed it works out of box with stuck ESXi and also the customer HPE image.

 

Last week I had the idea to go for Windows Server Essentials. Anybody any experiences with that?

It is really really hard for people over the internet without a Telepathy Mod to provide insight and help if you don't provide detailed information about your objectives.

 

So far you have given no usage scenarios that would indicate a need to set up and maintain a server box instead of just getting a NAS box.

 

ESXI makes ZERO sense unless you need something that ESXI does.

 

Anything based on a Windows 10 kernel such as Windows Server 2016 will be fine and any modern Linux such as Ubuntu or CentOS/Fedora will be fine for server stuff and VM hosting provided you have some server type requirement.

 

In 2018, all real servers are based on Scalable Clusters that deploy Docker Containerized applications via Google Kubernetes orchestration. So don't think VM, think Container!

 

Here is an easy way to get a quick overview on how modern server infrastructure works:

 

https://bitnami.com/kubernetes

 

 

[shockz]

On 5/14/2018 at 10:43 AM, DevTech said:

It is really really hard for people over the internet without a Telepathy Mod to provide insight and help if you don't provide detailed information about your objectives.

 

So far you have given no usage scenarios that would indicate a need to set up and maintain a server box instead of just getting a NAS box.

 

ESXI makes ZERO sense unless you need something that ESXI does.

 

Anything based on a Windows 10 kernel such as Windows Server 2016 will be fine and any modern Linux such as Ubuntu or CentOS/Fedora will be fine for server stuff and VM hosting provided you have some server type requirement.

 

In 2018, all real servers are based on Scalable Clusters that deploy Docker Containerized applications via Google Kubernetes orchestration. So don't think VM, think Container!

 

Here is an easy way to get a quick overview on how modern server infrastructure works:

 

https://bitnami.com/kubernetes

 

 

Not sure why you're anti-esx for his needs? Not sure either, why you're making it sound as if ESXi requires some sort of complex deploymentIn fact, ESXi would probably be my go to for his needs, as it provides the flexibility of extending that system to meet additional needs that would be easy to build out, and not limited to just that particular Windows OS.. If anything he should be deploying that Windows 10/2016 OS as a VM.  

 

I've been experimenting with containers as well, not to mention have pfSense as my firewall/router, a web server, my wifi controller, FreeNAS, vpn, several Windows VMs, all running on a $300 Intel NUC with ESXi. I'd feel extremely limited if I dedicated that entire system to a Windows system. 

 

Honestly can think of anything HyperV does better over ESXi. 

[DevTech]

44 minutes ago, shockz said:

Not sure why you're anti-esx for his needs? Not sure either, why you're making it sound as if ESXi requires some sort of complex deploymentIn fact, ESXi would probably be my go to for his needs, as it provides the flexibility of extending that system to meet additional needs that would be easy to build out, and not limited to just that particular Windows OS.. If anything he should be deploying that Windows 10/2016 OS as a VM.  

 

I've been experimenting with containers as well, not to mention have pfSense as my firewall/router, a web server, my wifi controller, FreeNAS, vpn, several Windows VMs, all running on a $300 Intel NUC with ESXi. I'd feel extremely limited if I dedicated that entire system to a Windows system. 

 

Honestly can think of anything HyperV does better over ESXi. 

WARNING: Ignore this long post about modern server technology as pure geek-aholic. The OP probably just needs FreeNAS or similar to simulate the NAS box he didn't buy. Since the main reason most people buy a server instead of a NAS box is to Learn Something, the following material covers that possible usage:

 

It is entirely possible that ESXI is the best match for his needs. We just don't know because his needs are not well articulated. Every need that has been mentioned so far would be covered by a tiny NAS device.

 

ESXI has a limited range of hardware support compared to Linux or Windows. Deployment is easy if you use supported hardware and you know why you are deploying on ESXi

 

If you want to talk about VMs and in this case, no case has been made for needing  even a single VM then as you point out, any of the mentioned OS can be a HOST for other VMs - Since he is not deploying a server farm, there is no need to consider differences in performance which  these days is  not noticable but instead focus on convenience. Either Windows with Hyper-V or Linux is simply more convenient as a starting point unless you want to experience the nuts and bolts of ESXi. In any case, as long as each Hypervisor is configured to support "Nested VM" then you can run Hypervisors inside other Hypervisors making your starting point at least for learning purposes, anything you want.

