HP ProLiant N40L Ultra Micro Tower Server System AMD Turion II Neo N40L 1.5GHz 2C 2GB (1 x 2GB) 1 x 250GB LFF SATA 658553-001

Pros: Seems to be a well built little machine. Very small and quiet. I hope someone in my position reads my solution. I went in circles not being able to get more than two drives to go RAID 5 (you need 3 minimum) since one had the OS on it and Windows decided to put 100mb of system files on another drive making them odd sized and therefore NOT RAID5 capable.

Cons: HP tech support has no idea what they are talking about. They told me that RAID 5 even in software RAID 5 was not possible. They also said that there are no RAID cards available but I hear that some people have put them in.

Other Thoughts: I am a total newbie and I am sure this stuff is obvious to some people but I had to do a lot of reading and make a few assumptions to find out what to do to use all 4 of my 2TB drives.

I installed a DVD rom drive and the one 250gb drive that comes with the system in a HD bay. Then installed Server2008 R2 onto that drive. Powered down and removed the DVD rom drive then put the little 250gb drive in the DVD drive space as the boot drive. Then installed ALL 4 of my 2TB drives making this a 5 bay server. Once I rebooted and deleted the drives created when I tried to install my OS on one of the 2TB drives I was able to simply click one and select RAID 5, then add the other 3 and away it went building the dynamic drive. Other people seem to be limiting the space by only adding 3 big drives and using/wasting IMO one bay with the 250gb as the OS boot drive. I wanted to use all FOUR as storage drives for the biggest RAID 5 array I could get. It is now building 5.6TB from my 8TB of drives.

Pros: Small, quiet, powerful enough for a home server.

Cons: Couldn't get it to boot from the onboard USB with a memory stick, but I didn't try too hard.

Other Thoughts: I'm running this with 4 1TB WD Green drives in Raid 5 using OpenMediaVault on a 5th drive in place of the CD drive. 2.74TB available. I've tested it with a lost drive and rebuilding the array. It's a little slower in either case, but still fairly decent. All in all, a great little home server for price.

Pros: Inexpensive, low power, RAID, 4 bays.

Cons: Tough to install extra memory supplied in the deal. Lost an egg because there is not an extra SATA connection for a CD drive internally.

Other Thoughts: I bought 2 of these and made one a Small Business Server Essentials unit and the other a Windows Home Server. Both work great and are RAID. These are cheaper than a NAS like the Iomega Storcenter units, BUT you have to have some knowlege to set them up. I'm running both on my Business network and on my home network.

Pros: This server's been running 24/7 for a couple months now, and so far not a single hiccup (WHS 2011 w/3+ TB of storage installed, serving 6+ computers).

The included 250GB drive is laughably small for media content, but it was a nice gesture and will maybe get used as a portable or spare drive at some point.

Unit is very quiet, and stashing the included Torx wrench and spare drive tray screws inside the front panel is smart and convenient.

Cons: The HP logo/activity light is way too bright. Covered it with some electric tape when I had the unit opened up, problem solved.

I have scoured the Internet, including HP's site, and there doesn't appear to be any way -- *ANY* way -- to get spare drive trays/caddies. Searched HP's own site for the part number printed on the trays and no match is found. Absolutely zero 3rd party vendors have them either.

So pray that you don't ever break one or need spares. This is a pretty significant con for a server. I mean come on, we can't get extra drive carriers?

HP surely cranked these brittle plastic trays out of China by the hundreds of thousands.

Other Thoughts: Overall a great server. I'd give it five stars if not for the inability to get replacement drive trays.

Pros: Small design, quiet, room for expansion, user replaceable items, on-board USB port, and attractive.

Cons: No power adapter, it has a sata port for data, and molex connection for power. It should come with an adapter cable or two. No RAID 5 support.

