I know there have been threads about the HP micro Servers - But this doesn't look a bad deal at £186 (after cashback)

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/714837-dell-poweredge-t20-3708-xeon-e3-1225v3-3-2-ghz-4gb-ram-1tb-hdd-tower-t20-3708

 

 

Would make a good Plex server and with a bit more RAM a good VM server / File server.

 

 

Big ol' chunk of cashback on that

A friend of mine has one. Nice machine but no decent remote management, Amt does not cut it compared to ilo.

Pretty sure it doesn't need ecc ram either.

Edited 20 June, 201610 yr by gullyg

I've gone and bought a HP Microserver G8 (£124ish after cashback) - I was tempted by the Dell but it was just to physically big for where it needs to live ( and although the CPU is better it's missing a lot of server features)

The microserver will take over duties of my server/firewall (a 1037u powered PC) and my ZyXel NSA325 (2 bay), part of decluttering of electronics (started with the installation of a decent wifi AP which has lead to the decommissioning of three other routers and a homeplug connection.)

So far so good - ilo seems easy to use and makes OS installation easy. HP's website though is a dog's breakfast.

Im mulling over replacing my trusty slow (but noisy) N36 microserver. 

 

Few options at the mo:

 

HP ML10 Gen 9 (pentium g4400) £166 after cashback, but needs DDR4 ram

Dell T20 (Pentium G3200, or Xeon) £120 for the Pentium - £220 for the Xeon after cashback.

 

The microserver runs freenas at the moment with a couple of jails for sonar and couchpotato and providing file services for the various kodi installs and VMware iscsi storage

I also have a Xeon Lenovo TS140 running ESX

 

CPU wise the pentium would be more than enough for freenas but im sure i could also find a use for another xeon

Edited 1 October, 20169 yr by Neo_VR

The T20s seem really good apart from the size - I'm kicking myself for not picking up the Xeon + 32GB RAM one I saw for a little over 200 quid on eBay recently. I think it would have made the perfect upgrade from my N40 Microserver, if I could live with it looking a bit unwieldy under/next to the TV. But a 32GB box that I could chuck my current G210 card in for HDMI and Plex, and then still run VMs on top of would be nice.

Depends what your uses are for it. 

For file storage I am just using an old HP workstation running FREENAS on a USB Stick and have 3 drives in a RAID Array - Works perfect for me and the hardware didnt cost me a penny!

Just updated the CPU in the Microserver to an ebay special i5-2390t - same TDP as the  fitted CEL 1610T  but twice the speed and some other virtualisation stuff (vt-d). The server is very nice to take to bits - took 20mins to replace the CPU.

 

I'm running Unraid 6.2 with 6TB data and running PLEX  in a docker container and SOPHOS UTM as a VM. 12gb RAM  and so far it's great  and learning the mysteries of Linux at the same time.  

Just updated the CPU in the Microserver to an ebay special i5-2390t - same TDP as the fitted CEL 1610T but twice the speed and some other virtualisation stuff (vt-d). The server is very nice to take to bits - took 20mins to replace the CPU.

I'm running Unraid 6.2 with 6TB data and running PLEX in a docker container and SOPHOS UTM as a VM. 12gb RAM and so far it's great and learning the mysteries of Linux at the same time.

Similar chip to mine i5-3470t, although I'm using win server 2012r2 and hyperv.

The microserver is a lovely bit of kit although I do worry the next gen will have no ilo which will be a total no no for me. They've just replaced the gen8 ml10 with the gen9 and removed ilo which is mental.

The biggest issue I have with both is they're not really rack mountable. I've been looking at the DL20 or DL320 but they're no cheap and only 1u (need short depth due to cabinet size) so are pretty limited expansion wise.

Edited 17 October, 20169 yr by gullyg

Similar chip to mine i5-3470t, although I'm using win server 2012r2 and hyperv.

It was a toss up between the two i5s - the 2390T ( £48 vs £64) was slightly cheaper - i5-3470T slightly quicker - the 1155 E3 Xeons are just silly money at the moment (and only seem to come from China). I was using win2012 r2 and hyper V on my old system that was just running the UTM  - but it was a pain to do "other" stuff easily without GUI so I switched to UNraid and so far it's worked well.

Edited 17 October, 20169 yr by io1901

Be aware that the HP microserver g8 "out of the box", even with a vt-d capable cpu, can't pass through hardware to a vm in KVM because of how the server is designed.You have to install more software and enable it. I'm currently trying to understand HPs instructions.

I bought a T20 pentium in the end off ebay.

 

Migrated my freenas setup to it and its miles faster than the N36. Gbit is now the bottleneck.

Ebuyer now have the HP Microservers at  £175 less £60 cashback.