 

So we are blowing up a need for a NAS device into a complexity level that would make Rube Goldberg quite happy. Lets spin-up VMs everywhere for all the simple functions that NAS devices perform just because we can!

 

So, I started talking about containers and stuff because the only conceivable reason I could think of for VMs on a tiny 8 gig RAM footprint was Learning. And modern VM tech is focused on efficient container deployment across clusters and to some extent for development and learning purposes, a cluster farm can be simulated on a single box with some VMs - One could start with MiniKube or use the included infrastructure in the latest Docker for Windows which uses Hyper-V and includes Kubernetes.

 

https://kubernetes.io/docs/getting-started-guides/minikube/

 

https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/kubernetes/

 

Download for Edge version of Docker that includes Kubernetes, install on any Hyper-V capable Windows computer:

 

https://download.docker.com/win/edge/Docker for Windows Installer.exe

 

"Kubernetes is only available in Docker for Windows 18.02 CE Edge. Kubernetes support is not included in Docker for Windows 18.02 CE Stable. To find out more about Stable and Edge channels and how to switch between them, see General configuration.

Docker for Windows 18.02 CE Edge includes a standalone Kubernetes server and client, as well as Docker CLI integration. The Kubernetes server runs locally within your Docker instance, is not configurable, and is a single-node cluster.

The Kubernetes server runs within a Docker container on your local system, and is only for local testing. When Kubernetes support is enabled, you can deploy your workloads, in parallel, on Kubernetes, Swarm, and as standalone containers. Enabling or disabling the Kubernetes server does not affect your other workloads.

 

See Docker for Windows > Getting started to enable Kubernetes and begin testing the deployment of your workloads on Kubernetes."

 

(Native support for Docker Containers is built into Windows 10 and Windows Server)

 

-----------------------------------------

NOTE TO READERS:

 

For anyone passing by and going WTF, Google uses Kubernetes to deploy Everything to containers on Billions of servers. They donated this infrastructure to the OSS community and it is now humantitie's defacto standard for deploying applications to servers and hence it is the first thing somebody would want to learn if they want to play with modern server deployment.

 

Every major computing company in the industry has come together around this standard and have formed the umbrella organization CNCF - Cloud Native Computing Foundation (The word Cloud can be confusing as it all applies to local servers as well)

 

https://www.cncf.io/

 

https://github.com/cncf/landscape

 

 

 

[Class]

On 5/14/2018 at 4:43 PM, DevTech said:

It is really really hard for people over the internet without a Telepathy Mod to provide insight and help if you don't provide detailed information about your objectives.

 

So far you have given no usage scenarios that would indicate a need to set up and maintain a server box instead of just getting a NAS box.

 

ESXI makes ZERO sense unless you need something that ESXI does.

 

Anything based on a Windows 10 kernel such as Windows Server 2016 will be fine and any modern Linux such as Ubuntu or CentOS/Fedora will be fine for server stuff and VM hosting provided you have some server type requirement.

 

In 2018, all real servers are based on Scalable Clusters that deploy Docker Containerized applications via Google Kubernetes orchestration. So don't think VM, think Container!

 

Here is an easy way to get a quick overview on how modern server infrastructure works:

 

https://bitnami.com/kubernetes

 

 

You're right, indeed I somehow forgot to write down what the server needs to do. This server will be in my livingroom, connected to a UHD/4K tv.

1. multimedia station to play movies, etc. (I guess Kodi or Plex, or something along those lines)
2. file server for the network (~NAS)
3. VPN server (OpenVPN) ~ still unsure which would be the best solution for this, a small linux distro dedicated running in a VM or docker
4. last thing would, i want to create a VLAN, using VPN server give and connect about 10 desktops on 3-4 sites.

 

Yesterday (finally) I had sometime again, to continue the testing and playing around with it, and found out that HPE's hardware RAID (Marvell ####) is only supported my Windows. Installed ESXi and desperately was looking for RAID settings and realized I cannot setup. Also the native hardware can only do Raid 0, 1, 10.... where this time I wanted to go for RAID 5, but okay, RAID 10 is not such a big deal, but still i would prefer hardware RAID.

 

Also, had to realize, for ESXi to be effective, it's best to run it on a 5th drive in a Microserver, possible a SSD and then have the 4 HDD in RAID for VM. BTW, is ESXi really free of charge, because it's in a 60 days evaluation period.