Other Thoughts: This is great small design device. It has room for expansion as well. I added 8GB of ram (N82E16820139262) which is the max. I also installed a Gigabyte graphics card (N82E16814125402), a USB 3.0 card (N82E16815124101), an LG DVD burner (N82E16827136247), and finally I also added an 8GB USB jump-drive (N82E16820326107) to the board, that's where I keep my drivers and stuff. I topped it all up by installing Windows Home Server 2011. I have 4 Hitachi 2TB drives (N82E16822145475) installed, each two in RAID one. It has been working fine for the past couple of weeks. I am looking for an Anti Virus software to use on it, I found Avast (WHS Edition), haven't installed it yet.

Pros: This server was very easy to hook up, and is very quiet.

Cons: No DVD drive. Also, when you buy a DVD drive to use, it only has IDE power but SATA data so you'll need a IDE to SATA power adaptor. Also, it's not easy to expand the memory as the mobo is tucked under everything.

Other Thoughts: Great little server to sit in the corner and run as whatever you need it to do.

Pros: Really quiet, small form factor, working beautifully with VMware vSphere ESXi 5 (FreeNAS and Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard) with upgraded memory to 8GB. Owned the server for the last week and it definitely is a really nice micro server for the home office and would certainly recommend it for anyone who wants "blade server brains" into a small-form-factor server with 1/4th of the electricity cost.

Cons: The inside could be a bit better - feels a lot like cheap plastic
I am also a bit iffy about the hdd cages as you need to screw the hdd's onto the drawer and then push them into the slots - would've wanted to see a screw-less design but again the price is unbeatable.

Other Thoughts: Would've liked at least another nic port stock specifically for management and section off VM's one another port however I guess the expansion slots (2x pci-e) will do. Will just have to get a nic card for one of the slots.

Pros: Excellent little server. Easy setup with USB DVD drive (sold separately). Easy to upgrade, fits almost anywhere. This little thing is very quiet.

Cons: It's a bit hard to get that SAS clip off. Other than that, none!

Other Thoughts: Love this little thing. I purchased WHS 2011 with this and it works just fine. Haven't had a chance to run RAID yet, very much looking forward to it.

Pros: Small, Quiet, Low Cost (on special deals), versatile, expandable.
NIC works great (using correct backbone/switch)
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It runs 24X7 using bundled WHS2011. Centralized all family data, videos, music, picts, etc. NIC does a great job in transferring files. This replaces the giant (in comparison) server sitting on the floor. If my desktop is on, I can't hear it running at all. If nothing else is on, I can hear it running but it if faint. I would not consider it distracting. It is literally arms length away.

Cons: No hardware RAID 5, CPU is Minimum for WHS
Blue light is pretty bright.
No native USB 3 but it is an old product.
A challenge to do any updates - cramped
2 GB will work but 8 GB is better (quickly updated)
Last two SATA ports are locked. Searching online you can find a BIOS hack to remedy that.

Other Thoughts: I like the small space it takes up and how quiet it is. I like the options I can do with it - you can add a graphics card for a great HTPC, add an extra NIC. I added a cheap 4rd party USB 3 card and have a mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 connected as a backup (see separate review).
Upset about the last two SATA ports locked. If it wasn't for the non-mfg BIOS out there to hack that, It would have hurt. I use one of those ports to connect an 80GB 2.5" HDD and placed it under the 5.25" bay. That leaves the four main bays open for 4 x wd15ears HDD. Using WHS software RAID 5 and it works ok.
2 GB would work but for WHS I felt more RAM is needed so upgraded.
It is for the home and not an Enterprise setting so being real. Surprised how well the Software RAID 5 is doing. I still prefer hardware RAID.
Streaming video and music over network to media player works fine.

Pros: Great little Home Server. Upgraded from HP470 with WHS v1. Has a vga video and tons for usb connectors and option for an optical drive.

Cons: For optical drive to work you have to order a Molex to SATA Power Cable, small detail but delay install of OS without a bootable USB drive. HD mounts use screws and are not screwless like the other 2 HP mini servers I have had. Had to dig for screws since all my machines are almost all screwless.

Other Thoughts: Make sure to get a "Molex to SATA Power Cable" if you want to install an optical drive. You will also need a sata cable for it since its not included either. Would recommend at least upgrading to 4GB of ram for WHS 2011, default install uses 1.1GB of ram after boot...