Question 1

Is a BIOS upgrade available to support 3 and 4 TB hard drives?

Accepted Answer

Yes, at least for 3Tb drives (I've got 3 of them in my box). I first updated with latest BIOS from HP and everything worked, then updated with an unlocked BIOS (unlocks some extra goodies - see http-colon-whack-whack homeservershow-dot-com and search for "hp microserver bios modification", there's a lot of other good info on that site also for building your HP microserver and getting the most out of it). Definitely a great little server!

Question 2

What is the absolute minimum components I would need to test the unit out.  I plan on adding 16GB ram, and 4x2TB drives later when funds permit.
I will be using WHS2011_64.
I have two 500GB drives I could use temporarily, but don't want the data destroyed or erased, is this possible?
Thank for your advice.
I

Accepted Answer

The unit comes with the minimum hardware needed to get started. I am running WHS 2011 and added an additional 2GB ram, bringing the total up to 4GB. IMO, 16GB would be overkill for this unit, as there's not enough processing to run that many processes simultaneously. I've got iTunes and a MagicJack running at all times along with video streaming and file requests and am using roughly 2GB ram. I added 4 2TB Seagate NAS drives from my old hp media server and did not lose any data. It too was running WHS 2011 along with Stablebit Drive Pool. Lastly, instead of adding an optical drive, I added a 5th HDD (the 250GB that was included) and made it my OS drive. Overall, it's a nice unit. Hope this helps.

Question 3

Can i run regular ddr3 ram in this server or only ecc?
If i am only using this on freenas and it will be used for xbmc and share file.  Will i be safe going with normal ddr3 ram?

thank you

Accepted Answer

Yes this system will use regular DDR3 memory, check out HP's page on this system for more information.  Look at the wikipedia page about ECC (buffered or unbuffered) and memory in general for further information of why you'd want to use ECC.  The short answer is ECC is more resilient to memory corruption, and this can be useful depending on your RAID layout, use case, power stability, etc.

Question 4

How many internal drives (other than the one that's included) can be installed? There is supposedly a 4-port SATA RAID card; is there room for 4 drives inside the enclosure? If so, how easy is it to install them?

Is it SATA 3gb/s, not the newer SATA 6g? (The latter would probably be touted if it were so.)

Are the USB ports USB 2 or 3? (Again it would probably say so if they were USB 3, but who knows?)

Thanks for any info.

Accepted Answer

In my system I am running 5 drives.  I took the 250gb drive and moved it to the top drive area (CD Area) and then added 4-2 TB WD Red Drives.  The Drives are setup in a Raid 5 structure for the 4 Storage drives.  They were easy to install, I am running Windows Server 2012 Essentials and have made an upgrade to the BIOs to make the drives Hot Swappable.
I loaded my operating system off of a USB Memory Stick which meant I didn't need the CD to Set it up.

The server I think is SATA 3gb/s and it has USB2 ports.   There are 2 PCIE Expansion Slots on the Motherboard that can be used to add additional functionality for USB3 or a different Raid Controller card.  There is a PCI-E 4 and !6 Slot.

Question 5

How can I tell which it supports: Windows 7 32 or 64 bit?

Accepted Answer

The processor is 64-bit capable, and I have it running with windows 8 x64 right now, so yes - it supports x64, and is also backward compatible with x32, so you can install either one.

Question 6

Can I use this server to host website(s) from my house?

Accepted Answer

The computer is plenty capable of hosting a website. The main issue you'll run into is knowledge of installing/running the OS and webserver software [IIS/Apache etc], and your internet connection.  Running a full-time server is also against most home ISP policies. Some of them even actively block port 80/443. 
Of course, it's still possible, just tricky. 
Plus most home internet accounts have dynamic IP addresses that change, so you'll either need to get a static IP, or you'll need to set up a dynamic DNS entry and the necessary client software to update it whenever your IP changes.

But assuming you have the other aspects worked out, the answer is yes the computer itself is more than capable. I've run fairly busy [though static] websites from much less impressive hardware back in the day.

Question 7

Anyone running an SSD on this?  If so, are you utilizing a 3.5" LFF drive or SATA cable to the optical bay?

Accepted Answer

Both, 3.5 to 2.5 adaptors for the trays, amd there is actually a sizable gap between the optical day and the top of the trays. I have four SSDs in that gap alone. And there is still much much more room!  In total my micro server has 6x mechanical 3.5" and 4x 2.5" ssd 
I also added an LSI raid card, the appropriate bbu, Intel Nic, and a 40mm fan to help cool the nic and lsi.

Question 8

What is the size of the machine?

Accepted Answer

Per HP N54L Quick Specs Sheet:
 Dimensions (HxWxD) (with feet)
10.5 x 8.3 x 10.2 in (26.7x 21.0 x 26.0 cm)

Question 9

Would this product be able to be used as a server host for a multiplayer gaming server on minecraft?

Accepted Answer

Well, are you running a LAN party or over the Internet hosting, As for it being slow, it's really not that slow, can hold up to 16GB memory and can hacked bios to open more features and ports, Recommend installing dual NIC's , also check the system requirement's for Minecraft server it isn't that demanding. Just add SSD and 16GB memory, Dual NIC's and you should be good.

Question 10

What are the physical dimensions of this server?

Accepted Answer

10.5" high, sitting on my desk, so that includes the feet.
8.25" wide.
9.125" deep, not including the expansion slot bracket on the back, which adds another 0.5" but that probably doesn't matter as much as the cord will, when you plug it in the back. If you leave a key in the front panel like I do, that adds another inch.

Nice little server, very happy with it.

Questions & Answers