 

But what frustated me even more about ESXi (or i just missed the setting), that I still have to exactly determine the VCPU and VRAM for the VM-s, i thought it can handle that dynamically by now.

 

Most of you recommended Windows Server 2016. Some other recommended Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB. I will give a try to install LTSB later today/tomorrow. As far as I know it support Hyper-V also and technically would setup the VPN server inside Windows, or if that doesn't work, then a docker app, while the main tasks (file server, host, multimedia player) will be handled by the main OS.

 

Any body had experience with W10 enterprise LTSB? or is server 2016 the ultimately better? (also there is a price gap, while server edition is 150eur, enterprise is 80eur)

[Ready2018]

1 hour ago, Class said:

You're right, indeed I somehow forgot to write down what the server needs to do. This server will be in my livingroom, connected to a UHD/4K tv.

1. multimedia station to play movies, etc. (I guess Kodi or Plex, or something along those lines)
2. file server for the network (~NAS)
3. VPN server (OpenVPN) ~ still unsure which would be the best solution for this, a small linux distro dedicated running in a VM or docker
4. last thing would, i want to create a VLAN, using VPN server give and connect about 10 desktops on 3-4 sites.

 

Yesterday (finally) I had sometime again, to continue the testing and playing around with it, and found out that HPE's hardware RAID (Marvell ####) is only supported my Windows. Installed ESXi and desperately was looking for RAID settings and realized I cannot setup. Also the native hardware can only do Raid 0, 1, 10.... where this time I wanted to go for RAID 5, but okay, RAID 10 is not such a big deal, but still i would prefer hardware RAID.

 

Also, had to realize, for ESXi to be effective, it's best to run it on a 5th drive in a Microserver, possible a SSD and then have the 4 HDD in RAID for VM. BTW, is ESXi really free of charge, because it's in a 60 days evaluation period.

 

But what frustated me even more about ESXi (or i just missed the setting), that I still have to exactly determine the VCPU and VRAM for the VM-s, i thought it can handle that dynamically by now.

 

Most of you recommended Windows Server 2016. Some other recommended Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB. I will give a try to install LTSB later today/tomorrow. As far as I know it support Hyper-V also and technically would setup the VPN server inside Windows, or if that doesn't work, then a docker app, while the main tasks (file server, host, multimedia player) will be handled by the main OS.

 

Any body had experience with W10 enterprise LTSB? or is server 2016 the ultimately better? (also there is a price gap, while server edition is 150eur, enterprise is 80eur)

Considering what your server needs I think you've gone overkill on the hardware. Even getting old parts from ebay and building a server yourself for around 50 to 100 eur would have done the job.

[Class]

1 hour ago, Ready2018 said:

Considering what your server needs I think you've gone overkill on the hardware. Even getting old parts from ebay and building a server yourself for around 50 to 100 eur would have done the job.

Considering the energy cunsuption of "old parts" you mention, you pay more in long term then to spend 200EUR for this server. So it really depends on how you look at it. This microserver has an upkeep of about 10EUR / month if running 24/7. Mentioning old parts: I do have an old Q6600 quad core cpu which has a PC of 100W, or even an Athlon XP's 60W or a Pentium 3's 30W...and this one has about 15W. Not to speak of the rest of the hardware components. Probably only the Q6600 would be capable of playing 4K content and the amount of energy that it would consume to do so, compared to the 200EUR price of this microserver I'm pretty sure I'm even after around 4-5 month and then you would go into minutes. It's not always about power, there is an efficency involved also.

[Ready2018]

27 minutes ago, Class said:

Considering the energy cunsuption of "old parts" you mention, you pay more in long term then to spend 200EUR for this server. So it really depends on how you look at it. This microserver has an upkeep of about 10EUR / month if running 24/7. Mentioning old parts: I do have an old Q6600 quad core cpu which has a PC of 100W, or even an Athlon XP's 60W or a Pentium 3's 30W...and this one has about 15W. Not to speak of the rest of the hardware components. Probably only the Q6600 would be capable of playing 4K content and the amount of energy that it would consume to do so, compared to the 200EUR price of this microserver I'm pretty sure I'm even after around 4-5 month and then you would go into minutes. It's not always about power, there is an efficency involved also.

You can get cheap old Atom based parts on ebay that consume less than 10Watts of power that would do your requirements. Not sure why you've got it in your head that just because parts are older then it would automatically use more power.

 

Note: My self build NAS server is more than powerful enough that it serves 7 multiple streams at once of transcoding for Plex. Total price including drives was 48Euros and consumes very little power

 

29.8W When full load

12.6W When Idle

Edited June 10, 2018 by Ready2018

[Class]

3 hours ago, Ready2018 said:

You can get cheap old Atom based parts on ebay that consume less than 10Watts of power that would do your requirements. Not sure why you've got it in your head that just because parts are older then it would automatically use more power.

 

Note: My self build NAS server is more than powerful enough that it serves 7 multiple streams at once of transcoding for Plex. Total price including drives was 48Euros and consumes very little power

 

29.8W When full load

12.6W When Idle

Ebay is not supported in my country, and postal services would costs me once again more then it's worth.

 

I do have also an old asus EEE motherboard with an atom inside and it barely runs any operating system, and options to extend are also very limited, but then again, i don't really consider atom's old probably that why I never tought of them. And then again, I'm just an enthusiast, and there is a lack of time also involed, meaning it usually easier to grab "out-of-box" then DIY. Right?

 

Btw, which atom do you have? And how the hell did you manage to make it play 4K? Because before buying this, I've also had a QNAP 543A i think it was, and even that didn't manage to play 4K on Kodi without lag or frame dops.

 

Otherwise, this all was highly off topic. XD ...question still is, did any body ever use W10 ent. LTSB as server config? or WS 2016 out of the box better?

[Ready2018]

42 minutes ago, Class said:

Ebay is not supported in my country, and postal services would costs me once again more then it's worth.

 

I do have also an old asus EEE motherboard with an atom inside and it barely runs any operating system, and options to extend are also very limited, but then again, i don't really consider atom's old probably that why I never tought of them. And then again, I'm just an enthusiast, and there is a lack of time also involed, meaning it usually easier to grab "out-of-box" then DIY. Right?

 

Btw, which atom do you have? And how the hell did you manage to make it play 4K? Because before buying this, I've also had a QNAP 543A i think it was, and even that didn't manage to play 4K on Kodi without lag or frame dops.

 

Otherwise, this all was highly off topic. XD ...question still is, did any body ever use W10 ent. LTSB as server config? or WS 2016 out of the box better?

I use the Atom X5-Z8300 processor from 2015. I use FreeNAS operating system

 

The only thing that I can think why you had issues with the QNAP is that you had a direct HDMI connection to the QNAP instead of using another device to view the 4k video on.

 

Also just as a comparison a CPU from 2012 compared to your CPU: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD+Opteron+X3216+APUvsIntel+Xeon+E3-1265L+V2+%40+2.50GHz/3069vs1486

 

You may notice yes the CPU from 2012 is using slightly more power, but won't cost much more to run and is also way more powerful than the CPU you have. I have friends all over Europe and the US (I'm from the UK by the way) none of my friends in Europe have any difficulty getting parts from Ebay, even the ones that don't have Ebay support in those countries.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Ready2018

[DevTech]

9 hours ago, Class said:

Ebay is not supported in my country, and postal services would costs me once again more then it's worth.

 

I do have also an old asus EEE motherboard with an atom inside and it barely runs any operating system, and options to extend are also very limited, but then again, i don't really consider atom's old probably that why I never tought of them. And then again, I'm just an enthusiast, and there is a lack of time also involed, meaning it usually easier to grab "out-of-box" then DIY. Right?

 

Btw, which atom do you have? And how the hell did you manage to make it play 4K? Because before buying this, I've also had a QNAP 543A i think it was, and even that didn't manage to play 4K on Kodi without lag or frame dops.

 

Otherwise, this all was highly off topic. XD ...question still is, did any body ever use W10 ent. LTSB as server config? or WS 2016 out of the box better?

Ok so that dual core Opteron is really weak which invites comparisons to Atom.

 

But also it has a weak GPU and NO standard PCIe x16 to add a video card for 4K processing.

 

Just install Windows 10 on it, home version if you don't need Hyper-V, otherwise get Pro or Enterprise. Avoid that long term support stuff since you don't have the time to self-manage security etc. Just plain old Windows 10 with its perpetual twice a year endless upgrade to the best O/S it can be over time.

 

I'm skeptical you can do much with 4K on that CPU that is ancient Core2 in CPU power and has just 4 Radeon GPU cores. And you can't add a 1060 to it since it is a hardwired PCIe x 8 slot. What a horrid design of a computer!

 

But those two DIMM slots will take 32 gig RAM for some nice VM experimentation (in ultra slow motion of course)

 

[Class]

On 6/10/2018 at 7:38 PM, Ready2018 said:

I use the Atom X5-Z8300 processor from 2015. I use FreeNAS operating system

 

The only thing that I can think why you had issues with the QNAP is that you had a direct HDMI connection to the QNAP instead of using another device to view the 4k video on.

 

Also just as a comparison a CPU from 2012 compared to your CPU: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD+Opteron+X3216+APUvsIntel+Xeon+E3-1265L+V2+%40+2.50GHz/3069vs1486

 

You may notice yes the CPU from 2012 is using slightly more power, but won't cost much more to run and is also way more powerful than the CPU you have. I have friends all over Europe and the US (I'm from the UK by the way) none of my friends in Europe have any difficulty getting parts from Ebay, even the ones that don't have Ebay support in those countries.

Oh, Atom X5-s.

 

Indeed, I hooked my QNAP directly with HDMI to the TV. Ofcourse, once again, you are right, I could have used an ARM box and use that for playing, but I didn't want to have 1000 of gadgets around. I prefer 1 that does it all and then you only need 1 remote, etc. Anyway, we are getting way off-topic.

 

Indeed, you are right. That 2012 CPU is quit efficient. But when I say I live in a country which is not really supported by Ebay then I mean it. But have to admit, since 2 years Hungary is supported, but.... but still. I've tried several times to get parts and I usually end up paying more then simply buying from a local retailer. That my experiences with parts and postal services. So, i've stopped 5-6 years ago with that.

On 6/11/2018 at 4:48 AM, DevTech said:

Ok so that dual core Opteron is really weak which invites comparisons to Atom.

 

But also it has a weak GPU and NO standard PCIe x16 to add a video card for 4K processing.

 

Just install Windows 10 on it, home version if you don't need Hyper-V, otherwise get Pro or Enterprise. Avoid that long term support stuff since you don't have the time to self-manage security etc. Just plain old Windows 10 with its perpetual twice a year endless upgrade to the best O/S it can be over time.

 

I'm skeptical you can do much with 4K on that CPU that is ancient Core2 in CPU power and has just 4 Radeon GPU cores. And you can't add a 1060 to it since it is a hardwired PCIe x 8 slot. What a horrid design of a computer!

 

But those two DIMM slots will take 32 gig RAM for some nice VM experimentation (in ultra slow motion of course)

 

So you think I will not be able to play 4K videos?

[Ready2018]

7 minutes ago, Class said:

Oh, Atom X5-s.

 

Indeed, I hooked my QNAP directly with HDMI to the TV. Ofcourse, once again, you are right, I could have used an ARM box and use that for playing, but I didn't want to have 1000 of gadgets around. I prefer 1 that does it all and then you only need 1 remote, etc. Anyway, we are getting way off-topic.

 

Indeed, you are right. That 2012 CPU is quit efficient. But when I say I live in a country which is not really supported by Ebay then I mean it. But have to admit, since 2 years Hungary is supported, but.... but still. I've tried several times to get parts and I usually end up paying more then simply buying from a local retailer. That my experiences with parts and postal services. So, i've stopped 5-6 years ago with that.

So you think I will not be able to play 4K videos?

I think you would be surprised how much has changed in the last 5 to 6 years in regards to getting parts, both in cost and time it takes for them to arrive.

 

As regards to playing 4k. If you are going down the route of play direct then you will be fine, but if you're looking to transcode the video then you've got the wrong hardware for that.

[Class]

4 hours ago, Ready2018 said:

I think you would be surprised how much has changed in the last 5 to 6 years in regards to getting parts, both in cost and time it takes for them to arrive.

 

As regards to playing 4k. If you are going down the route of play direct then you will be fine, but if you're looking to transcode the video then you've got the wrong hardware for that.

No, purpose is direct play still. I gave back the QNAP to the store and got this HPE rig instead, coz it was "out of the box" and pretty cheap with some major draw backs it turned out.

 

So.... Windows 10 pro? That's top recommendation so far?*****

Hmmm.... I saw this rig has actually 5 sata ports, maybe it best to install windows on the 5th, on an SSD and have the 4HDD pure data storage?

Does anybody have any experience how to setup a VPN?

 

Originally, I wanted this rig to be the center of all ~ being a VPN server. Would that be still possible?

 

*****Damn, i really tought there would be some distro better then plain old W10, that could do the better job as a NAS, playback and virtualization!

[Ready2018]

1 hour ago, Class said:

No, purpose is direct play still. I gave back the QNAP to the store and got this HPE rig instead, coz it was "out of the box" and pretty cheap with some major draw backs it turned out.

 

So.... Windows 10 pro? That's top recommendation so far?*****

Hmmm.... I saw this rig has actually 5 sata ports, maybe it best to install windows on the 5th, on an SSD and have the 4HDD pure data storage?

Does anybody have any experience how to setup a VPN?

 

Originally, I wanted this rig to be the center of all ~ being a VPN server. Would that be still possible?

 

*****Damn, i really tought there would be some distro better then plain old W10, that could do the better job as a NAS, playback and virtualization!

There probably was a reason it was cheap. It's not an easy machine to setup.

 

Many people do have issues installing Windows 10 on it.

 

It's also best to have your Windows OS on the 5th port and the rest as a RAID array

 

To be honest the amount of problems I've seen from these machines in most cases it would be better to send it back and get your money back, unless you really know what you're doing.

 

FreeNAS is another OS you can use and that installs onto a USB stick, but again unless you know what you're doing it can be tricky.

[DevTech]

7 hours ago, Class said:

 

So you think I will not be able to play 4K videos?

"play" is subjective.

 

It has the processing power of an old Core-2 CPU which I would never think of starting with as the core of a 4K media system but it may work for you if you want to spend money in 2018 to get the computing experience of 2008...

 

Surely where you live, people upgrade computers and sell or throw out old ones? Any old metal box, a nice PSU and an old i7 2xxx, 3xxx or 4xxx will be cheap and super powerful compared to what you have been looking at. With 4 DIMM slots on a mobo, you can get 32 gig of DDR3 and the GPU of your choice such as a 1050 or 1060 to make a fantastic 4K media system.

 

And always avoid RAID unless you have an overpowering need for it.

[Class]

6 hours ago, DevTech said:

And always avoid RAID unless you have an overpowering need for it.

What do you mean avoid? I'm planing to use RAID 10. Currently I'm thinking of doing 2*3TB in a RAID10 and 2*3TB as JBOD. If I can get smart out of that marvel unit.

[Ready2018]

2 hours ago, Class said:

What do you mean avoid? I'm planing to use RAID 10. Currently I'm thinking of doing 2*3TB in a RAID10 and 2*3TB as JBOD. If I can get smart out of that marvel unit.

RAID is far safer than just having your data on one large drive and purchasing smaller drivers tend to be cheaper than buying one large drive.

[Class]

On 6/16/2018 at 11:16 AM, Ready2018 said:

RAID is far safer than just having your data on one large drive and purchasing smaller drivers tend to be cheaper than buying one large drive.

I'm not getting smart of your comment. I have 4x 3TB toshiba HDD-s already inside the NAS. I'm only missing the 5th drive for OS.

 

Current "install plan":

1. Small HDD/SSD for OS

2. get Windows 10 PRO or ENTERPRISE on it

3. install RAID driver

4. setup RAID

5.1. get a small linux distro in a VM as VPN server / or alternatively have windows server as OpenVPN server?

5.2. get KODI

5.3. setup network shares

[Ready2018]

6 hours ago, Class said:

I'm not getting smart of your comment. I have 4x 3TB toshiba HDD-s already inside the NAS. I'm only missing the 5th drive for OS.

 

Current "install plan":

1. Small HDD/SSD for OS

2. get Windows 10 PRO or ENTERPRISE on it

3. install RAID driver

4. setup RAID

5.1. get a small linux distro in a VM as VPN server / or alternatively have windows server as OpenVPN server?

5.2. get KODI

5.3. setup network shares

In general it takes me about 1 to 2 hours to setup a NAS/server (that includes hardware building and OS install), as it's taking you a few months and still no sign of an OS on the NAS then that should tell you that either you are way over your head on setting up a NAS or you have the wrong hardware for what you want.

[Class]

3 hours ago, Ready2018 said:

In general it takes me about 1 to 2 hours to setup a NAS/server (that includes hardware building and OS install), as it's taking you a few months and still no sign of an OS on the NAS then that should tell you that either you are way over your head on setting up a NAS or you have the wrong hardware for what you want.

Still off topic. If you dont have anything constructive to say, why bother to comment? What are you, a danish troll or something? ?

 

**PS: this applies pretty much to all of your replies so far.